Kuropaty forest

Kurapaty (Belarusian: Курапаты) is a wooded area on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus, in which a vast number of people were executed between 1937 and 1941 by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD.

The exact count of victims is uncertain, NKVD archives are classified in Belarus. According to various sources the number of people to have been perished in Kurapaty is estimated to be the following: up to 7,000 people (according to attorney general of Belarus Bozhelko), at least 30,000 people (according to attorney general of BSSR Tarnaŭski), up to 100,000 people (according to “Belarus” reference book), from 102,000 to 250,000 people (according to the article by Zianon Pazniak in “Litaratura i mastactva” newspaper), 250,000 people (according to Polish historian and professor of University of Wrocław Zdzisław Julian Winnicki), and more (according to the British historian Norman Davies).