Torture in the Gestapo ov memoirs. Life and death in Nazi concentration camps

We can all agree that the Nazis did terrible things during World War II. The Holocaust was perhaps their most famous crime. But in the concentration camps, terrible and inhuman things happened that most people did not know about. The camp inmates were used as test subjects in many experiments that were very painful and usually resulted in death.
blood clotting experiments

Dr. Sigmund Rascher performed blood clotting experiments on prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. He created a drug, Polygal, which included beets and apple pectin. He believed that these pills could help stop bleeding from battle wounds or during surgical operations.

Each subject was given a tablet of the drug and shot in the neck or chest to test its effectiveness. The limbs were then amputated without anesthesia. Dr. Rascher created a company to produce these pills, which also employed prisoners.

Experiments with sulfa drugs


In the Ravensbrück concentration camp, the effectiveness of sulfonamides (or sulfanilamide preparations) was tested on prisoners. Subjects were given incisions on the outside of their calves. The doctors then rubbed the mixture of bacteria into the open wounds and stitched them up. To simulate combat situations, glass fragments were also brought into the wounds.

However, this method turned out to be too mild compared to the conditions at the fronts. To simulate gunshot wounds, blood vessels were tied off on both sides to cut off blood circulation. Then the prisoners were given sulfa drugs. Despite the advances made in the scientific and pharmaceutical fields through these experiments, the prisoners experienced terrible pain that led to severe injury or even death.

Freezing and Hypothermia Experiments


The German armies were ill-prepared for the cold that they faced on the Eastern Front and from which thousands of soldiers died. As a result, Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted experiments in Birkenau, Auschwitz and Dachau to find out two things: the time required for the body temperature to drop and death, and methods for reviving frozen people.

Nude prisoners or placed in a barrel of ice water, or driven out into the street at sub-zero temperatures. Most of the victims died. Those who only fainted were subjected to painful resuscitation procedures. To revive the subjects, they were placed under lamps of sunlight, which burned their skin, forced to copulate with women, injected with boiling water or placed in baths of warm water (which turned out to be the most effective method).

Experiments with firebombs


For three months in 1943 and 1944, Buchenwald prisoners were tested for the effectiveness of pharmaceutical preparations against phosphorus burns caused by incendiary bombs. The test subjects were specially burned with a phosphorus composition from these bombs, which was a very painful procedure. Prisoners were seriously injured during these experiments.

sea ​​water experiments


Experiments were conducted on Dachau prisoners to find ways to turn sea water into drinking water. The test subjects were divided into four groups, whose members did without water, drank sea ​​water, drank Burke-treated seawater, and drank seawater without salt.

Subjects were given food and drink assigned to their group. Prisoners who received some form of sea water eventually suffered severe diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations, went insane, and eventually died.

In addition, the subjects were subjected to needle biopsy of the liver or lumbar punctures to collect data. These procedures were painful and in most cases ended in death.

Experiments with poisons

In Buchenwald, experiments were carried out on the effects of poisons on people. In 1943, poisons were secretly administered to prisoners.

Some died themselves from poisoned food. Others were killed for the sake of an autopsy. A year later, poisoned bullets were fired at the prisoners to speed up data collection. These test subjects experienced terrible torment.

Experiments with sterilization


As part of the extermination of all non-Aryans, Nazi doctors conducted mass sterilization experiments on prisoners from various concentration camps in search of the least laborious and cheapest method of sterilization.

In one series of experiments, a chemical irritant was injected into the reproductive organs of women to block the fallopian tubes. Some women have died after this procedure. Other women were killed for autopsies.

In a number of other experiments, prisoners were subjected to intense X-ray radiation, which led to severe burns on the abdomen, groin and buttocks. They were also left with incurable ulcers. Some test subjects died.

Bone, muscle and nerve regeneration and bone grafting experiments


For about a year, experiments were carried out on the prisoners of Ravensbrück to regenerate bones, muscles and nerves. Nerve surgeries included the removal of segments of nerves from the lower limbs.

Bone experiments included breaking and repositioning bones in several places on the lower extremities. Fractures were not allowed to heal properly as doctors needed to study the healing process and also test different healing methods.

Doctors also removed numerous fragments of the tibia from the test subjects to study bone regeneration. Bone grafts included transplanting fragments of the left tibia to the right and vice versa. These experiments caused the prisoners unbearable pain and severely injured them.

Experiments with typhus


From the end of 1941 to the beginning of 1945, doctors conducted experiments on the prisoners of Buchenwald and Natzweiler in the interests of the German armed forces. They were testing vaccines for typhus and other diseases.

Approximately 75% of test subjects were injected with trial typhoid vaccines or other chemicals. They were injected with a virus. As a result, more than 90% of them died.

The remaining 25% of the test subjects were injected with the virus without any prior protection. Most of them did not survive. Physicians also conducted experiments related to yellow fever, smallpox, typhoid, and other diseases. Hundreds of prisoners died, and more prisoners suffered unbearable pain as a result.

Twin experiments and genetic experiments


The purpose of the Holocaust was the elimination of all people of non-Aryan origin. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals and other people who did not meet certain requirements were to be exterminated so that only the "superior" Aryan race remained. Genetic experiments were carried out to provide the Nazi Party with scientific proof of the superiority of the Aryans.

Dr. Josef Mengele (also known as the "Angel of Death") had a strong interest in the twins. He separated them from the rest of the prisoners when they entered Auschwitz. The twins had to donate blood every day. The real purpose of this procedure is unknown.

The experiments with twins were extensive. They were to be carefully examined and every centimeter of their body measured. After that, comparisons were made to determine hereditary traits. Sometimes doctors performed mass blood transfusions from one twin to the other.

Since people of Aryan origin mostly had blue eyes, experiments were carried out to create them with chemical drops or injections into the iris of the eye. These procedures were very painful and led to infections and even blindness.

Injections and lumbar punctures were done without anesthesia. One twin deliberately contracted the disease, and the other did not. If one twin died, the other twin was killed and studied for comparison.

Amputations and removals of organs were also performed without anesthesia. Most of the twins who ended up in the concentration camp died in one way or another, and their autopsies were the last experiments.

Experiments with high altitudes


From March to August 1942, the prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were used as test subjects in experiments to test human endurance at high altitudes. The results of these experiments were to help the German air force.

The test subjects were placed in a low pressure chamber, which created atmospheric conditions at altitudes up to 21,000 meters. Most of the test subjects died, and the survivors suffered from various injuries from being at high altitudes.

Experiments with malaria


Over the course of more than three years, more than 1,000 Dachau prisoners were used in a series of experiments related to the search for a cure for malaria. Healthy prisoners were infected by mosquitoes or extracts from these mosquitoes.

Prisoners who contracted malaria were then treated with various drugs to test their effectiveness. Many prisoners died. The surviving prisoners suffered greatly and were mostly disabled for the rest of their lives.

Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many have lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will consider the concentration camps of the Nazis and the atrocities that took place on their territories.

What is a concentration camp?

Concentration camp or concentration camp - a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:

• political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
• prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).

The concentration camps of the Nazis were notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Contained there, mostly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system.

Life in the camp

Humiliation and bullying for the prisoners began already from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water and a fenced-off latrine. The natural need of the prisoners had to celebrate publicly, in a tank, standing in the middle of the car.

But this was only the beginning, a lot of bullying and torment was being prepared for the Nazi concentration camps objectionable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.

The conditions of detention can be judged from the letters of the prisoners: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry ... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured ...”, “They shot, flogged, poisoned with dogs, drowned in water, beaten with sticks, starved. Infected with tuberculosis ... strangled by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. Burned ... ".

The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was later used in the German textile industry. Doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, from whose hand thousands of people died. He investigated the mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they were transplanted organs from each other, blood was transfused, sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. He did sex reassignment surgery.

All fascist concentration camps became famous for such bullying, we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.

Camp ration

Usually the daily ration in the camp was as follows:

• bread - 130 gr;
• fat - 20 gr;
• meat - 30 gr;
• cereals - 120 gr;
• sugar - 27 gr.

Bread was handed out, and the rest of the food was used for cooking, which consisted of soup (given out 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150-200 gr). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for workers. Those who for some reason remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a serving of bread.

