ГУЛаг Палестины - Лев Гунин

Andrei Sheptytsky, the Soviets deported about 400,000 Ukrainians from Galicia

alone. ... West Ukrainians found their first exposure to the Soviet system to

be a generally negative experience and many concluded that "Bolshevik" rule had

to be avoided at all costs. (Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, pp.

456-457)

Vasyl Hryshko (Experience with Russia, 1956, p. 117) puts the number killed or deported in

Western Ukraine during the Soviet occupation at 750,000. It was commonly perceived by

Ukrainians that Jews were disproportionately represented among the Communists inflicting this

suffering upon Ukraine.

During the preceding few days. As the Soviets retreated, the NKVD perceived by Ukrainians to

be manned disproportionately by Jews - went on a killing spree. Concerning this event, there

seems to be widespread agreement. Particularly relevant to our discussion, is that even Simon

Wiesenthal can be found adding his voice of assent in the fifth of the series of quotations

below:

While the movement to the East was taking place, the NKVD carried out mass

arrests and executions, chiefly of Ukrainians - especially those who tried to

avoid evacuation. In the jails most prisoners whose period of imprisonment was

more than three years were shot; others were evacuated if possible. In several

cities the NKVD burned prisons with prisoners in them. (Volodymyr Kubijovyc,

editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto Press, Toronto,

1963, Volume I, p. 878, Vsevolod Holubnychy and H. M. wrote this section)

The Bolsheviks succeeded in annihilating some 10,000 political prisoners in

Western Ukraine before and after the outbreak of hostilities (massacres took

place in the prisons in Lviv, Zolochiv, Rivne, Dubno, Lutsk, etc.). (Volodymyr

Kubijovyc, editor, Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, University of Toronto

Press, Toronto, Volume 1, p. 886)

Before fleeing the German advance the Soviet occupational regime murdered

thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly members of the city's [Lviv's]

intelligentsia. (Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume 3, p. 222)

The Soviets' hurried retreat had tragic consequences for thousands of political

prisoners in the jails of Western Ukraine. Unable to evacuate them in time,

the NKVD slaughtered their prisoners en masse during the week of 22-29 June

1941, regardless of whether they were incarcerated for major or minor

offenses. Major massacres occurred in Lviv, Sambir, and Stanyslaviv in

Galicia, where about 10,000 prisoners died, and in Rivne and Lutsk in Volhynia,

where another 5000 perished. Coming on the heels of the mass deportations and

growing Soviet terror, these executions added greatly to the West Ukrainians'

abhorrence of the Soviets. (Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 1994, p. 461)

When the German attack came on 22 June the Soviets had no time to take with

them the people they had locked up. So they simply killed them. Thousands of

detainees were shot dead in their cells by the retreating Soviets. (Simon

Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 35)

Right after the entry we were shown 2,400 dead bodies of Ukrainians liquidated

with a shot at the scruff of the neck at the city jail of Lemberg [Lviv] by the

Soviets prior to their marching off. (Hans Frank, In the Face of the Gallows,

p. 406)

In Lvov, several thousand prisoners had been held in three jails. When the

Germans arrived on 29 June, the city stank, and the prisons were surrounded by

terrified relatives. Unimaginable atrocities had occurred inside. The prisons

looked like abattoirs. It had taken the NKVD a week to complete their gruesome

task before they fled. (Gwyneth Hughes and Simon Welfare, Red Empire: The

Forbidden History of the USSR, 1990, p. 133)

We learned that, before the Russian troops had left, a very great number of

Lemberg citizens, Ukrainians and Polish inhabitants of other towns and

villages had been killed in this prison and in other prisons. Furthermore,

there were many corpses of German men and officers, among them many Air Corps

officers, and many of them were found mutilated. There was a great bitterness

and excitement among the Lemberg population against the Jewish sector of the

population. (Erwin Schulz, from May until 26 September, 1941 Commander of

Einsatzkommando 5, a subunit of Einsatzgruppe C, in John Mendelsohn, editor,

The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York,

1982, Volume 18, p. 18)

