World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma Minorities of Belarus

Abstract

The article examines contemporary memory politics in Belarus as exhibited by new monuments to Holocaust victims, the genocide of the Roma people, and the mass killings of representatives of the Polish minority during World War II. It analyses various instances of the exploitation of the mythology of World War II for daily political purposes. Dr Kotljarchuk draws parallels with memory politics in Ukraine, and its conciliation with Poland and Russia with which Belarus shares similar problems, namely the very limited commemoration of the genocide of the Roma and the swift rate of memorialisation of the Holocaust.