Too many traumatic events in Belarusian society remain either concealed or explained through propaganda: Soviet repression, the German occupation, Kurapaty, Chornobyl, the disappearances of politicians and journalists, and the violence after 2020. Because of this, citizens do not have full access to documents, families do not know what happened to their loved ones, and society repeatedly faces impunity.

The Institute is needed to replace secrecy and myths with verifiable facts: to open archives, restore the names of victims, collect testimonies, explain the mechanisms of violence, and ensure that the future is protected from the repetition of mass and systematic crimes against humanity.

The Institute will deal not with “history in general,” but with what is currently missing — facts about periods of mass and systematic crimes against humanity. This includes work with archives: opening them, systematizing them, and providing access for citizens, researchers, and journalists. It includes restoring the names of victims. It also involves collecting testimonies to preserve the experiences of those who survived repression and violence.

In addition, the Institute will explain to society what happened and why through education, research, exhibitions, and public projects. An important component will also be cooperation with the justice system so that collected materials can be used in investigations and the restoration of justice.

A separate Institute is necessary because work with memory requires an independent mandate and public trust. If this task were assigned to ordinary institutions, each would view the past through the prism of its own function: archives as document storage, museums as exhibitions, investigators as criminal cases, and schools as educational topics. But no one would be responsible for the full picture as a whole.

The Institute is needed so that memory does not depend on political will, institutional interests, or changes in leadership. It must be a body established by a special law, with clear procedures and public accountability, operating not “on instructions from above” but as a permanent guarantee of society’s right to truth.

When preparing the concept, the authors examined the experiences of countries that have already dealt with difficult historical legacies: Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Spain, and South Africa. But the goal was not to copy a foreign model. Instead, practical solutions from these experiences were adapted and assembled into a model suited to the Belarusian situation.

First, it will provide access to information about oneself and one’s family. If you have relatives who suffered from repression or other forms of violence, you will be able to obtain documents, understand what happened to them, and restore your family history.

Second, it will offer protection in situations where you yourself encounter arbitrariness. The Institute will establish a practice in which such cases are recorded, documented, and do not disappear without a trace. This changes the state’s approach to accountability for crimes against humanity.

Third, it will provide clear and accessible explanations of complex topics through education and public projects. People will not need to navigate fragmented sources to understand how repression functioned and why it occurred.

Simply put, the Institute is about giving every person the opportunity to obtain clear and verifiable information about their family and their country, without dependence on closed archives, and to live in a system where such issues are not silenced but addressed openly and consistently.

The way a country deals with its past shapes the conclusions it draws for the future. If repression, lies, and violence remain concealed or justified, they easily return in new forms. But if society knows the facts, the names of victims, the mechanisms of crimes, and the cost of impunity, it becomes much harder to accept arbitrariness as normal again.

For Belarus, remembrance is not merely a dispute among historians, but the foundation of a future rule-of-law state. It helps restore trust, return dignity to victims, and build institutions in which authorities can no longer hide violence behind secrecy and propaganda.