On the next day, Dr. RASCH informed us to the effect that the killed people in

Lemberg amounted to about 5,000. It has been determined without any doubt

that the arrests and killings had taken place under the leadership of Jewish

functionaries and with the participation of the Jewish inhabitants of

Lemberg. That was the reason why there was such an excitement against the

Jewish population on the part of the Lemberg citizens. (Erwin Schulz, from

May until 26 September, 1941 Commander of Einsatzkommando 5, a subunit of

Einsatzgruppe C, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust: Selected Documents

in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982, Volume 18, p. 18)

Chief of Einsatzgruppe B reports that Ukrainian insurrection movements were

bloodily suppressed by the NKVD on June 25, 1941 in Lvov. About 3,000 were

shot by NKVD. Prison burning. Hardly 20% of Ukrainian intelligentsia has

remained. (Operational Situation Report USSR No. 10, July 2, 1941, in Yitzhak

Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports:

Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the

Jews July 1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p. 2)

Location: Lvov

According to reliable information, the Russians, before withdrawing, shot

30,000 inhabitants. The corpses piled up and burned at the GPU prisons are

dreadfully mutilated. The population is greatly excited: 1,000 Jews have

already been forcefully gathered together. (Operational Situation Report USSR

No. 11, July 3, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector,

The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death

Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library,

New York, 1989, p. 4)

Location: Zviahel (Novograd-Volynski)

...

Before leaving, the Bolsheviks, together with the Jews, murdered several

Ukrainians; as an excuse, they used the attempted Ukrainian uprising of June

25, 1941, which tried to free their prisoners.

According to reliable information, about 20,000 Ukrainians have disappeared

from Lvov, 80% of them belonging to the intelligentsia.

The prisons in Lvov were crammed with the bodies of murdered Ukrainians.

According to a moderate estimate, in Lvov alone 3-4,000 persons were either

killed or deported.

In Dobromil, 82 dead bodies were found, 4 of them Jews. The latter were

former Bolsheviki informers who had been killed because of their complicity in

this act. Near Dobromil an obsolete salt mine pit was discovered. It was

completely filled with dead bodies. In the immediate neighborhood, there is a

6X15m mass grave. The number of those murdered in the Dobromil area is

estimated to be approximately several hundred.

In Sambor on June 26, 1941, about 400 Ukrainians were shot by the

Bolsheviks. An additional 120 persons were murdered on June 27, 1941. The

remaining 80 prisoners succeeded in overpowering the Soviet guards, and fled.

...

As early as 1939, a larger number of Ukrainians was shot, and 1,500

Ukrainians as well as 500 Poles were deported to the east.

Russians and Jews committed these murders in very cruel ways. Bestial

mutilations were daily occurrences. Breasts of women and genitals of men were

cut off. Jews have also nailed children to the wall and then murdered them.

Killing was carried out by shots in the back of the neck. Hand grenades were

frequently used for these murders.

In Dobromil, women and men were killed with blows by a hammer used to stun

cattle before slaughter.

In many cases, the prisoners must have been tortured cruelly: bones were

broken, etc. In Sambor, the prisoners were gagged and thus prevented from

screaming during torture and murder. The Jews, some of whom also held official

positions, in addition to their economic supremacy, and who served in the

entire Bolshevik police, were always partners in these atrocities.

Finally, it was established that seven [German] pilots who had been

captured were murdered. Three of them were found in a Russian military

hospital where they had been murdered in bed by shots in the abdomen. ...

... Prior to their withdrawal, the Bolsheviks shot 2,800 out of 4,000

Ukrainians imprisoned in the Lutsk prison. According to the statement of 19

Ukrainians who survived the slaughter with more or less serious injuries, the

Jews again played a decisive part in the arrests and shooting. ...

