Belarus 2007

 

Antisemitic statements by public figures, including the president, as well as the sale and distribution of antisemitic literature and periodicals, continued to be troubling phenomena in Belarus in 2007. There were also several cases of desecration of cemeteries and Holocaust memorials. Minimalization of the Holocaust is another disturbing tendency in the country.

 

introduction

Belarus is the only country in the post-Soviet region which preserves almost entirely Soviet characteristics of authority and ideology. This can be seen most clearly in domestic policy and politics, which strongly affect inter-ethnic relations and the religious situation in the country.

In nationalities policy the most marked feature is the authorities’ indirect assimilation drive − although it contravenes the country's laws − which is implemented by the non-allocation of funds for the preservation and development of the culture and traditions of national minorities.

In the area of religious policy, there is clear collusion of the country's authorities with the Russian Orthodox (Pravoslav) Church with the purpose of placing all spiritual life in the country under the wing of the Orthodox culture. This leads, on the one hand, to open protection of the Pravoslav eparchy, and, on the other, to discrimination against practically all other religions and denominations, most demonstrably, Protestantism. The authorities are attempting to halt the growth of the Protestant community by refusing registration, denying entry visas to foreign pastors, and by imposing large fines on clerics and other administrators in the community for organizing religious events in non-registered communities or in buildings not recognized as places of worship. A similar, and sometimes even harsher, attitude is shown toward Krishnaism and other eastern religions. Protestants and Catholics even held hunger strikes to protest against the unlawful acts of the authorities. During 2007 there were 25 cases of deportation of foreign missionaries of the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

 

The Jewish Community

According to the last census held in 1999, there were 29,000 Jews in Belarus (out of a population of about 9 million). Local Jewish organizations claim there are 50,000 Jews in the country, while the Jewish Agency estimates that about 70,000 people in Belarus are entitled to immigrate to Israel.

The Jewish Religious Union, Chabad Lubavich and Reform Judaism represent the Jewish religion in Belarus. There is also the Karlin religious community in Pinsk, which runs a synagogue and boarding schools. The Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities, headed by Leonid Levin, has branches in many cities and publishes the monthly Aviv. Other Jewish publications in Belarus are Berega (a monthly published by the Jewish Religious Union), Gesher (of the Bobruisk Jewish community) and Karlin (of the Pinsk Jewish community). The annual journal Mishpokha is issued in Vitebsk. The Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camps Inmates, the Union of World War II Veterans, the Holocaust Foundation and the Maccabi sports club are among other Jewish organizations in Belarus. Cheseds (charitable organizations) provide services such as food, homecare and medical care.

The Museum of History and Culture of Belarusian Jews was opened in Minsk in 2002. It holds educational events and engages in teaching and researching the Holocaust and the history and culture of the Jewish people. Several Sunday schools are run by the Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities and the Jewish Agency. There are also two Reform Jewish Sunday schools (in Bobruisk and Grodno) and one Sunday school for Jewish deaf children. The Jewish Religious Union supports B’nai Akiva schools in Minsk; Chabad has two elementary schools (in Minsk and Bobruisk).

The general situation described in the Introduction pertains also to the Jewish community in Belarus. Notwithstanding the fact that antisemitism and racism are not official state policy, the negative attitude of the authorities toward the Jews and other ethnic minorities is unequivocal. Their approach to the never-ending "Jewish question" can be characterized by the formula employed during the French Revolution: "Everything must be refused to the Jews as a nation; everything must be granted them as individuals.” On the one hand, there are no official job or migration restrictions on Jews and there is no numerus clausus in educational institutions; on the other, attempts are made to restrict Jewish influence on social life.

 In a country where all aspects of life are controlled by the authorities, no Jewish school, newspaper or cultural establishment is subsidized by the state budget. No air-time on radio or television is allocated to the Jewish minority, and there is no Jewish publishing house. In academic, encyclopedic, referential and educational literature the history of the Jews in Belarus, including the Holocaust, is minimalized. In several cities (Minsk, Mogilev, Brest and Borisov) a pending issue is that of the restitution of Jewish communal buildings, which were originally built with Jewish financing and/or belong to Jews. The Jewish communal and religious organizations are obliged to pay rent for premises.

 

antisemitic activity

The strong hand of the authorities against criminal activity in the country is probably one of the main reasons for the absence of violent antisemitic incidents. The Jewish minority in Belarus is more troubled by numerous cases of antisemitic statements made by political activists linked to or supportive of the regime, the distribution of antisemitic literature and neo-Nazi graffiti.

In 2007 there were several cases of cemetery desecration. In late April, 16 gravestones were broken at the Jewish cemetery in Borisov. A complaint was filed by the local Jewish community and the police opened an investigation. On April 2, 2008, for the first time since Belarus became independent in 1991, a man was convicted and fined the equivalent of 3000 US dollars. In mid-June 2007, 4 gravestones were smashed at the Jewish cemetery in Mogilev, not for the first time, said local Jewish community Naum Ioffe. The desecration of 15 gravestones on October 11 at the Jewish cemetery of Bobruisk, was also not a new phenomenon, said Leonid Rubinstein, head of the local Jewish community. In the past, swastikas and antisemitic insults were painted at the entrance to the cemetery, as well as at a nearby bus station. In early November 2007 Mayor Dmitrii Bonakhov promised, during a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community, that the city authorities would do everything they could to prevent similar acts occurring.

