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NKVD prisoner massacres

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NKVD prisoner massacres
Victims of SovietNKVDinLviv,June 1941
DateJune 1941(1941-06)– November 1941(1941-11)
LocationOccupied Poland,Ukrainian SSR,Byelorussian SSR,theBaltic states,Bessarabia
TypeExtrajudicial killings,mass murder,politicide,mass shooting
ParticipantsNKVDandNKGB(united 20 July 1941)
Deaths100,000

TheNKVD prisoner massacreswere a series of mass executions of political prisoners carried out by theNKVD,the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, across Eastern Europe, primarily in Poland, Ukraine, theBaltic statesandBessarabia.After the start of theGerman invasion of the Soviet Unionon June 22, 1941, NKVD troops were supposed to evacuate political prisoners to the interior of the Soviet Union, but the hasty retreat of theRed Army,a lack of transportation and other supplies, and general disregard for legal procedures often led to prisoners being simply executed.

Estimates of the death toll vary by location; nearly 9,000 in theUkrainian SSR,[1]20,000–30,000in eastern Poland(now part ofWestern Ukraine),[2]with the total number reaching approximately 100,000 extrajudicial executions in the span of a few weeks.[3]

Background[edit]

See also:Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
Mass repression
in the Soviet Union
Economic repression
Political repression
Ideological repression
Ethnic repression

Operation Barbarossasurprised the NKVD, whose jails and prisons in territories annexed by the Soviet Union in the aftermath of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pactwere crowded with political prisoners. In occupied eastern Poland, the NKVD was given responsibility for liquidating or evacuating over 140,000 prisoners (NKVD evacuation order No. 00803). In Ukraine andWestern Belorussia,60,000 people were forced to evacuate on foot. The official Soviet count had more than 9,800 reportedly executed in prisons, 1,443 executed in the process of evacuation, 59 killed for attempting to escape, 23 killed by German bombs and 1,057 deaths from other causes.[4]

"It was not only the numbers of the executed", wrote historian Yury Boshyk, who was quoted by Orest Subtelny, of the murders, "but also the manner in which they died that shocked the populace. When the families of the arrested rushed to the prisons after the Soviet evacuation, they were aghast to find bodies so badly mutilated that many could not be identified. It was evident that many of the prisoners had also been tortured before death; others were killed en masse".[5]

Approximately two thirds of the 150,000 prisoners[2]were murdered; most of the rest were transported into the interior of the Soviet Union, but some were abandoned in the prisons if there was no time to execute them, and others managed to escape.[6]

Massacres[edit]

The NKVD killed prisoners in many places fromPolandtoCrimea.[7]Immediately after the start of the German invasion, the NKVD started to execute large numbers of prisoners in most of their prisons, and it evacuated the remainder indeath marches.[8][9]Most of them werepolitical prisoners,who were imprisoned and executed without a trial. Themassacreswere later documented by the occupying German authorities and were used in anti-Soviet and anti-Jewish propaganda.[10][11]After the war and in recent years, the authorities of Germany, Poland, Belarus, andIsraelidentified no fewer than 25 prisons whose prisoners were killed and a much larger number of mass execution sites.[8]

Belarus[edit]

  • Berezwecz-Taklinovo Death Roadin Berezwecz (present-day part ofHlybokaye): on the night of June 23–24 the NKVD executed at least several dozen inmates. The next day, the remaining prisoners were rushed towardsVitebsk.During the 120-kilometer march, they died en masse due to exhaustion, hunger and thirst, as well as at the hands of the guards. The last stop on the 'road of death' was the Taklinovokolkhoz(present-dayMikalajeva), where on June 28, the Soviets executed almost all the prisoners. Approximately 1-2 thousand people were murdered in the evacuation of the prison in Berezwecz.[12][13]
  • Chervyen massacrenearMinsk:in late June, the NKVD started evacuating all prisons in Minsk. Between June 24 and June 27, at least 1,000 people were killed inChervyenand in the death marches.[14]
  • Hrodna(Grodno in pre-war Poland): on June 22, 1941, the NKVD executed several dozen people at the local prison. Execution of the remaining 1,700 prisoners was not possible due to the advance of the German army and hurried retreat of the NKVD executioners.[15]
  • Vileyka-Barysaw Death Road:on June 24, 1941, the NKVD executed at least 28 prisoners held inVileyka(Wilejka in pre-war Poland). Remaining prisoners, over 1,000 men and women, were forcibly marched eastward towardsBarysaw.During the march, an estimated 500 to 800 prisoners died at the hands of guards.[16]
  • Valozhyn-Tarasovo Death Road:in late June, the NKVD evacuated prisoners fromValozhyn(Wołożyn in pre-war Poland). After marching on foot for two days, approximately 100 prisoners were executed by the NKVD near the village ofTarasovo.[17]