List of concentration camps in different countries

Nazi concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. The list of them is long, but we will name the main ones:

• On the territory of Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
• Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
• France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
• Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
• Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
• Czechoslovakia - Kunta-gora, Natra, Glinsko;
• Estonia - Pirkul, Parnu, Klooga;
• Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
• Latvia - Salaspils.

And it's far from full list all the concentration camps that were built by Nazi Germany in the pre-war and war years.

Salaspils

Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because, in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and functioned from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).

Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and massacred, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.

Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was sent to medical research, during which more than 100,000 people died. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. The torture of children here was a routine affair that proceeded according to a schedule with meticulous records of the results.

Experiments on children

The testimonies of witnesses and the results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beatings, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often for children), performing surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only for children), executions, torture, useless severe labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity has seen in the New Age. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.

Children did not stay long with their mothers, usually they were quickly taken away and distributed. So, children under the age of six were in a special barracks, where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died in 3-4 days. In this way, the Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year. The bodies of the dead were partly burned, and partly buried in the camp.

The following figures were given in the Act of the Nuremberg trials “on the extermination of children”: during the excavation of only one fifth of the territory of the concentration camp, 633 children's bodies aged 5 to 9 years were found, arranged in layers; a platform soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children's bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.

Salaspils is truly the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because the atrocities described above are far from all the torment that the prisoners were subjected to. So, in winter, the children brought in barefoot and naked were driven to a half-kilometer barrack, where they had to wash in ice water. After that, the children were driven to the next building in the same way, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. At the same time, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. All who survived after this procedure were also subjected to arsenic etching.

Infants were kept separately, injections were given to them, from which the child died in agony in a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children per day died from the experiments. The bodies of the dead were taken out in large baskets and burned, thrown into cesspools or buried near the camp.

Ravensbrück

If we start listing the women's concentration camps of the Nazis, then Ravensbrück will be in the first place. It was the only camp of this type in Germany. It held thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were kept, Jews accounted for about 15 percent. There were no written instructions regarding torture and torture; the overseers chose the line of conduct themselves.

Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Also, the clothes indicated racial affiliation. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in post-war years 2-3 families of refugees lived in them) contained about three hundred prisoners, who were accommodated on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were driven into these cells, who had to sleep seven of them on the same bunk. There were several toilets and a washbasin in the barracks, but there were so few of them that the floors were littered with excrement after a few days. Such a picture was presented by almost all Nazi concentration camps (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).

But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and hardy, fit for work, were left, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.

Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared already at the end of the war. The ashes from the crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.

Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barrack called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new medications, pre-infecting or crippling test subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered for the rest of their lives from what they suffered. Experiments were also conducted with the irradiation of women with X-rays, from which hair fell out, skin was pigmented, and death occurred. Genital organs were cut out, after which few survived, and even those quickly grew old, and at 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out by all concentration camps of the Nazis, the torture of women and children is the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.

At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there, the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks for the settlement of refugees. Later, Ravensbrück turned into a stationing point for Soviet military units.

Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald

The construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, who became the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the "hellish" concentration camp.

The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately outside the gates began "Appelplat" (parade ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite the office was located, where the camp leader and the officer on duty lived - the camp authorities. Deeper were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were arranged in the rest.

The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory, their names still cause fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. by the most scary place considered to be a crematorium. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot, and the body was sent to the oven.

Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number on German which had to be learned in the first day. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.

Continuing to describe the concentration camps of the Nazis, let us turn to the so-called "small camp" of Buchenwald.

Small Camp Buchenwald

The "Small Camp" was the quarantine zone. Living conditions here were, even in comparison with the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when the German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiègne camp were brought to this camp, mostly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were placed in tents. The closer 1945 was, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the "small camp" included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in the concentration camps of the Nazis was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, the very life in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks, their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread, the unemployed were no longer supposed to.

Relations among the prisoners were tough, cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. It was a common practice to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The clothes of the deceased were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions, infectious diseases were common in the camp. Vaccinations only exacerbated the situation, as injection syringes were not changed.

The photo is simply not able to convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. Witness accounts are not for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to take a step forward - there were not so many experimental people in any country in the world. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, those inhuman sufferings that these innocent people endured.

Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated and organs were cut out, sterilized, castrated. They tested how long a person is able to withstand extreme cold or heat. Specially infected with diseases, introduced experimental drugs. So, in Buchenwald, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed. In addition to typhoid, the prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.

Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the "Buchenwald witch" for her love of sadism and inhuman abuse of prisoners. She was more feared than her husband (Karl Koch) and the Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". The woman owes this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of the killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.

The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945 by the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and ran the camp for two days until the American soldiers approached.

Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)

Listing the concentration camps of the Nazis, Auschwitz cannot be ignored. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead have not yet been clarified. Most of the victims were Jewish prisoners of war, who were destroyed immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers.

The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name has become a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved the following words: "Work sets you free."

This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:

• Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
• Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called the death camp;
• Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.

Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived in the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. So, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. Gas "Cyclone B" was used. For the first time, the terrible invention was tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners with a total number of about nine hundred people.

Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments began on women and men for sterilization and castration.

Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners were kept working in factories and mines. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. About ten thousand prisoners were kept here.

Like any Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with the outside world were forbidden, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.

On the territory of Auschwitz, five crematoria were continuously operating, which, according to experts, had a monthly output of approximately 270,000 corpses.

On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated by Soviet troops. By that time, about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year before that, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.

Since 1947, on the territory of the former concentration camp, a museum and a memorial complex dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Conclusion

For the entire duration of the war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. They were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It's hard to imagine what these people went through. But not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps was destined to be demolished by them. Thanks to Stalin, after their release, when they returned home, they received the stigma of "traitors". At home, the Gulag was waiting for them, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity was replaced by another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.

Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after their release was not advertised and hushed up. But the people who survived this simply should not be forgotten.

In 1936, the future People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Nikolai Yezhov, who then headed the department of leading party bodies of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, went to the Third Reich for treatment. Although the Soviet media were sharply critical of Hitler's policies, German medicine remained one of the best in the world. The son of Georgy Malenkov later reported from the words of his father that Yezhov was sent abroad "for treatment from pederasty."

Whether the German doctors helped the high-ranking Bolshevik who turned to them with such a delicate problem is unknown. However, Yezhov’s trip was remembered in 1939, when the political “star” of the chief Chekist had already set, and the execution cellar of the Lubyanka loomed in front of him. At the Plenum of the Central Committee on the case of Nikolai Yezhov, Malenkov was the speaker. Yezhov's biographer Alexei Polyansky reports that the participants in the plenum, having heard about "limitless assault, torture, torture of those under investigation", qualified this practice "as methods borrowed by Yezhov in Nazi Germany." Many researchers consider this story a fiction created with the aim of maximally vilifying Yezhov.

“There simply could not be any “exchange of experience” in the conditions of the then existing relations between the USSR and Germany. And who would let Yezhov on an "internship" in the Gestapo? - asks the historian Nikita Petrov in the book "Stalin's pet" - Nikolai Yezhov.

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Atrocities of the Germans OVER THE CAPTIVE RED ARMY ___ (Stories of those who fled from German captivity, documents and facts)

Hitler's bandits made murder, robbery and violence their craft. There is no limit to the bloody atrocities of the unbridled Nazi hordes. They set fire to peaceful villages and cities. They hang old people. They rape women. They kill children in front of their fathers and mothers.

These two-legged beasts with a swastika do not recognize any laws of war. The fascists not only do not pick up the wounded Red Army soldiers who remained on the battlefield, but finish them off with rifle butts and bayonets, take off their boots and clothes. In the occupied areas, they break into hospitals and, if they find the wounded there, they kill them. But they subject the prisoners to the wildest, inhuman torments.

The fascist German command, in leaflets thrown into the location of our troops, promises mercy to the prisoners. The bloodthirsty beast puts on a mask and tries to lure him into his lair more victims. These leaflets were written by those whose hands are stained with the blood of tortured prisoners. Hitlerite scoundrels, they still dare to lie that a good life awaits the prisoners! Contemptible liars! Not only the stories of people who escaped from the German dungeons, but also the testimonies of the enemies themselves, the documents captured by us in the battles, fully expose the crimes of these executioners.

