NKVD prisoner massacres

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The massacre of prisoners refers to a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Poland, the Baltic states, and parts of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was withdrawing after the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa). The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000,^[1] including more than 10,000 in Western Ukraine.^[2]

Contents 1 The massacres 1.1 Belarus 1.2 Estonia 1.3 Latvia 1.4 Lithuania 1.5 Russia 1.6 Ukraine 2 See also 3 Notes and references 4 Further reading

[edit] The massacres

The NKVD and the Red Army killed civilians in many places from Poland (e.g. Białystok) to Crimea.^[3]

By the beginning of the war in 1941, most of the ethnically Polish population, subject to Soviet rule for two years already, had already been deported off the border regions to remote areas of the Soviet Union. Others, including a large number of Polish civilians of other nationalities (mostly Belarusians and Ukrainians), were kept in provisional prisons in the towns of the region, where they awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons in Moscow or to the Gulag. It is estimated that out of 13 million people living in the pre-war Polish areas, roughly half a million of people were arrested, more than 90% of them being males. Thus approximately every tenth adult male was imprisoned at the time of the German offensive.^[4] Many died in prisons from torture or neglect.^[4] Methods of torture included scalding victims in boiling water and cutting off ears, noses and fingers.^[5]

Immediately after the start of the invasion, the NKVD started to execute a large number of prisoners in most of their prisons, while the remainder was to be evacuated in death marches^[4][6]. Most of them were political prisoners, imprisoned and executed without a trial. With few exceptions, the huge group of prisoners of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine was either marched eastwards, executed, or both.^[4] After the war and in recent years, the authorities of Germany, Poland, Belarus, and Israel identified no less than 25 prisons whose prisoners were killed—and a much larger number of mass execution sites.^[4] Among the notable cases of such mass execution of prisoners were the following.

[edit] Belarus

• Grodno: on June 22, the NKVD executed several dozen people in the local prison. The mass execution of the remaining 1,700 prisoners was ended when the approach of the German army prompted the evacuation of the NKVD crew.^[7]
• Berezwecz, near Vitebsk^[6]: on June 24, the NKVD executed approximately 800 prisoners, most of them Polish citizens. Several thousands more perished during a death march to Taklinovo near Ulla.^[8]
• Chervyen, near Minsk: in late June, the NKVD started the evacuation of all prisons in Minsk. Between June 24 and June 27, several thousand people were killed in Cherven and during the death marches.^[9]

[edit] Estonia

• Tartu: on July 9, 1941, almost 250 detainees were shot in Tartu prison and the Gray House courtyard; their bodies were dumped in makeshift graves and in the prison well.^[10]

[edit] Latvia

• Litene: Latvian officers executed.
• Vileyka (Wilejka): several dozen people, mostly political prisoners, sick and wounded, were executed prior to the departure of the Soviet guards on June 24.^[11]

[edit] Lithuania

• Vilnius (Wilno): after the German invasion, the NKVD murdered a large number of prisoners of the infamous Lukiškės prison.^[12]
• Rainiai near Telšiai: up to 79 political prisoners were killed in what is called the Rainiai massacre, on June 24 and the following day.
• Pravieniškės prison, near Kaunas: in June 1941, the NKVD murdered 260 political prisoners and all Lithuanian working personnel in the prison.

[edit] Russia

• Oryol: In September 1941, over 150 political prisoners (among them Christian Rakovsky, Maria Spiridonova and Olga Kameneva) were executed in Medvedevsky Forest near Oryol.

[edit] Ukraine

• Lviv (Lwów): between June 23 and June 28, the NKVD executed several thousand inmates in a number of provisional prisons. Among the common methods of extermination were shooting the prisoners in their cells, killing them with grenades thrown into the cells or starving them to death in the cellars. Some were simply bayoneted to death.^[1] It is estimated that over 4000 people were murdered that way, while the number of survivors is estimated at ca. 270^[7]
• Lutsk (Łuck): After the prison was hit by German bombs, the Soviet authorities promised amnesty to all political prisoners, in order 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. It is estimated that between 1,500 to 4,000 were killed.^[1]
• Brzeżany (Berezhany) near Tarnopol (Ternopil): between June 22 and July 1 the crew of the local NKVD prison has executed without a trial approximately 300 Polish citizens, among them a large number of Ukrainians^[7].
• Vinnitsa: more than 9,000 executed^[2].
• Dubno: All the prisoners, including women and children, were executed in Dubno's three-story prison.^[1]
• Sambor (Sambir): 570 killed^[13]
• Simferopol: on October 31, the NKVD shot a number of people in the NKVD building and in the city prison. In Yalta, on November 4, the NKVD shot all the prisoners in the city prisons.^[3]

[edit] See also

• List of massacres
• War crimes

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] Further reading

• Musial B., Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen. Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941., Berlin 2000 (in German)