Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners of the Ozarichi death camp by the Red Army.

The Ozarich death camp was created in March 1944. Units of the Wehrmacht understood that it would be difficult to contain the advance of the Red Army. Therefore, the soldiers were taken to the west, and the local population - old people, women and children - was driven into the swamps to create a human shield. Here, for the first time, a bacteriological weapon was used - typhus. According to the calculations of the fascists, a shield of infected people was supposed to ensure the withdrawal of the German army and infect the Soviet soldiers of the 65th Army of General P. Batov. Most of the prisoners were children. According to historians, by March 19, 33.48 thousand people were released. Of these, 15.96 thousand are children under 13 years of age, of which 517 are orphans, 14 thousand are women, more than 4 thousand are old people. The average life expectancy in Ozarichy was about three days. The camp lasted only 10 days, and at least 20 thousand people died there. In memory of the death camp prisoners, the Ozarichi memorial complex was created in 1965.