In the diary of the senior corporal of the 4th battalion of the 40th Infantry Regiment, Richter, found near Roslavl, there is an entry: “July 1. We shot 60 prisoners at the headquarters. The secret order of the German High Command No. 1332-41, captured near Novgorod, states: “Every German soldier must show superiority in relation to prisoners of war. It is necessary to punish for a condescending attitude towards the prisoners. Hardened killers are called to be even more cruel!

The mockery of the fascist monsters over the captured Red Army soldiers is beyond description. They revived medieval torture for prisoners, but even more sophisticated and painful. They break out their arms, cut off their ears, burn out five-pointed stars on their bodies. They force the prisoners to sleep on patches of rotten straw, on human excrement. For several days they do not give them water and food. The German High Command and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture issued an order according to which Soviet prisoners of war should receive worse food than prisoners of other nationalities. This cynical order requires the introduction of an organized hunger regime for captured Red Army soldiers.

The corpse of the Red Army soldier Palahin V.P., tortured by the Nazi villains.

Those whom the Nazis did not have time to immediately kill, they subjected to a slow and painful death. Nothing else can be expected from fascist scoundrels. But from their vile atrocities, our people will draw all the conclusions to the cats. For every life of a Red Army soldier, we will take dozens of lives of Hitlerite scoundrels. Our fighters draw another conclusion: death and battle are better than fascist captivity. Surrender is not only desertion from the battlefield, for which the guilty person will be forever damned by the Soviet people; this is not only an indelible shame for his family, for his children - surrender also means certain, inevitable death.

The fascist bastard will receive in full for all his bloody deeds. Every soldier of the Red Army will spare no effort, will not spare even life itself, in order to crush and destroy the hated enemy.

* * *

This book contains stories of those who escaped from German captivity, documents and other materials from which it is clear what constitutes German captivity.

Each Soviet soldier, having familiarized himself with these materials, will draw the only possible conclusion:

Fight the enemy to the last drop of blood, but do not surrender to him. Better death than fascist captivity!

And in order to put an end to the atrocities and mockeries of the Germans against our people, it is necessary to strictly follow the instructions of Comrade Stalin - to exterminate the German invaders to the last, who made their way to our homeland to enslave it.

Death to the German invaders!

Note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs comrade. V. M. MOLOTOVA On the outrageous atrocities of the German authorities against Soviet prisoners of war

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Com. V. M. Molotov sent a note to all the Ambassadors and Envoys of the countries with which the USSR has diplomatic relations:

“On instructions from the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I have the honor to bring to your attention the following:

The Soviet Government has at its disposal numerous facts testifying to the systematic atrocities and reprisals perpetrated by the German authorities on captured Red Army soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. Recently, these facts have become especially numerous and taken on a particularly egregious character, thereby once again exposing the German military and the German government as a gang of rapists who do not respect any norms of international law, any laws of human morality.

The Soviet Military Command established numerous facts when captured, for the most part Wounded Red Army soldiers are subjected to brutal torture, torture and murder by the German military command and German military units. Captured Red Army soldiers are tortured with red-hot iron, their eyes are gouged out, their legs, arms, ears, noses are cut off, fingers are cut off, their stomachs are cut open, tied to tanks and torn to pieces. Fascist-German officers and soldiers commit such fanaticism and shameful crimes along the entire length of the front, wherever they first appear and wherever soldiers and commanders of the Red Army fall into their hands.

So, for example, in the Ukrainian SSR on the island of Khortytsya, on the Dnieper, after the departure of the German units driven out by the Red Army, the corpses of captured Red Army soldiers tortured by the Germans were found. The prisoners' hands were cut off, their eyes gouged out, and their stomachs ripped open. In the southwestern direction near the village of Repki in Ukraine, after the Germans retreated from their position, the corpses of the battalion commander Bobrov, political instructor Pyatigorsky and two fighters were found, whose hands and feet were nailed to stakes, and five-pointed stars carved with red-hot knives were blackened on the bodies. The faces of the dead were cut and burned. Immediately, nearby, another corpse of a Red Army soldier was found, who had been captured by the Germans the day before, with burnt legs and cut off ears. During the capture of the village of Kholmy (North-Western Front) by our units, mutilated corpses of Red Army soldiers were discovered, and one of them was burned at the stake. It was a Red Army soldier Andrey Osipov from the Kazakh SSR. At the Greigovo station (Ukrainian SSR), German units captured a small group of Red Army soldiers and for several days did not give them any food or water. Several prisoners had their ears cut off, their eyes gouged out, their hands cut off, and then stabbed to death with a bayonet. In July s. y railway station Shumilino German units captured a group of seriously wounded Red Army soldiers and immediately finished them off. In the same month, in the area of ​​​​the city of Borisov, Byelorussian SSR, capturing 70 seriously wounded Red Army soldiers, the Nazis poisoned them all with arsenic. In August, near the town of Zabolotye, the Germans captured 17 seriously wounded Red Army soldiers on the battlefield. For three days they were not given food. All seventeen bleeding Red Army prisoners were then tied to telegraph poles, causing the death of three Red Army prisoners; the rest were saved from certain death by the Soviet tank unit of Senior Lieutenant Rybin who came to the rescue. In the village of Lagutino, near Bryansk, the Germans tied a wounded Red Army soldier to two tanks and tore him apart. In one of the points, west of Bryansk, not far from the collective farm "Red October", 11 charred corpses of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, captured by the Nazis, were found. On the hands and on the back of one of the Red Army soldiers there were traces of torture with red-hot iron.

A number of cases have been recorded when the German command, during attacks, drives captured Red Army soldiers ahead of their advancing columns under the threat of execution. Such cases, in particular, were registered in the area of ​​the state farm "Vybory", the Leningrad region, in the Yelnya region, the Smolensk region, in the Gomel region of the Byelorussian SSR, in the Poltava region of the Ukrainian SSR, and in a number of other places.

Wounded and sick Red Army soldiers who are in hospitals that fell into the hands of the German invaders are systematically subjected to outrageous abuse, torture and brutal torture. There are an infinite number of facts when defenseless sick and wounded Red Army soldiers who are in hospitals are pinned up and shot on the spot by fascist fanatics. So, in M. Rudnya, Smolensk region, fascist-German units seized a Soviet field hospital and shot wounded Red Army soldiers, orderlies and nurses. Wounded fighters Shalamov, Azimov, lieutenant Dileev, 17-year-old nurse Varya Boyko and others died here. Numerous facts of violence and abuse of women's honor are known when nurses and nurses fall into the hands of the Nazi invaders.

The Nazi brigands do not spare even the captured representatives of the medical personnel of the Red Army units. In the area of ​​​​the villages of Kudrovo and Borisovo, Leningrad Region, the head of the divisional medical center, military doctor of the 3rd rank, I.S. Lystoy, was brutally tortured. He was all pierced with bayonets. There were bullet wounds in the head and shoulder. The face bore traces of wild beatings. Somewhat to the side, in the forest, they found the body of the mutilated orderly P. M. Bogachev. In another place, the corpse of the torn driver of the ambulance Gorbunov was lying on the road.

In German camps for Soviet prisoners of war, sick and wounded Red Army soldiers do not receive any medical care and are doomed to die out from typhus, dysentery, pneumonia and other diseases. In the German camps for Soviet prisoners of war, complete arbitrariness reigns, reaching the extreme atrocity. So, in the Porkhov camp, captured Red Army soldiers are kept outdoors around the clock, despite the cold weather. Early in the morning they are raised with blows of sticks and clubs and driven out to work, regardless of their health. During work, the guards, consisting of Finnish and German soldiers, continuously urge the prisoners with whips, and sick and weakened Red Army soldiers are beaten to death with sticks. In the Chernukhinsky camp in the Ukraine, for the slightest violation of the established order, prisoners are systematically beaten with rubber clubs and shot on the spot without any warning. In just one day, September 17, 95 people were shot in the Chernukhin camp.

The same brutal treatment of prisoners of war is practiced by the Germans at transit points, during the transfer of Soviet prisoners of war. In the area with Demyanovka of the Ukrainian SSR, a transit point for prisoners of war is located under the open sky. At this point, the prisoners are given only an insignificant amount of boiled millet. Many prisoners die of exhaustion. During the march of prisoners to their destinations, those who are weakened are shot on the spot. During the transfer of Soviet prisoners of war from Khorol to the village. Semyonovna in Ukraine, the Red Army soldiers were forced to flee all the time. Those who fell from fatigue and exhaustion were immediately shot.