The investigations at Zlochev proved that the Russians, prior to their

withdrawal, arrested and murdered indiscriminately a total of 700 Ukrainians,

but, nevertheless, included the entire [local] Ukrainian intelligentsia.

(Operational Situation Report USSR No. 24, July 16, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad,

Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections

from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July

1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p. 29-33)

Location: Pleskau [Pskov] ...

The population is in general convinced that it is mostly the Jews who

should be held responsible for the atrocities that are committed everywhere.

...

As it was learned that the Russians before they left have either deported

the Ukrainian intelligentsia, or executed them, that is, murdered them, it is

assumed that in the last days before the retreat of the Russians, about 100

influential Ukrainians were murdered [in Pleskau]. So far the bodies have not

been found - a search has been initiated.

About 100-150 Ukrainians were murdered by the Russians in Kremenets. Some

of these Ukrainians are said to have been thrown into cauldrons of boiling

water. This has been deduced from the fact that the bodies were found without

skin when they were exhumed. ...

... Before leaving Dubno, the Russians, as they had done in Lvov,

committed extensive mass-murder.

... Before their flight [from Tarnopol], as in Lvov and Dubno, the

Russians went on a rampage there. Disinterments revealed 10 bodies of German

soldiers. Almost all of them had their hands tied behind their backs with

wire. The bodies revealed traces of extremely cruel mutilations such as gouged

eyes, severed tongues and limbs.

The number of Ukrainians who were murdered by the Russians, among them

women and children, is set finally at 600. Jews and Poles were spared by the

Russians. The Ukrainians estimate the total number of [Tarnopol] victims since

the occupation of the Ukraine by the Russians at about 2,000. The planned

deportation of the Ukrainians already started in 1939. There is hardly a

family in Tarnopol from which one or several members have not disappeared.

... The entire Ukrainian intelligentsia is destroyed. Since the beginning of

the war, 160 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia were either murdered or

deported. Inhabitants of the town had observed a column of about 1,000

civilians driven out of town by police and army early in the morning of July 1,

1941.

As in Lvov, torture chambers were discovered in the cellars of the Court of

Justice. Apparently, hot and cold showers were also used here (as in Lemberg

[Lviv]) for torture, as several bodies were found, totally naked, their skin

burst and torn in many places. A grate was found in another room, made of wire

and set above the ground about 1m in height, traces of ashes were found

underneath. A Ukrainian engineer, who was also to be murdered but saved his

life by smearing the blood of a dead victim over his face, reports that one

could also hear screams of pain from women and girls. (Operational Situation

Report USSR No. 28, July 20, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and

Shmuel Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of

the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943,

Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p.38-40)

F. Fedorenko

MY TESTIMONY

When the bolsheviks retreated before the German onslaught in the Second

World War they took care in advance not to leave any prisoners behind when the

Germans arrived.

The prisoners were driven, en masse, under heavy NKVD guard deep into

Russia or Siberia, day and night. Many of them were so tired that they could

go no further. These were shot without compunction where they fell. Terrible

things happened then. Sometimes, wives recognized their husbands among the

evacuees, as the prisoners were being driven through the villages. There was

great despair when they saw their loved ones taken under the muzzles of

automatic guns, to far, unknown places.

The villagers took care of those who did not die at once from the NKVD

bullets, but this was a very dangerous thing to do before all the bolsheviks

cleared out.

But the NKVD could not evacuate all the prisoners, there were so many arrests,

and jails were replenished constantly. In such a case the NKVD, before making

a hasty retreat, would murder the prisoners in their cells.

I recall that when the Germans came, in the fall of 1941, to a little town,

Chornobil, on the Prypyat River, 62 miles west of Kiev, 52 corpses of recently

murdered people, slightly covered with earth, were found in the prison yeard.

These corpses had their hands tied at the back with wire; some had their backs

flayed, others had gouged eyes or nails driven into their heels; still others