On February 26, 2026, a solemn memorial ceremony of laying flowers was held in Berlin at the Plötzensee Memorial in honor of the Soviet and Tatar poet Musa Jalil.
The event was attended by the Russian Ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechaev; employees of the Russian diplomatic mission and the Russian House in Berlin; representatives of the Tatar diaspora; and numerous compatriots.
Those present laid wreaths and flowers at the memorial. One of the event organizers recited Jalil’s poem “It Sometimes Happens.” After that, those gathered honored the memory of the Tatar poet at the site of Jalil’s execution.
Russian Ambassador Sergey Nechaev emphasized the importance of holding such commemorative events. “This is necessary everywhere, and not only in Germany, because our historical memory is alive, while in some places in the West they are trying to change our history, or even falsify it. We need objective historical truth, which must be conveyed to the public here, so that the culture of memory is not forgotten, but also for our Russians, the younger generation, who must remember the feat of their fathers and grandfathers, and for some already their great-grandfathers, because the losses during the Second World War were too great,” the diplomat noted.
He stressed that in those years, not only Jalil was martyred at Plötzensee, but also several other people from Tatarstan, underground fighters and anti-fascist resistance fighters. As the Russian Ambassador reminded, Plötzensee was liberated by the Red Army in April 1945, therefore this memory is sacred. “And we tirelessly visit such memorial complexes and burial sites of Soviet soldiers in order to preserve this culture of memory and pass it on from generation to generation,” he stated. “Musa Jalil is a famous Soviet poet, and he is well known throughout the country, so now, when recently marked the 120th anniversary of his birth, we pay tribute to both his heroic feat and his creative work,” Nechaev concluded.
The Plötzensee Memorial is one of the darkest yet most significant places of remembrance in Berlin. From 1933 to 1945, over 2,800 people from 20 countries were executed here. Thousands of people visit the memorial complex every year. A memorial plaque is installed there in honor of the Tatar underground fighters.
Source: tass.ru