Looting flourishes among the soldiers and officers of the Nazi army. With the onset of winter cold, looting began to take on a mass character, and the Nazi robbers, in pursuit of warm clothes, do not take into account anything. They not only rip off warm clothes and shoes from the dead Soviet soldiers, but literally take off all warm clothes - felt boots, boots, socks, jerseys, padded jackets, earflaps from wounded soldiers, stripping them naked and putting on everything, including warm women's things, taken from the wounded and killed nurses.

Captured Red Army soldiers are starved, left without food for weeks at a time, or given out insignificant portions of rotten bread or rotten potatoes. Not giving food to Soviet prisoners of war, the Nazis force them to rummage through the garbage heaps and look for food leftovers thrown out by German soldiers, or, as was the case in a number of camps, including the camp of Korma in the Byelorussian SSR, they throw corpses to Soviet prisoners of war behind barbed wire dead horses. In the Vitebsk camp in Belarus, the captured Red Army soldiers received almost no food for 4 months. When a group of captured Red Army soldiers submitted a written statement to the German command with a request to give them food to sustain life, a German officer asked who wrote this statement - and 5 Red Army men who confirmed that they wrote this statement were immediately shot. Similar facts of flagrant arbitrariness and atrocities are observed in other camps (Shitkovsky, Demyansky, and others).

In an effort to mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war, the German authorities and the German government established a brutal regime in the camps for Soviet prisoners of war. The German High Command and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture issued a decree establishing worse food for Soviet prisoners of war than for prisoners of war in other countries, both in terms of quality and quantity of products to be issued. The food standards established by this resolution - for example, 600 grams of bread and 400 grams of meat per person per month - doom Soviet prisoners of war to a painful death of starvation. Inhumanly cruelly carrying out its shameful and obviously lawless regime of keeping Soviet prisoners of war, the German government, however, is trying in every possible way to hide from public opinion published on this issue. German government resolutions. Thus, in response to a corresponding request from the Soviet Government, the Swedish Government reported that the information published in the European and American press about the aforementioned decree of the German government was true, but the text of this decree was not published and therefore inaccessible.

The camp regime established for Soviet prisoners of war is a gross and outrageous violation of the most elementary requirements for the maintenance of prisoners of war by international law and, in particular, by the Hague Convention of 1907, recognized by both the Soviet Union and Germany. The German government grossly violates the requirement of the Hague Convention, which obliges the belligerent countries to provide prisoners of war with the same food as their own troops (Article 7 of the Annex to 4 of the Hague Convention of 1907).

In view of the serious lack of human resources in the German army, the Nazis in relation to prisoners of war go to many gross violations of the Hague Convention of 1907, signed by Germany. In their criminal practice of systematic villainous violations of international law, the German military and the German government have reached the point where, by beatings and threats of execution, they force Red Army soldiers to work as drivers on wagons, in cars and vehicles transporting ammunition and other military supplies to the front, as carriers of ammunition to firing positions, etc. All this is done in violation of the express prohibition by the Hague Convention of the use of prisoners in work that has anything to do with military operations.

All these facts testify to the presence of a brutal bloody regime that reigns in German camps for Soviet prisoners of war, the inhuman cruelty of the Nazi authorities and the unbearable suffering experienced by the Red Army soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who were captured by the Nazi bandits.

All these facts are a flagrant violation on the part of the German government of the elementary principles and norms of international law and international agreements signed by the representatives of Germany itself.

Bringing these horrific facts to the attention of all countries with which the USSR has diplomatic relations. The Soviet Government indignantly protests before the whole world against the barbarous acts of violation by the German Government of the elementary norms of international law.

The Soviet Government indignantly protests against the brutal treatment of captured Red Army soldiers by the German authorities, who violate the most elementary norms of human morality, and lays all responsibility for these inhuman actions of the German military and civilian authorities on the criminal Hitlerite government of Germany.

Accept etc.

V. MOLOTOV

The Germans do not stop their bloody atrocities. On the contrary, the worse the affairs of the invaders become, the more they become furious. Wherever our troops push the enemy, the Germans, retreating, commit unparalleled monstrous reprisals against defenseless people.

The formation, where the head of the political department, battalion commissar Petryaev, pursuing the Germans on one of the sectors of the Southern Front, drove the enemy out of the village of Leninovan with a swift blow and occupied it. On the western outskirts of the village, our fighters found the bodies of 32 Red Army soldiers and junior commanders who were shot by the invaders. These victims of the Nazis fell into their clutches during the fighting near Rostov-on-Don. The Germans drove them to Leninovan and forced them to serve vehicles by force of arms. And when, under the onslaught of our troops, the enemy began to roll back, every single captured Red Army soldier was shot. Among the dead, the soldiers found three seriously wounded, whom the Nazis did not have time to finish off. Among those shot by the Nazi geeks are the fighters Gudzenko, Lapkhuov, Mishchenko, Kononenko and others.

This massacre is no exception and no accident. At the Kuternikovo farm in the same area, 40 corpses of captured Red Army soldiers who were shot by the invaders were found. Here is a document that speaks for itself:

"Act. November 24, 1941, we, the undersigned, residents of the village of Glutno, Malo-Vishersky District, Yakovleva Maria Fedorovna, Antonov Alexei Matveevich and Fedorov Petr Ivanovich, testify that during the stay of the German invaders in our village, wounded soldiers of the Red Army were shot.

On November 15, a German officer took 8 wounded soldiers out of Antonov's apartment, where they were (and were captured by the Germans), and were shot on the way to headquarters.

On November 14, in front of the apartment of Yakovleva M.F., wounded Red Army soldiers who were captured were also shot. There were also facts of mockery of the corpses of dead soldiers: sticking a bayonet in the chest and throat.

What we sign:

Signatures: Yakovleva. Antonov, Fedorov

The facts testify that the Germans introduced mass executions of captured Red Army soldiers into the system.

There are many written and unwritten laws that oblige belligerents to treat prisoners humanely. The Germans spit on these laws. Exists human conscience and honor - the Germans have neither conscience nor honor. They try to make up for their military failures with the blood of the prisoners. In the throes of the prisoners, they want to recoup the collapse of their plans. The world has not yet known greater meanness and greater villainy.

Mass executions of prisoners - the last stage of bestiality. The German bastard has reached this stage. With their reprisals against captured Red Army soldiers, the Nazis once again exposed themselves as a gang of rabid thugs by vocation, murderers by profession. With such an enemy there can be only one conversation - a bullet. There is and cannot be any pity for such an enemy, no indulgence.

German executioners tortured a Red Army soldier.

The picture shows the rope with which he was tied. The left eye was gouged out with a bayonet.

The mass executions by the Germans of captured Red Army soldiers again and again remind us why the Germans invaded our land; what fate they planned for everything the Soviet people, to all soldiers of the Red Army. Bloodthirsty and lousy German bastards want to exterminate us. Over the corpses of millions of our people, they are trying to break through to a wild life. But we answer blood with blood, and death with death. Three arshins of land - not a single German will get more from us.

The Germans wanted a war of extermination - they got it. The blood of our people, shed by the Nazis, burns before our eyes. She calls for merciless revenge.

Now, more than ever, we know that German atrocities are an expression of their weakness. All their tactics, all their calculations in the war against the Soviet Union were based on the hope of intimidating us, demoralizing our ranks. But the fascist terror did not weaken, but on the contrary, even brighter kindled the fighting spirit of our people, their will to fight and win. Each soldier of the Red Army drew the only possible conclusion from the atrocities of the Germans: there can be no reconciliation with such an enemy, such an enemy is destroyed.

We will exterminate every single German who has made his way to our land, shedding the blood of our people! Drive the Germans even harder, hit the enemy even harder!

