02 March 2025
(Photo: Kherson City Military Administration)
On the first day of spring, the event library of Kherson hosted the Lilac Amulet of Memory event dedicated to honoring the Heroes who stood up to defend the city in the first days of the invasion and died in an unequal battle with the Russian occupiers.
According to the Kherson City Military Administration, during the event, the organizers presented a Wall of Remembrance with portraits of fallen soldiers and their stories. The lit candles became symbols of grief and gratitude.
Volodymyr Protsenko, an eyewitness of those tragic events, shared his memories of the first battles in the city, and relatives and friends of the Kherson defenders told about what our Heroes were like in life. The participants of the event were presented with the booklet "Lilac Grove - a place of heroism and memory", which tells about the first days of the Russian invasion and the courage of the indomitable Kherson residents.
The final chord was a musical performance by Kherson artists, during which the words were read: "They believed in our future - and we must build it!"
Three years ago, on March 1, 2022, four dozen fighters of the Kherson territorial defense with assault rifles and Molotov cocktails came out in the Lilac Park to defend the city from the Russian invaders. Nothing was known about the battle in the Lilac Park for some time. Only on March 2, a video from that place appeared: among the trees mowed down by fire from large-caliber weapons were the bodies of the dead Kherson residents. Many of them were missing limbs or heads.
On the second anniversary of the tragedy, on March 1, 2023, a memorial sign was erected in the park in honor of the fallen terrorist fighters. In addition, last year in August, on the Day of Kherson, the heroes who died in the regional lyceum and the Lilac Park were posthumously awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the city.
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