We were saddened by the news of the death of Mr. Vladimir Ivanovic Adamushko. Since the establishment of the EVZ Foundation in 2000 he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation as a representative of the Republic of Belarus.

The members of the board of trustees and the staff of the foundation appreciated him for his friendly and affectionate manner, but also for his expertise. As a historian and archivist, in his function as the chairman of the Committee on Archive and Record Management (2002 - 2006) and through his own publications, he has made a great contribution to the reappraisal of the events of the Second World War on the territory of Belarus. He was an esteemed advisor to the colleagues who were involved in the payments to former forced laborers. 

Mr. Adamushko was involved in the establishment of the Belarusian Republican Foundation "Understanding and Reconciliation", which, as a partner organization of the EVZ Foundation, has been making payments to former NS forced laborers and other NS victims in Belarus and Estonia since 2001. With his commitment to the former victims of the Nazi regime, he has also contributed to reconciliation between Belarus and Germany. With him we lose a friend and companion. 

We mourn and our thoughts are with his relatives, friends and colleagues.

Annette Schavan, Chair of the Board of Trustees