ACT

We, the undersigned, hereby confirm the following: having delivered the wounded to their destination, our military hospital train set off on its return voyage. November 5 this year at 16:50 on the stretch between the Paltsevo junction and Kaftino Kalininskaya station railway the train was attacked from the air by four fascist planes. They bombarded us and machine-gunned us. The planes were flying at low altitude and clearly saw the identification marks of the Red Cross on the roofs of the cars of the military hospital train. The Nazis fired a short machine-gun burst at the train, after which they dropped 4 high-explosive and several incendiary bombs. One high-explosive bomb smashed and set fire to car No. 15 with a direct hit. When the train stopped, we picked up the wounded comrades, jumped out of the cars, slid down the railway embankment and tried to hide in the forest. The Nazis opened machine-gun fire at low level to prevent us from rescuing our injured comrades. The Nazis saw us and hunted for us. For 30 minutes we lay under continuous machine-gun fire. Bullets rained down. There are victims.

1) Pososhnikova Vera Vasilievna - surgeon.

2) Kuznetsova Valentina Dmitrievna - nurse.

3) Prokofieva Faina Ivanovna - conductor of the Leningrad reserve of the October Railway.

4) Barabanova Maria Pavlovna - conductor of the Leningrad reserve of the October Railway.

5) Zvonarev Ivan Platonovich - a wounded Red Army soldier who was on his way to the convalescent battalion.

1) Ovsyannikov Nikita Vasilievich - senior paramedic.

2) Nikolai Grigorievich Chernyshev - head. warehouse of a military hospital train.

3) Konstantinova Anna Grigorievna - nurse.

4) Thin Konstantin Tikhonovich - orderly.

All of the above we saw and experienced personally, about which we wrote this act with our own hands:

Maslennikova V. D. - nurse,

Sukhago S. I. - head of the pharmacy,

Thin K. T. - orderly,

Ovsyannikov N. V. - senior paramedic,

Chernyshev N. G. - head. warehouse of a military hospital train.

GERMANS FILLING OFF THE WOUNDED

ACT

Done 26 November 1941

We, the undersigned, citizens Chekmareva Anna Kuzminishna, Martynova Maria Nikolaevna, Martynova Evdokia Nikolaevna, residents of the village of Krasnogorovka, Slavic-Serbsky district, have drawn up this act on the following atrocities of the fascist army.

On November 23, having occupied our village, the Germans captured a wounded lieutenant of the Red Army, over whom they committed a brutal massacre. The lieutenant was gouged out, his eyes were cut open with an ax in his stomach. Then they doused a man writhing in death throes with kerosene and, as it turned out later, placed a mine under him.

Two hours later, a pioneer of 13 years old, a student of the 5th grade of Sergovskaya 18th, approached the dying lieutenant. high school, Chekmarev Vladimir Ivanovich with the intention of helping him in some way. As soon as the boy touched the lying man, the mine exploded, and the tormented lieutenant and the child flew into the air. Mine fragments also killed two collective farmers who were passing by.

Threatening with weapons, the Germans forced the collective farmer Prudnikova Anna Yakovlevna to cook dinner for them, then, declaring that the cabbage soup was not salted enough, they wounded her with a shot in the head and threw her into the pantry, where she died. The son of a collective farmer, Vasya, who tried to help his mother, was brutally beaten by the Germans. Collective farmer Daria Ivanova, the mother of eight children, was immediately killed for refusing to dance in front of a group of officers, and the Germans threw her corpse into the latrine.

By signing this act, we ask fellow soldiers and commanders to take revenge on the fascist scoundrels for these torments of our people.

Chekmareva, Martynova, Martynova

ACT

Done 26 November 1941

A group of commanders and political workers, after occupying height N. by our units, discovered on it the corpse of an unknown Red Army soldier left by the retreating German units. fingers, and on the left hand from all fingers. As is clear from the examination of the corpse, all these monstrous atrocities were committed by the Germans when the Red Army soldier was still alive. After this painful torture, the fighter was finished off with a shot in the heart.

This is how Hitler's scoundrels deal with Soviet soldiers. For all this they will pay handsomely!

Commanders and political workers:

L. Balitsky, P. Romensky, M. Kulikov

ACT

Done 25 November 1941

We, the undersigned, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper “Defender of the Motherland”, Battalion Commissar P.I.

When we entered the village of Voloshino, Rostov Region, from which the Germans were expelled, with the advanced units of the Red Army, 25 charred human corpses were found on the northern outskirts of the village in a burning barn. Based on the testimonies of local residents, it was established that before leaving, the Germans drove 25 captured Red Army soldiers into the barn, locked them here and set fire to the building. It was not possible to identify the burnt corpses.

We have drawn up a real act about this atrocity of the Germans.

Battalion Commissar P. Sologub

Senior political officer M. Yeletsky

Senior Lieutenant N. Babenko

Crazed fascist predators criminally violate international law towards wounded soldiers. The wounded Red Army soldier Zudin, repulsed by our troops from fascist captivity, told the following. Together with the Red Army soldier Fedorov, he was captured by the Germans in a field infirmary. After refusing to answer the officer's questions about the location of the Red Army units, the wounded Red Army soldiers were beaten and subjected to brutal torture.

Red Army soldier Fedorov was personally tortured by an officer. With a bayonet heated on fire, he burned Fedorov's hands, stabbed him in the chest and in the back. Failing to get an answer, the fascist shot Fedorov. Zudin was tortured by an officer from the assault squad. He cut off several fingers on his hand, pierced the palm of his right hand and gouged out his eye.

* * *

A few kilometers from the Free Labor collective farm, the Nazis captured a field infirmary, in which there were 23 seriously wounded Red Army soldiers. Attack aircraft began to interrogate the Red Army, trying to get information about the location and firepower of the units. Soviet army. Having failed to achieve their goal, the brutalized fascists mocked the wounded for two hours, tore off the bandages from the wounds, and then the wounded soldiers were hung on telegraph poles along the village street.

* * *

In the area of ​​​​the village of M., German tankers captured 18 wounded Red Army soldiers. The Nazis dragged the wounded into the ravine, knocked out their teeth with rifle butts, and then gouged out their eyes with bayonets. Retreating from the city of K., the Germans burned 15 wounded Red Army soldiers and one lieutenant in a bathhouse. Sick and wounded Red Army soldiers are doomed by the Nazis to starvation. The order for the 14th German Infantry Regiment prescribes: "Under no circumstances should full products be given to prisoners of war."

* * *

In the village of P., 16 beheaded corpses of Red Army soldiers and local residents were found. All the heads of the dead were found 220 meters from the corpses. Two old collective farmers from this village told the Red Army soldiers: “As soon as the Nazis jumped into the village, they immediately began to rob. There was vodka in the cooperative. The Germans got drunk, and then began to divide the loot and fought. In the evening, on the orders of the officer, the soldiers pulled the wounded Red Army soldiers out of the hut and began to beat them, and then they cut off their heads. At night, drunken soldiers broke into the huts, seized and raped women. Men who stood up for their wives and daughters were killed.”

* * *

During the battles for the village of Generalskoye (near Rostov-on-Don), a group of wounded Red Army soldiers and commanders were taken prisoner by the Nazis. The bloody feast, which the occupiers arranged over them, defies description. One wounded Red Army soldier was doused with gasoline and burned alive, the second was cut into four parts with a sapper's shovel, the third, cut with knives, was stripped naked and thrown out into the cold under the guard of sentries. The rest of the prisoners were taken out of the village by the Germans and shot with explosive bullets.

The German army covered itself with shame for centuries. We will exact from her for everything - and for the tears of our mothers and children, and for the death of our fathers and brothers, and for the desecrated honor of our wives and sisters, and for the destroyed cities and villages. Retribution will be merciless, it is not far off.

IN GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Residents who escaped from the areas temporarily occupied by the Germans talk about the terrible tortures that the Nazis inflict on captured Red Army soldiers. In the concentration camp organized by the Germans in the city of D., not only Red Army soldiers are kept, but also the entire male local population aged 16 to 60 years. By special order of the German command, he was also declared a prisoner of war. The concentration camp in this city was created on a small area surrounded by barbed wire. All prisoners of war are kept in dirty, cold sheds. There are no latrines in these sheds, the roofs are leaking. The Red Army soldiers lie on the bare ground. Overcoats, boots, and many tunics were taken away by the Germans. The prisoners are fed once a day with a thin soup of borage leaves; they don't give bread. Those who are dissatisfied with this regime are severely beaten by the Germans, and they are shot for trying to escape.