Every year there are several cases of desecration of Holocaust memorials in the country. On March 9, it was discovered that a memorial plaque honoring 450 Jews from Bremen (Germany), who perished in the Minsk ghetto during the Holocaust, had disappeared. It was returned to the German embassy in Belarus on April 12, after a 1000 euro reward was offered for information about the incident. On May 9, 2007 (Victory Day over Germany) flowers which the local Jewish community had placed on the Holocaust memorial in Brest were set alight. The head of the community, Boris Bruk, said that similar incidents had taken place on November 26, 2006 and February 11, 2007.  

A troubling tendency in the Belarus press, such as the newspapers Kommunist Belarusi and Mogilevskie Novosti, is the use of citations from Nazi German sources in a positive context. Antisemitic material is also sold freely in the country. In August 2007 Dr. Shimon Samuels, director of international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, complained to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko that not far from the Minsk Museum of the Great Patriotic War, the Pravoslavnaia Kniga bookshop was selling, in addition to candles, icons, crosses and other Church objects, antisemitic literature, including the volumes Myths and Truth about Pogroms and The Mystery of the Zion Protocols: A Conspiracy against Russia, both by Russian writer and revisionist historian, ultranationalist, antisemite and Holocaust denier Oleg Platonov (Moscow, 2003; 2006). The first claims that Judaism is hostile to Russian civilization and Christianity, Jewish capital controls banking and stock markets, early 20th century pogroms were a Zionist provocation, and the Jews murdered the Russia leadership and inflicted terror in Soviet times. The second deals with the secret development of Jewish power in Russia, Spain and Israel; the Talmud, the Russian Church and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; the 1935 Bern trial of the Protocols and the world Jewish conspiracy; the Protocols in the history of Israel; the Holocaust myth; a comparison between Hitler and Ben Gurion; and the 1975 United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism. Samuels asked Lukashenko to publicly condemn antisemitism in general and the sale of antisemitic literature in particular, however, to no avail. Most of the literature circulating in Belarus comes from Russia.

Swastikas, SS letters drawn in the shape of arrows and threats against Jews are the most common graffiti in Belarus. Jewish facilities (cemeteries, Holocaust memorials and cultural centers) were not the only targets in 2007, Muslim cemeteries (in Stolin, for example), as well as the fence of the Pravoslav Cloister of Mercy in Minsk were also vandalized with graffiti.

An alarming antisemitic statement was made by President Alexander Lukashenko on October 12 during a press conference for journalists from Russia. Referring to the city of Bobruisk – where prior to World War II about 80 percent of the inhabitants were Jews – Lukashenko said that the Jews had transformed the city into a pigsty and after they left it the authorities and residents had rehabilitated it. He added: "You know how Jews treat the place where they live. Look at Israel." On the other hand, Lukashenko said that he was interested in "Jewish investments" in the country and called on "wealthy Jews" to return to Bobruisk. Lukashenko's words were condemned by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Israeli ambassador to Belarus Zeev Ben Arie, who said that it was reminiscent of "the antisemitic myth depicting Jews as untidy, dirty, smelly people." The Belarus ambassador to Israel, who was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to explain his president's comment, dismissed it as "an unsuccessful joke."

On October 22, Rene van der Linden, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, published a statement calling on Lukashenko to apologize. To clear the air Lukashenko sent the journalist Pavel Yakubovich to Israel, where during an online conference he claimed that since Lukashenko had become president in 1994, antisemitism was no longer a widespread phenomenon in Belarus. During a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry Yakubovich said that Lukashenko's comments were "a mistake uttered jocularly and do not represent his position regarding the Jewish people… he is anything but an antisemite.”

It should be noted that such statements referring to the characteristics of a specific nationality by a senior official are rare. Although Lukashenko has spoken many times about the Jewish nation and its positive contribution to the development of Belarus, it appears that his stereotyping of the Jews is heavily influenced by the presence in his milieu of figures such as author and publicist Eduard Skobelev, parliamentarian Sergeii Kostian, and film director Aleksandr Azarenok, who are all known for their antisemitic views. Skobelev, for instance, has been the leading author of antisemitic articles in Belarus for the last 20 years. The most notorious one in 2007 dealt with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in August in the Russian nationalist newspaper Russkii Vestnik, which is sold openly in authorized newspaper kiosks in Belarus.

 

Attitudes to the Holocaust

In Belarus there is no official recognition of the uniqueness of the Holocaust due to reluctance to distinguish the Jewish tragedy from that of the Belarusian nation during World War II. Efforts by Jewish community leaders and others to make leading local historians understand the difference between the pre-planned extermination of the Jews because they were Jews and the terrorizing, including murder, of non-Jewish populations have so far been unsuccessful.

Official Belarusian historiography, reflected in textbooks, manuals and encyclopedia, evades the subject of the Holocaust altogether; if it is mentioned at all, there is no reference to its unique character. Nevertheless, at the initiative of Jewish communities or private individuals, with government approval, memorial plaques were affixed in 2007 at ten sites where Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. There are about 500 known sites of mass murder of Jews in Belarus; so far, about half of them have been marked with plaques or memorials.

 

Response to Antisemitism

On October 26, President Lukashenko declared that "if anyone says that antisemitism is flourishing in Belarus or that we oppress Muslims here, do not believe him.” Nevertheless, the response to antisemitic incidents by law enforcement agencies in the country (including the interior affairs ministry and the prosecutor's office) has remained unchanged in the last 20 years. Until 2008, no criminal case was opened in connection with any act of desecration of Jewish cemeteries or Holocaust memorials, or the publication and distribution of antisemitic material. Nor have measures been taken against the Pravoslavnaia Initsiativa (Orthodox Initiative)(see ASW 2005 and 2006), which changed its name to Khristianskaia Initsiativa (Christian Initiative) in late 2007 and continues to incite ethnic hatred. Even the letter of condemnation signed by the heads of the Orthodox Church in 2006 did not avail.