The executions of prisoners of the NKVD and the NKGB (1941)

As of June 10, 1941, there were 25,860 people in 32 prisons of the BSSR , the largest prisons being located in the border cities - Brest (about 4 thousand z / k), Bialystok (about 4 thousand z / k), Grodno (about 3, 5 thousand) ^[1] .

In the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR in the pre-war period, actions were taken to eliminate the actively operating underground OUN .

But already in the first hours of the war, border prisons were fired from the air, and some, like, for example, Brest and Przemysl, were also fired by artillery fire.

The territory of Lithuania was captured by German troops during the first days of the war - Kovno ( Kaunas ) and Vilnius ( Vilnius ) were occupied by the Germans on June 24. The evacuation of about 1,700 prisoners from Vilna prisons began on the evening of the 23rd - but the convoy was disengaged upon departure, and only 609 prisoners were evacuated to Gorky . A total of 1,363 prisoners were evacuated from Lithuania . Latvia was captured a little later - from here 3,722 prisoners were evacuated. By July 2, 1941, 4,047 prisoners were evacuated from Estonia .

In connection with the rapid advance of German troops, the Soviet leadership realized that it was necessary to take urgent measures to remove prisoners.

NKGB - Comrade Meshik Minsk, NKGB - Comrade Tsanava Riga, NKGB - Comrade Shustinu Tallinn, NKGB - Comrade Kumm Petrozavodsk, NKGB - Comrade Baskakovo Murmansk, UNKGB - Comrade Ruchkin Leningrad, UNKGB - Comrade Kuprin
I offer you:
1. To work out the question of the export of the overwhelming number of those arrested who are registered with the NKGB, the NKVD, the court and the prosecutor's office. Tell us the total number of people you have arrested, indicating how many, what authorities are listed and how many people you have to take out. The arrested will be taken to the central and eastern regions of the USSR. Please note that some of your employees will be sent along with the arrested to investigate the cases of those arrested at their new location.
2. Take measures to select from among the archives the most important ones that should also be sent by you to Moscow, to the address of the 1st special. Department of the NKVD of the USSR.
3. Review the cases of all those you have arrested by the NKGB bodies and make lists of those that you consider appropriate to be shot.
In the lists indicate the name, patronymic, last name, year of birth, last position or place of work before the arrest, as well as a summary of the charge, indicating whether the arrested person confessed. Send these lists no later than July 23.
Merkulov
June 23, 1941 No. 2445 / M

Moscow

Due to the outbreak of war, 272 prisons, which contained 141,527 people, had to be urgently evacuated from the western regions of the USSR.

From June 22 to December 31, 1941, according to the NKVD, 19 people were convicted of unauthorized executions and killings.

So, deputy. On September 13, the head of the prison, A. Kh. Taber, and the assistant to the detective, VA A. Mokhov, were sentenced by the military tribunal to capital punishment “for participating in the spontaneous execution of 714 prisoners evacuated from prison No. 28 of the Belarusian city of Glubokoe .” Those passing through the same case, I. Ya. Batalov, V. N. Malinin, and P. I. Skrebnevsky each received 10 years each ^[2] .

Lithuania

Near the Rainyai farm, not far from Telsiai (lit. Telšiai), 74 (according to other sources 79) bodies are found in the forest, who are identified as prisoners from Telsiai Prison, who were killed on June 24-25, 1941. They were killed by the NKVD and the Red Army ^[3] .

A number of sources indicate that on June 26, 1941, the NKVD killed 400 prisoners and all prison staff, along with their families, in the prison for prisoners in Pravieniškės (lit. Pravieniškės) - 12 km from Kovno (Kaunas) ^[4] . At the same time, it is generally accepted that Kaunas itself was occupied by German troops on June 24, and from 23 was under the control of the LFA .

Latvia

Riga : a number of modern Latvian sources, based on the work of the Commission for the Investigation of Bolshevik Atrocities in Latvia, published in 1942 in Riga under the title Year of Horrors and Accusatory Evidence, indicate that 78 prisoners were executed in a Riga prison ^{[5 ] [6]} .

Estonia

On the night of July 8-9, 1941, in a prison in the city of Tartu : 192 people from among those detained since the start of hostilities were shot. In Lihula - 6, in Haapsalu - 11, in Viljandi - 11, in Pechora - 6 people ^[7] .