In the village of Rostovskoye, the Germans captured five seriously wounded Red Army soldiers. Courageous Soviet patriots, despite brutal torture, did not give any evidence to the Nazis. Then the Nazis hanged the Red Army. One of them was hung by the leg. In the Minsk POW camp, several dozen prisoners die every day from starvation and abuse. In the city of Korma, wounded Red Army soldiers imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp are kept in a field under the open sky. The Germans occasionally throw the corpses of dead horses over the barbed wire. The prisoners do not receive any writing. Local residents tried to give bread and apples to the prisoners, then the Nazis opened fire on them from machine guns. Three women were killed. The Nazis delivered five wounded Red Army prisoners to the village of Vasilievka. Having gathered the peasants, the fascist officer delivered a speech in which he declared that he was releasing the captured Red Army soldiers to freedom. A few days later, the partisans found, 9 kilometers from Vasilyevka, the brutally mutilated corpses of Red Army soldiers - the victims of this heinous fascist staging.

* * *

Soviet tankers V. Kul, I. Knyazev and N. Kostenko managed to escape from Nazi captivity. Here is what our fighters told about the fascist prisoner of war camp, in which they stayed for 12 days: “The camp was created by the Germans in a wasteland and surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire. In this camp, along with a small number of Red Army soldiers, there are men and teenagers, starting from 15-16 years old, who did not have time to leave the areas occupied by the Germans with the Red Army. The Germans took away warm clothes from all Soviet citizens driven here, and even tunics from captured Red Army soldiers. People walk around the camp like shadows, barely moving their legs from hunger. The Germans bring water once a day. When everyone rushes to the barrels of water, the Nazis begin to shoot. Every day in the camp 15-20 people are shot and die of starvation and disease.”

Red Army scouts vols. Bragin, Tersky and Ivanov, tortured to death by Nazi bandits.

* * *

Red Army soldiers Nikitin, Taikin and Maksimov, who escaped from fascist captivity, spoke about the brutal treatment of captured fighters and commanders of the Red Army by the Nazi scoundrels.

“We, a small group of Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoner,” they said, “the German soldiers immediately undressed, took off their sheepskin coats, gloves, boots and drove barefoot through the snow to a minefield. The mines killed 6 fighters.

* * *

Fled from the city of Soltsy, captured by the Germans, gr. Zhitnikova said: “I saw how the Nazis led 8 wounded and exhausted Red Army soldiers along the road. The Germans pushed them in the back with bayonets and beat them with rifle butts. Seeing that the prisoners could not go further, the monsters shot them right there on the road.

Zhitnikova, who was for some time with other peaceful Soviet citizens in the German camp "for prisoners of war" in the village of Kostun, says further:

“The Germans only gave us a few frozen potatoes a day. They were forced to work from early morning until late at night. Once, during a roll call, a woman with a child turned to an officer with a request to release her from work. The officer allowed her to leave the camp. But before she had time to take a few steps, the fascist shot her in the back and killed her.”

During offensive operations on the Southern Front, a number of documents from the German command fell into our hands.

Here is the order for the 76th German Infantry Division “No. 665/4P secr. October 11". In paragraph 6, which refers to the procedure for clearing objects lying ahead of the advancing German units, we read: "It is necessary to use for work associated with a danger to life, prisoners and individuals from the local population."

“The Supreme Commander of the Army, Field Marshal Rundstedt, ordered that out of hostilities, in order to preserve German blood, the search for mines and the clearance of minefields should be carried out by Russian prisoners of war. This also applies to German mines.

Truly, there is no limit to the black atrocities of the Nazis. We can have one answer to the German scoundrels and scoundrels - the ruthless extermination of them all to the last.

---

"UMAN PIT" The story of the senior political instructor S. Evorsky

Having fallen into the hands of the Germans after being wounded in battle, I was thrown into a concentration camp near the town of Golovanevskoye. I stayed here for about three weeks, having experienced, together with other prisoners, residents of the occupied regions and prisoners, all conceivable and inconceivable human torments. The Nazis excel in bullying the Soviet people as best they can.

During the first four days we were not allowed to drink or eat. Only on the fifth day they brought us two tablespoons of a stinking brew of concentrates doused with kerosene. The people began to swell and die from this muck, 30–40 people died daily.

No medical assistance was provided, people rotted alive. The wounded cleaned the worms from the wounds with spoons. Thus, the anti-aircraft gunner, political instructor Tkachenko, and my neighbor, the Red Army soldier Afanasiev, died in terrible agony. Nurse Nina Fastovets, who was among us, asked the camp commandant for some bandages to bandage the wounded. For this, she was immediately beaten with sticks until she lost consciousness. A civil doctor, an old man, imprisoned with us, whose name I do not remember, tried to help the wounded in any way he could. Upon learning of this, the commandant called him into the yard and began to beat him with a stick.

Dance, Russian, - the commandant ordered, beating the 62-year-old doctor. The old man did not want to do this, and the beating intensified. Finally, he could not stand it and began to dance under the blows. After that, he was forced to stand all day, without moving, in the sun.

The population of the town of Golovanevskoye tried to help us. Honey and fruits were thrown to us through wire fences, but the Germans took it all away.

Under the most impossible conditions, Soviet people retained their dignity and cared for each other. From our underwear we made bandages, with which at night, furtively from the Nazis, we began to bandage the wounded.

Nineteen days later I was taken to another camp. I looked back for the last time, saying goodbye to my comrades, and saw many grave mounds around. Few of us survived, in each grave lay 12-15 corpses of Soviet people, tortured here by fascist executioners.

The column was driven to the new camp non-stop, lagging guards were shot on the spot. On the way, the Nazis came up with a bloody fun for themselves: while one ordered to build in fours, the other ordered to build in six; Naturally, because of this, a crowd began, and for "failure to comply" with the order, the bastards immediately launched machine guns. So during the day's march to Uman, 64 of our comrades were brutally killed.

An even more terrible concentration camp turned out to be in Uman. This camp is known in all the occupied regions of Ukraine under the name "Uman Pit". We were driven into a huge clay quarry with a diameter of about three hundred meters. The sheer walls of this quarry, up to fifteen meters high, were guarded by a reinforced convoy, which opened indiscriminate firing from machine guns at the slightest movement in the pit.

There were several thousand prisoners from the captured Red Army soldiers and the civilian population, many railway workers from near Akkerman. They controlled us by radio. Each morning a loudspeaker called out an order to one group to line up against wall number one, another to line up against wall number two, number three, and number four. Wall number two often meant death; near it, those who were not liked by the guards were shot for no reason.

We starved here even more than in Golovanevsky. Those who died of starvation were buried right there in the pit; there were so many dead that we did not have time to bury them, and there was nothing to bury. In order to somehow keep warm, some of us dug holes in the wall with our hands. The wall collapsed and buried 36 people under it.

Once the Nazis started a kind of performance. A wounded horse was thrown down to the hungry people. When we began to cut it, a photographer appeared upstairs and captured it on film. Obviously, in this way another German fake was created, distorting some facts. Too many people gathered near the horse, the photographer was unhappy with the shot, but the machine gunner helped him and killed several people.

On the same day, the same photographer staged "Hitler's mercy" in the pit. Among us was Senior Lieutenant Novikov, who had eleven wounds. Novikov was completely undressed, the Nazis bandaged his wounds in front of the lens of the apparatus and put on a clean shirt. However, as soon as the photographer finished his work, this shirt was taken from Novikov, all bandages were torn from his wounds and brutally beaten.

The Nazis had another favorite pastime - to lower dogs into the pit and set them on us. They gnawed through the hands and feet of more than one person. Such torture was also practiced: the wounded were laid on the ground and a bucket of water was poured into him through a watering can. I spent only a few days in the Uman Pit, but I will never forget what I experienced here.

From Uman they drove me to Vinnitsa. However, I had to endure another test along the way. At the transit point, Gaisin had the same thing as in the first two camps, only instead of sticks, the executioners used rubber clubs.

In Gysin I managed to escape. When in the nearest village I told the peasants that I had escaped from the "Uman Pit", they looked at me like I was at the resurrected dead. The peasants treated me with exceptional cordiality, changed my clothes, fed me, and showed me the way.

For more than a month and a half I was in the clutches of the Germans, and every day I thought again and again that Nazi captivity was worse than death. Before, I simply would not have believed that such atrocities as the Germans do against the Soviet people are possible. But now I saw it with my own eyes, I experienced this torment on myself. So far, my wounds have not healed. But now I am surrounded by comrades, I am with my friends, they take care of me, and my strength is gradually restored.

