About an Opening Ceremony of the Art Exhibition in commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Minsk Ghetto
26.11.2018An opening ceremony of the Art Exhibition of works by famous Belarusian artist M. Basov “Knock on the door”, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the liquidation of the Minsk Ghetto, was held on November 26, 2018 at the UN Headquarters in New York. More than twenty paintings related to tragic events of the Belarusian history during the Second World War were shown to guests of the exhibition.
Matvei Basov is an outstanding Belarusian artist of the world renown, a son of another famous Belarusian artist Israel Basov. Matvei’s pictures are people-centered. He possesses a unique technique of painting, consisting of numerous layers of paint, creating the effect of a sculptural relief. The works of M. Basov are exposed in the National Art Museum of Belarus and in a number of other major Belarusian museums of modern art, as well as in famous museums and private collections in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Israel, Spain, Lithuania, USA and Estonia. He is a Member of the Union of Artists of Belarus. Matvei Basov is also a member of the Belarusian avant-garde “Crossroads” Group. Five documentary films were made about him.
During the Second World War, more than 260 “death camps” and places of mass extermination of people, including more than 70 Jewish ghettos, were created on the territory of Belarus. The Minsk ghetto was one of the largest Jewish ghettos in Europe, in which more than 100 thousand people died. October 22 this year is the 75th-year commemoration of the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto by the Nazis.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN Valentin Rybakov stressed special importance of keeping alive the memory of the tragedy of the Minsk ghetto and of other “death camps”, as well as of the courage and heroism of soldiers, partisans and underground fighters who fought against the Nazis during the Second World War.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition was also addressed by high-ranking officials of the Permanent Missions of Israel and Germany to the UN.
The ceremony was also attended by representatives of non-governmental organizations of Belarusian Jews and Belarusian compatriots abroad, including Savely Kaplinsky, a former child prisoner of the Minsk Ghetto, and Svetlana Gebeleva, daughter of the head of one of the first underground organizations in Minsk during the war, as well as by representatives of the diplomatic corps in New York.