Belarus

Glubokoye town: On June 24, during the evacuation of prisoners from Glubokoye prison, the head of the prison, Priemyshev, who brought them to the forest, according to his statement, shot to 600 people. By order of the military prosecutor of the NKVD troops, Priemyshev was arrested in Vitebsk , the shooting of prisoners by him later was recognized by the military prosecutor as legal.

Grodno : on the morning of June 22, a blast wave from a bomb that fell into the courtyard of the prison knocked out the doors of the cells, but the guards managed to transfer the prisoners to the main building. In the afternoon, the main building was destroyed by a direct hit - many prisoners died. Closer to night, the third bomb destroyed part of the second building. The prisoners managed to escape from the prison and, despite the open fire, scatter around the city. The head of the prison tried to contact the local NKVD and the NKGB, but those, like their Brest colleagues, had already been evacuated.

The situation was similar in other prisons in Western Belarus - out of 32 prisons of the NKVD of the BSSR that functioned on June 22, 1941, only 14 were evacuated (Glubokoe, Molodechno , Pinsk , Stolin , Drogichin , Orsha , Polotsk , Vitebsk , Mogilev , Mozyr , Gomel , Worm , Vileyka and Columns ). As a result, 9573 people were evacuated to the prisons of the rear areas of the USSR from the BSSR, “16048 people were left to the enemy” ^{[8] [9]} .

Near Cherven , about 5 thousand prisoners from Minsk prisons were shot. ^[10] .

USSR

At 14:00 on June 22, 2 bombs fell on the territory of the Lutsk prison, partially destroying a number of premises. The doors of part of the cells were knocked out by the blast, in others they were hacked by the prisoners themselves. After which they were able to get into the courtyard, from where they attempted a mass escape, but were stopped by guards, some of the fugitives were shot. On June 23, 44 convicted under household articles and 40 youngsters were released. In the morning, the UNKGB operative group, led by Major Rozov, arrived at the prison and demanded that all the s / c contained in the mountain prison be issued. Lutsk under articles of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR 54, 2.11, and especially members of the OUN . After it became known about the approach of the German troops, 800 people were selected who were shot in the backyard of the prison by the NKVD , NKGB and security forces. In addition, prison guards and military units in the vicinity of the prison were shot by the z / c who tried to escape from the prison. About 1000 people were left in prison, most of whom were charged under domestic articles of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR . In earlier reports of the NKVD (June 1941), information was provided that all prisoners were shot - 2 thousand people ^[11] .

Lviv (for more details see Shootings in Lviv (June 1941) : With the beginning of the armed actions of the OUN in Lviv , the evacuation of all prisoners was refused on June 23, 1941. In accordance with the instructions of the captain of the NKVD in the Lviv region, Captain Dyatlov “with the aim of unloading prisons of the Lviv region from of the counter-revolutionary, criminal-political element ”by the prison department of the UNKVD in the Lviv region together with the regional prosecutor’s office reviewed the cases of existing prisoners according to the results of which“ especially dangerous persons under lying in execution ”in the amount of 2239 people. According to official figures, in total in prisons No. 1,2,4 of the city of Lviv and No. 3 of Zlochev, 4,140 prisoners were shot.

Sentenced by the head of the investigative unit of the UNKGB in the Lviv region Shumakov to be sentenced to death by the prosecutor of the Lviv region Kharitonov, were executed on June 22, 1941. According to the interim report of the head of the prison department of the NKVD of the Lviv region, Lerman, it is known that as of June 24 in Lviv prisons and Zolochev was shot 2072 people. On June 26, shooting lists for another 2068 people were approved. They were executed on June 24-28 ^{[12] [13]} .

Zhytomyr - 46 people were shot .

Bila Tserkva - 3 people .

Kharkov - 1200 people .

A total of 45 569 people were evacuated from 78 prisons of the Ukrainian SSR in 1941, 8789 were shot in prisons, 48 ​​people were killed while trying to escape, 123 were shot by an escort while suppressing riot and resistance, 55 were illegally shot by an escort on the way, and left to the Germans - 3536 z / c ^[14] .