Now I want only one thing - to heal my wounds as soon as possible! Then I will fully pay for everything with the fascist scoundrels. I will avenge them for the blood and suffering of our people as long as my heart beats, I will exterminate them mercilessly, like mad dogs, like the most monstrous reptiles that there is only on earth.

WILD Beasts Sergeant Koversun's story

Our company broke into the location of the enemy. The fight was stubborn. We went on the counterattack. In the rear of the battle, together with several fighters operating under the command of Lieutenant Krupeev, I climbed far and broke away from my own.

While moving through the forest, we were suddenly attacked by the enemy. They resisted stubbornly, but there were many times more Nazis than us. Our forces eventually dried up, there were no cartridges. We were surrounded and encircled. A monstrous massacre began. Lieutenant Krupeev was subjected to barbaric torture. They turned his head, tore out his hands and continued desecration of the corpse. The Red Army soldier Shchupaev was brutally tortured. He was tortured, his heels were stabbed with bayonets, they spat in his face, and he was beaten. Then they smashed his skull with a rifle butt.

Wounded Red Army soldiers brutally tortured by the Nazi barbarians in the city of Rostov-on-Don.

The Nazis were like beasts that drank human blood. The executioners acted slowly and tried to inflict the greatest suffering on their victims.

How I survived, I don't know. I was tortured, stabbed with a bayonet, beaten with a rifle butt. Apparently, I lost consciousness, and the Nazis thought I was dead. That alone saved me. I woke up at night. The bodies of my comrades, mutilated beyond recognition, lay next to me. Gathering the last remnants of my strength, I began to crawl forward. My arms and legs hurt incredibly. Blood oozed from wounds. I crawled, exerting all my will.

I knew that mine were somewhere nearby, and this encouraged me. But will I crawl to them, will I have enough strength? It seemed to me that I was moving for a long, infinitely long time. Finally, I heard a native voice.

Who goes? - asked the sentry.

These were my native regiment, my dear comrades.

The next morning, lying on the grass, all bandaged, I told the soldiers and commanders about what I had seen and experienced. With what malice their eyes lit up, how their hands clenched from hatred for the enemy. Barbarians will not leave, from our revenge: For every life of a Soviet soldier, fascist reptiles will pay with dozens of lives.

IN THE PAWS OF GERMAN OFFICERS The story of the deputy political instructor Petrosyan

The soldiers and commanders of one of the regiments of the order-bearing division, having knocked out the Germans from the occupied line, picked up the tormented deputy political instructor Comrade here. A. A. Petrosyan. Petrosyan's cheeks were carved with five-pointed stars, his chest and back were cut with a razor blade. There are many bruises and abrasions on the body, several bullet wounds.

After he was given health care and Comrade Petrosyan rested a little, he told the following:

“In the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe town of N., the enemy brought his reserves into battle. The situation was difficult and tense.

It was very difficult to carry the wounded from the battlefield. The command instructed me to evacuate the wounded soldiers and commanders at all costs.

When I got close to one wounded man to take him to a safe place, two men in the form of the Red Army crawled up to me - one with the insignia of a senior lieutenant, the other - foremen. Suddenly they grabbed my hands, covered my mouth and started beating me. They were disguised Germans.

I resisted for a long time, but two overpowered me. After beating me, they took away a revolver, grenades, a bag with bottles. Then they dragged me into the forest, dragged me into some kind of dugout. It was noisy in here. The Germans were talking - men and women.

This whole half-drunk company jumped on me. At first they tied my hands, then they began to search my pockets.

Soon another officer entered the dugout. He also ransacked my pockets and punched me in the face several times. Having contrived, I bit the villain's ear. The officer groaned, whirled, grabbed the razor blade and in a rage stabbed me ten times in the chest with the blade. At the sight of blood, all the scoundrels were in indescribable delight. They laughed and shouted loudly:

Here's to you, young commissar!

After that, they began to search me. In the small pocket of their tunic they found an asterisk. The officer grabbed her and said something to the women. Then they put this star on my right cheek and began to carve the outline of the star into the skin.

Despite the pain, I didn't say a single word. Then the officer began to carve an asterisk on his left cheek as well.

At that moment, a second officer entered the dugout.

In rank, he was older than all those present. He came up to me and offered me a cigarette. I refused.

The officer showed me some photographs. He wanted to convince me that the people filmed on them voluntarily surrendered to the Germans.

It's a lie, I replied.

They wanted to force me to sign a piece of paper entitled "Appeal to Russian soldiers." I refused, stating:

I will die, but I will never betray my Motherland!

The officer, keeping outward composure, continued the conversation. Suddenly, as if by chance, he asked the number of our unit and its location.

I didn't answer.

Then the officer got up, walked around the dugout and said curtly:

We decided to shoot you?

The Germans ran up to me and tore off my clothes. Taking off my underwear, they started beating me, pulling hair out of my chest.

His head was spinning from unbearable pain. I fell. After all the bullying, the enemies took me outside. Here, near the dugout, two tortured Red Army soldiers lay. Their faces were cut with knives.

Dig a grave for three! shouted a German corporal to me.

I took a shovel and started digging.

Two officers and a corporal watched the work. They took grenades and fuel bottles taken from me to the grave.

Soon a motorcycle pulled up. It was probably a contact from headquarters. He called the officers aside and handed something to them.

The corporal guarding me began to listen to the conversation.

At that moment, I had the idea to kill the corporal who was guarding me. Swinging, I hit him on the head with a shovel. The fascist fell without a single sound. Immediately I grabbed grenades, a bag of bottles. He threw a bunch of grenades at the officer, and one grenade into the trench.

There was a shot. The bullet hit me in the leg, the second hit my head. It turned out that one of the officers was still alive. But still I managed to pounce on the bandit and strangle him. Finally, I crawled to the front line. My strength changed, blood flowed down my face.

Near the German defense line, I noticed two German soldiers. They stood in my way. I could no longer turn, I did not have enough strength. Gathering all my energy, I got up and instantly threw a bottle of fuel at the Nazis. Sticky burning liquid fell on German grenades. There was a terrible explosion. I was also wounded by fragments of grenades.

What happened next, I don't remember. I woke up already in the arms of the Red Army soldiers and commanders.

HITLER ATTACK ON THE HOSPITAL The story of a military doctor of the 3rd rank Ivanchenko

I happened to see a lot of atrocities of the German fascists, from which the blood runs cold. At the station S., the Nazis burned down a hospital, in the town of Rudnya they destroyed an orphanage with bombs. And now I still have before my eyes the corpses of seventy women and children, covered in blood, disfigured, with their arms torn off. What the German executioners did to the wounded Red Army soldiers of our unit is indescribable.

The battle began at 5 o'clock in the morning. The Pasha unit, despite heavy enemy fire, stubbornly defended its positions near the village of I. Having no room for a hospital, we transported the wounded to the edge of the forest, and I began the operation of a soldier wounded by an explosive bullet. I was helped by one of the nurses, seventeen-year-old Varya Boyko.

Suddenly, a company of Germans made their way to the edge of the forest and opened fire on the hospital from rifles and machine guns. The bullets mowed down the wounded who raised their heads from the wagons. "Here is a spital, spital!" I shouted loudly. The fascist scoundrels distinctly heard my voice, they clearly saw that it was a hospital, but they did not think to stop the frantic shooting.

Surrounding the wagons, the Germans rushed to search the wounded, turned out their pockets, pulled out money, watches, handkerchiefs - everything that came across. When the soldiers finished the robbery, the officer ordered the wounded to rise and put their hands on their heads. Wounded in the arm, the Red Army soldier Shalamov, whom I had performed an operation just an hour before, could not, of course, raise his arms. A bespectacled fascist in the uniform of an officer with a red cross on his collar fired point-blank at Shalamov. The bullet pierced his shoulder, blood flooded the entire tunic. Immediately I ran up to the fighter and began to bandage him. A German paramedic hit me with a rifle butt.

You are a paramedic! I cried out in German, beside myself with indignation. - Why are you fighting with the wounded?

Instead of answering, he hit me with the butt once more, and I fell.

