Belarus issued this coin in 2004 as part of a broader commemorative program addressing the Nazi occupation of 1941–1944, during which the republic suffered some of the highest per-capita civilian losses of any occupied territory in Europe — estimates place Belarusian dead at roughly a quarter of the prewar population. Over 600 villages were burned with their inhabitants, a figure the Soviet state documented extensively but which remained largely suppressed in Western historiography until after 1991.
Belarus issued this coin in 2004 as part of a broader commemorative program addressing the Nazi occupation of 1941–1944, during which the republic suffered some of the highest per-capita civilian losses of any occupied territory in Europe — estimates place Belarusian dead at roughly a quarter of the prewar population. Over 600 villages were burned with their inhabitants, a figure the Soviet state documented extensively but which remained largely suppressed in Western historiography until after 1991.