Estonia[edit]

Victims of NKVD inTartu,Estonia,July 1941

Lithuania[edit]

  • Vilnius(Wilno in pre-war Poland): after the German invasion, the NKVD murdered a large number of prisoners of the infamousLukiškės Prison.[20]
  • Rainiai massacrenearTelšiai:up to 79 political prisoners were killed on June 24 and 25.
  • Pravieniškėsprison nearKaunas:in June 1941, the NKVD murdered 260 political prisoners and all Lithuanian personnel in the prison.
  • Lithuanian prisoners were evacuated to Belarus and some of them were murdered, e.g., in theChervyen massacreand near Bigosovo.

Poland[edit]

See also:Katyn massacre
Memorials
Entrance to memorial in Piatykhatky
Katyn-Kharkiv memorial
Katyn-Kharkiv memorial

By 1941, much of the ethnically Polish populationliving under Soviet rulein the eastern half of Poland had already beendeportedto remote areas of the USSR. Others, including a large number of Polish civilians of other ethnicities (mostlyBelarusiansandUkrainians), were held in provisional prisons in the region, where they awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons inMoscowor to theGulag.It is estimated that out of 13 million people living in eastern Poland, roughly half a million were jailed, and more than 90% of those were men. Thus approximately 10% of adult males were imprisoned at the time of the German offensive.[8]Many died in prisons from torture or neglect.[8]Methods of torture included scalding victims and cutting off their ears, noses and fingers.[21]Timothy Snyderestimates that the NKVD shot some 9,817 imprisoned Polish citizens following the German invasion of the USSR in 1941.[22]

  • NKVD massacre sites in pre-war Poland are now in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.

Ukraine[edit]

Ethnic Germans murdered at aTernopilGPUprison as German troops approached are being identified by their relatives on July 10, 1941

In Soviet-occupiedwestern Ukraine,under the threat of German invasion NKVD committed various mass murders of prison inmates, including:

  • Berezhany massacre(Brzeżany in pre-war Poland): between June 26 and 30 June 1941 the crew of the NKVD prison executed from 174 to 300 Polish citizens.[23][24]Among them were many Ukrainians.[15]
  • Chortkiv(Czortków in pre-war Poland): in the last days of June 1941 the Soviets executed an estimated 100 to 200 prisoners held in the local prison. The remaining prisoners were evacuated further east, either by train or on foot, while hundreds died due to the inhumane conditions of transport or at the hands of guards.[25][26]At the end of July 1941, 767 prisoners evacuated from Chortkiv were executed by Soviets inUman[27](theEvacuation of Chortkiv Prison).
  • DonetskRutchenkovo Field
  • Dubno massacre(in pre-war Poland): between 23 and 25 June 1941, the Soviets executed an estimated 500 to 550 prisoners held in theDubnoprison. Only a few individuals survived the massacre.[28]
  • Ivano-Frankivsk(Stanisławów in pre-war Poland): Over 500 Polish prisoners (including 150 women and dozens of children) were shot by the NKVD and buried in several mass graves atDem'ianiv Laz.
  • Kharkiv tragedy:1,200 prisoners were burned alive.
  • Lutsk massacre(Łuck in pre-war Poland): After the prison was hit by German bombs, Soviet authorities promised amnesty to all political prisoners to prevent escapes. As they lined up outside they were machine-gunned by Soviet tanks. They were told: "Those still alive get up." Some 370 stood up and were forced to bury the dead, after which they were murdered as well. The Nazi foreign ministry claimed 1,500 Ukrainians were killed while the SS and Nazi military intelligence claimed 4,000.[1]
  • Lviv(Lwów in pre-war Poland,Executions in Lviv (June 1941):the massacres in this city began immediately after the German attack, on June 22, and continued until June 28. The NKVD executed several thousand inmates in a number of provisional prisons. Among the most common methods of extermination were shooting prisoners in their cells, throwing grenades into the cells or starving them to death in the cellars. Some were simply bayoneted to death.[3]It is estimated that over 4000 people were murdered that way, while the number of survivors is estimated at 270.[15]A Ukrainian uprising briefly forced the NKVD to retreat, but it soon returned to kill the remaining prisoners in their cells.[29]In the aftermath, medical students described the scene at one of the prisons:

