St. Petersburg history: Memory day of blockade victims

This Tuesday in St. Petersburg is a Memory day of blockade victims. On September 8, 1941 the enemy completely surrounded the city on Neva. The citizens of Leningrad spent the terrible 900 days and nights in blockade.

By tradition memory events will start near on Nevsky prospect, 14. Since the war times there has been an inscription alerting about the danger during artillery bombardment. Leningrad’s metronome that counted the minutes of bombing will be on again.  

According to different sources during the years of blockade the city lost up to 1,5 million people. Only a small part of them were killed during artillery bombardment. 97 percent died of starvation.

Today the wreaths will be laid near the monuments of city’s defenders and on the graves of those who died during the blockade. Requiem messes will be held in churches.

The events of the Second World War will also be recalled today in Poland.  A peace congress will open in Auschwitz. In 1940-1945 there had been a whole complex of concentration camps where experiments on humans were conducted. Over one million of people had been tortured to death. It is not possible to determine the exact death toll. In 1947 in the territory of the camp a museum was founded.