RSFSR

In the Medvedevsky forest, 10 km from Orel, on September 11, 1941, that is, more than three weeks before the Germans captured Orel, the NKVD officers shot 157 prisoners in a local prison, including Kh. G. Rakovsky , S. , convicted at the Third Moscow Process . A. Bessonov and D. D. Pletnev , Bolshevik - opposition leader P. G. Petrovsky , Socialist-Revolutionary leaders Maria Spiridonova , I. A. Mayorov , A. A. Izmailovich , wives of “enemies of the people” - Olga Kamenev (wife of L. Kamenev and sister of Leon Trotsky ), wives JB Gamarnik , Marshal AI Egorov , AI Cork , IP Uborevycha , snake Tsvetaeva journalist Eurasian and NKVD agent Sergey Efron , astronomy BV Numerova and others.

According to the verdict of September 8, 1941, on the basis of a decision by the State Defense Committee, without initiating criminal proceedings and conducting preliminary and trial proceedings, the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR chaired by Ulrich V.V. .) sentenced against 161 prisoners.

After the arrival of German troops, these events were used by Nazi Germany for propaganda (primarily anti-Semitic) purposes. In Lutsk, Lviv, and a number of other places of mass executions, propaganda films about the atrocities of the "Jewish Bolsheviks" were shot, articles in newspapers and magazines of the corresponding content were published. They told that in prisons babies were found, pregnant women pinned to the door with bayonets, victims were chopped up with live axes, gouged out eyes, castrated men, etc., etc.

In Germany, a number of newspapers in the section "Letters from the Front" published "eyewitness letters." In 1941, the booklet "Feldpost from the East" - Deutsche Soldaten sehen die Sowjet-Union. Feldpostbriefe aus dem Osten (Berlin: Wilhelm Limpert-Verlag, 1941), describing the atrocities of the "Jewish Bolsheviks" over the Germans and Ukrainians in Lemberg (Lviv) ^[15] . Similar actions are being taken in the Baltic states - for example, the “Commission on the Investigation of the Bolshevik Atrocities in Latvia” was created in Latvia.

A solemn funeral was organized for the "victims of the Jewish Bolsheviks", anti-Soviet rallies of an anti-Semitic nature were held, articles were published in newspapers and magazines, books were published under the title Year of Horrors and Accusatory Evidence, and a documentary film Red Fog was also released. which, with some modifications, was also made for Estonia and Lithuania ^[16] . The description of the victims of the NKVD practically duplicates the similar description from other Nazi publications - gouged out eyes, cut out tongues, cut throats, cut genitals, etc.

In Telšiai, where the ghetto was created by Lithuanian collaborators several days before the bodies of the victims of the "Jews from the Cheka" were discovered, 30 men from the ghetto were brought to the excavation of a common grave. During the excavation, they were beaten and forced to kiss the wounds of corpses. On July 13, the day the victims were buried, the beating was continued, and on July 15 most of the ghetto men were killed ^[17] . Similar events with similar subtexts (“Jews - killers from the NKVD”) took place in other cities of the Baltic states.

At the same time, in Zhitomir, a propaganda campaign based on similar facts had a very insignificant (from the point of view of SD) effect ^[18] .

In the works of a number of historians, primarily Polish, the numbers of both those executed and those arrested surpass those of Russians by 3-8 times ^[19] . So, Anthony Galinski (Poland) at one of the scientific conferences devoted to this topic, pointed out: “Our commission revealed that when the Germans attacked in June 1941, mass executions of prisoners in prisons were carried out: in Oshmyany - 3 thousand, in Polotsk - of all prisoners, 18 thousand prisoners were taken out of the Minsk prison, who were shot 30 km from the city in the forest. These were Poles, Jews, Tatars, citizens of Western Belarus, that is, Poland. Therefore, we are doing this. ”

• Great terror
• Remembrance Day for Victims of Political Repression
• Katyn execution
• Mass shootings in Vinnitsa
• Stalinist repression

• S. Macogon. Executions of Prisoners: Truth and Fiction
• The elimination of prisoners in Chertkov prison. (inaccessible link)
• Krzysztof Popiński Zbrodnie sowieckie na Kresach Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej, czerwiec - lipiec 1941
• Rosstrilny lists of prisoners in Lviv prisons of 1941