"From the courtyard, doors led to a large space, filled from top to bottom with corpses...Among them were many women. On the left wall, three men were crucified, barely covered by clothing from their shoulders, with severed male organs. Underneath them on the floor in half-sitting, leaning positions – two nuns with those organs in their mouths...most were stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet. Some were naked or almost naked, others in decent street clothes. One man was in a tie, mostly likely just arrested."[30]

These massacres were followed by theLviv pogroms,committed by the German military and theOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalistsafter the German takeover of the city. Jewish residents of the city were targeted by German soldiers, OUN members, and local citizens. In some instances, the pogroms and violence against Jewish residents was framed as justified revenge for the murders committed by the NKVD.[citation needed]

  • Sambir massacre(Sambor in pre-war Poland): in the last days of June 1941 the Soviets executed an estimated 500 to 700 prisoners in the Sambir prison. During the latter stage of the massacre, some prisoners actively resisted, which resulted in saving their lives.[31][32]
  • Simferopol:on October 31, the NKVD shot a number of people in the NKVD building and the city prison.
  • Yalta:on November 4, the NKVD shot all the prisoners in the city prisons.[7]
  • Zolochiv massacre(Złoczów in pre-war Poland): in the last days of June 1941 the Soviets executed all inmates at Zolochiv prison, an estimated 650 to 720 individuals.[33][34]

Soviet statistics for 78 Ukrainian prisons:[35]

  • evacuated 45,569
  • killed inside the prisons 8,789
  • killed runaways 48
  • killedlegally123
  • killedillegally55
  • left alive 3,536

Russia[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abBerkhoff, Karel Cornelis (2004).Harvest of Despair.Harvard University Press.p. 14.ISBN0-674-02078-2.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  2. ^abPiotrowski, Tadeusz(1998).Poland's Holocaust.Jefferson:McFarland.ISBN0-7864-0371-3.
  3. ^abRobert Gellately.Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe.Knopf,2007ISBN1-4000-4005-1p. 391
  4. ^Никита Васильевич Петров.Глава 9.История империи "Гулаг"(in Russian). Pseudology.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  5. ^Richard Rhodes(2002).Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust.New York:Alfred A. Knopf.ISBN0-375-40900-9.Rather than releasing their prisoners as they hurriedly retreated during the first week of the war, the Soviet secret police killed most of them. In the first week of the invasion, the NKVD prisoner executions totaled some 10,000 in western Ukraine and more than 9,000 inVinnytsia,eastward towardKiev.Comparable numbers of prisoners were executed in eastern Poland,Byelorussia,Lithuania,Latvia,andEstonia.The Soviet areas had already sustained hundreds of thousands of executions during the 1937–1938Great Purge.
  6. ^Nagorski, Andrew(18 September 2007).The Greatest Battle.Simon & Schuster.p. 84.ISBN978-1-4165-4573-6.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  7. ^abEdige Kirimal,"Complete Destruction of National Groups as Groups - The Crimean Turks",fromGenocide in the USSR: Studies in Group Destruction(1958), published by the Institute for the Study of the USSR inMunich.
  8. ^abcdMilitargeschichtliches Forschungsamt;Gottfried Schramm;Jan T. Gross;Manfred Zeidler; et al. (1997).Bernd Wegner(ed.).From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939-1941.Berghahn Books. pp. 47–79.ISBN1-57181-882-0.
  9. ^(in Polish)Encyklopedia PWN,Zbrodnie Sowickie W PolsceArchived2006-05-21 at theWayback Machine:After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, in June 1941, thousands of prisoners have been murdered in mass executions in prisons (among others inLvivandBerezwecz) and during the evacuation (so-called death marches)
  10. ^"Blutige Ouvertüre".zeit.de.June 21, 2001.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  11. ^"German Soldiers Write from the Soviet Union".calvin.edu.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  12. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 84-92.
  13. ^Kalbarczyk, Sławomir (2011-06-21). "Tysiąc ofiar z Berezwecza" [One thousand victims from Berezwecz].Rzeczpospolita(in Polish). 144/2011: 4–5.ISSN0208-9130.
  14. ^"Politinių kalinių žudynės Červenėje"(PDF).Atmintinos datos(in Lithuanian).Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras.17 June 2011.Retrieved19 August2018.
  15. ^abcGałkiewicz, Anna (2001)."Informacja o śledztwach prowadzonych w OKŚZpNP w Łodzi w sprawach o zbrodnie popełnione przez funkcjonariuszy sowieckiego aparatu terroru".Biuletyn Instytut Pamięci Narodowej / IPN(in Polish) (7 - August 2001). pp. 20ff.Retrieved1 August2016.
  16. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 76, 95–98.
  17. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 98–99.
  18. ^Alexander Statiev (2010).The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands.Cambridge University Press. p. 56.ISBN978-0521768337.RetrievedJanuary 3,2024.
  19. ^M. Laar (1992).War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival, 1944-1956.Howells House.ISBN0929590082.RetrievedJanuary 3,2024.
  20. ^Bolesław Paszkowski (2005),Golgota Wschodu (The Eastern Golgotha).Archived2006-05-27 at theWayback Machine(in Polish)
  21. ^Paul, Allen.Katyn: Stalin's Massacre and the Seeds of Polish Resurrection.Naval Institute Press,1996.ISBN1-55750-670-1p. 155
  22. ^Snyder, Timothy(2010),Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,Basic Books,p. 194,ISBN978-0-465-00239-9
  23. ^Węgierski 1991,p. 278.
  24. ^Popiński, Kokurin & Gurjanow 1995,p. 98, 102.
  25. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 133–134.
  26. ^Musiał 2001,p. 117–118.
  27. ^Popiński, Kokurin & Gurjanow 1995,p. 90, 97.
  28. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 111–116.
  29. ^Nagorski, Andrew (18 September 2007).The Greatest Battle.Simon & Schuster.p. 83.ISBN978-1-4165-4573-6.Retrieved2013-12-30.
  30. ^"Lviv museum recounts Soviet massacres"Archived2019-01-15 at theWayback Machine,Natalia A. Feduschak. CDVR. 2010. Retrieved 6 feb 2017
  31. ^Musiał 2001,p. 111–112.
  32. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 128–130.
  33. ^Musiał 2001,p. 116.
  34. ^Mikoda 1997,p. 134–136.
  35. ^Тимофеев В. Г. Уголовно-исполнительная система России: цифры, факты и события. Учебное пособие. — Чебоксары, 1999

Bibliography[edit]

  • Mikoda, Janina, ed. (1997).Zbrodnicza ewakuacja więzień i aresztów NKWD na Kresach Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej w czerwcu – lipcu 1941 roku. Materiały z sesji naukowej w 55. rocznicę ewakuacji więźniów NKWD w głąb ZSRR, Łódź 10 czerwca 1996 r.[Criminal evacuation of NKVD prisons and detention centers in the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic in June–July 1941. Materials from the scientific session on the 55th anniversary of the evacuation of NKVD prisoners deep into the USSR, Łódź, June 10, 1996] (in Polish). Warszawa: Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu – Instytut Pamięci Narodowej.ISBN83-903356-6-2.
  • Musiał, Bogdan(2001).Rozstrzelać elementy kontrrewolucyjne. Brutalizacja wojny niemiecko-sowieckiej latem 1941 roku[Shoot the counter-revolutionary elements. The brutalization of the German-Soviet war in the summer of 1941] (in Polish). Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Kulturalne Fronda.ISBN83-88747-40-1.
  • Popiński, Krzysztof; Kokurin, Aleksandr; Gurjanow, Aleksandr (1995).Drogi śmierci. Ewakuacja więzień sowieckich z Kresów Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej w czerwcu i lipcu 1941[Roads of death. Evacuation of Soviet prisons from the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic in June and July 1941] (in Polish). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo "Karta".ISBN83-900676-9-2.
  • Węgierski, Jerzy (1991).Lwów pod okupacją sowiecką 1939–1941[Lviv under Soviet occupation 1939–1941] (in Polish). Warszawa: Editions Spotkania.ISBN83-85195-15-7.

External links[edit]

Media related toNKVD prisoner massacresat Wikimedia Commons

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