To my glorious assistant, nurse Varya Boyko, two soldiers jumped up. They searched her and took her to the paramedic. He asked something. The little nurse calmly looked into the face of the enemy, twisted with anger, and remained silent. The paramedic repeated the question: which of the wounded commanders. The girl shook her head. Then the German, swearing disgustingly, put his rifle to her chest. The girl parted her lips and spat in the scoundrel's face. A shot rang out immediately. Thus, a wonderful Soviet patriot died, whose bright image I will forever keep in my memory.

Hitler's bastard in the rank of paramedic continued to mock wounded soldiers and commanders. He went from wagon to wagon and beat the wounded with his butt, trying to please the most painful place. With a butt blow, he crushed the skull of Lieutenant Dileev, who was seriously wounded in the head. Lying next to Dileev, the Red Army soldier Azimov tried to help the lieutenant. The paramedic-executioner shot a Red Army soldier point-blank.

I don’t know how much longer the savage massacre of the Nazi thugs over the wounded would have continued, but then a cheer was heard not far away. A group of our fighters came to the rescue of the hospital. The Nazis opened fire with machine guns and mortars, but they did not have to shoot for a long time. Molchanov, who jumped out of the bushes, fell on the mortar, snatched the bayonet from him and stuck him in the back. With the same bayonet, the brave rider rushed at the officer and stabbed him. Seeing that the officer had been killed, the Germans hastily raised their hands. Raised his hands and paramedic-executioner. He fell to his knees and begged for mercy. He was pathetic and vile at that moment - a murderer and a coward.

My heart is filled with anger and rage every time I remember this monstrous massacre by German savages over wounded Red Army soldiers and commanders. Revenge, merciless revenge on the hated enemy!

HUNGRY, TORTURED AND MISTERED The story of the Red Army soldier Stepan Sidorkin

During the battle near the village of Kamenka, I was wounded in the chest, and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw Germans around me. They doused me with water, brought burning matches to my body. In this way, the fascist bandits bring to life the wounded Red Army soldiers who fell into their clutches.

The German officer asked me something in his own language. Understanding nothing, I remained silent. Then, at a sign from the officer, two soldiers grabbed my hands and began to twist them. The officer who was watching this wild scene was shouting some curses.

Forces left me, terrible pain permeated the body. But I was determined not to say anything. Torture began: they beat me with rifle butts on my back, turned me over and kicked me in the stomach with boots. Then one Nazi hit me with something heavy on the head, and I again fell into oblivion.

I woke up all wet: apparently, the Nazis again poured water. Two soldiers dragged me along the ground. My head, chest, back, arms ached. Through the darkness, I could make out the figures of several of our fighters. Some of them groaned from wounds and beatings, others lay without moving; then I found out that they had already died a long time ago, but they were not buried.

So we lay on the damp ground for half a day. We were not given food or water. Exhausted, we walked slowly, often stumbling. The soldiers urged us on with gun butts and bayonets.

An officer was standing at the entrance to the hut. He offered us tea, bread, bacon - good stuff stolen from our collective farmers. I was terribly hungry and the sight of the food made my head spin. But, having overcome myself, I refused the fascist breakfast. My comrades also refused it. Gad wanted to buy us for a piece of bread and find out the information he needed. But he miscalculated: you cannot bribe a Soviet person.

The officer said venomously "Gut" and waved his hand. We were again taken to the shed, starved, not even given a sip of water. One seriously wounded was dying and in his delirium he asked all the time: "Drink, drink, drink." The sentry furiously opened the door and kicked the dying man twice in the face with his boot. Five minutes later he died. During the day, the sun was very hot, it was difficult to breathe in the shed from the heat and the smell of the decomposing bodies of the dead, which were still not removed by anyone.

The second day we lay without dressings, water and food. In the evening, the Germans began to take the prisoners one by one. The fighters returned bloodied, with swollen faces, with broken teeth, and said that the Nazis put food in front of them and, not allowing them to touch it, interrogated them. But no one said a word to the bandits, and now, venting their anger, the Nazis began to beat the wounded with anything.

At night, they were again dragged out of the barn and immediately killed. We heard muffled blows, groans, angry cries of enemies. At dawn, an officer entered the saran and, turning to the soldier, said: “Russ wants to eat. Let's feed." The soldier began to stab us with a bayonet.

Having mocked enough, the soldier led us out, the last ten Red Army soldiers left alive, and drove us into a field where oats grew. This is where I came up with an escape plan. Falling into the oats, I pretended to eat it, while I myself began to crawl from place to place. So I got to the stream, quenched my thirst and ran into the forest. The next day I was already among my own.

I will never forget the bloody atrocities of the Nazis. For the blood of my comrades, for the execution of the wounded, for everything, the Nazi pack will receive in full.

THE WHOLE WORLD SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE ANIMALS OF THE GERMANS Letter from Senior Sergeant Zharkov

The staff of the Chusovoy Metallurgical Plant received a letter from the N-sky hospital from a former worker of the plant, senior sergeant V.N. Zharkov.

“I convey to the entire working team the fighting Red Army greetings,” writes Comrade. Zharkov. - I had the good fortune to fight with a brazen enemy with weapons in my hands on the front lines, to defend our happy Motherland. In the battles of July 17 and 18, I received a wound in the eye and hands. The injury knocked me out. I was placed in a field hospital located on the edge of a forest not far from the front line. On the evening of July 19, a separate enemy motorized column broke through our defense line and cut off the field hospital from the main ones. We found ourselves involuntarily behind enemy lines. As I remember now, with what calmness our fighters, the commanders, met the German officers who appeared in the hospital. The German officer offered all the wounded soldiers to rise in pure Russian. The seriously wounded were forcibly and rudely lifted and put on their beds. Officers selected commanders and political workers, communists and Komsomol members into a separate group and began to beat them mercilessly with gun butts. Not a single groan was emitted by these heroes. They boldly looked into the eyes of death. After the torture, they were taken out of the hospital and shot. From the rest of the patients, the officers tried to obtain information about the location, number and armament of our units. But unsuccessfully. Not one uttered a word. Then the officers offered to interrogate each one separately. According to the list of all the wounded, one by one, they began to call to the officer.

After some time, they called me to the officer and offered me vodka, but I categorically refused to drink. The officer, furious, jumped up to me, pulled out a pistol, pointed it at me and offered to tell me everything I know. I was silent. The officer was furious. Then he hit me in the teeth with the butt of a pistol and I passed out. I woke up in a barn with the idea of ​​escaping this hell of torture. There is a German sentry by the barn. I make an escape plan. From the behavior of the sentry one could see that he was calm for us: where the wounded, beaten, barely alive, bleeding people would run! I ask the sentry to take me to the restroom. The sentry casually pointed to the latrine, located a few dozen paces from the barn. The back wall was filled with hastily old boards. With a sharp blow of the boot I beat off several boards and get out. The sentry does not see. I hide in the rye and run towards the forest. A few minutes passed, all was quiet. Here is the forest, ahead of freedom. I hear a noise rise up from behind and a single shot rang out. My escape is open. I strain my last strength to run to the forest. Here is the fringe. Behind me, a German soldier catches up with me and offers to stop. I feel that I have no more strength to run, and I fall to the ground. A few meters away from me, two people suddenly rush at a German soldier. One moment - and the dead soldier lies on the ground from the blow of a knife. These were two collective farmers, they watched my flight and helped me in time. With their help, I hid in the forest.

For 16 days I was behind enemy lines. During the day he lay in the forest, and at night he moved to his own. Collective farmers hid me for two days in a village occupied by the Germans. Finally, I got to mine.

In these 16 days I saw a lot. German beasts in every village terribly crack down on civilians. Executions, beatings of civilians, violence against girls are a common occurrence. The Germans take clean food and clothes from the civilian population. The entire population meets the fascist invaders with hatred and burning malice. The entire male population, even the elderly, hides in the forest, creating partisan detachments. The whole world should know about the atrocities of the German fascists.

I call on you, dear comrades, to selfless, heroic work at your plant.”

---

The fight was quiet. The junior commander was wounded in the leg. Overcoming hellish pain, he crawled along the snow-covered hollow to his own. On the white cover of the earth there was a blood dotted line of his footprint. Suddenly, a group of German soldiers jumped out of the woods. The Nazis, seeing the wounded commander, attacked him from all sides.

So the junior commander was captured. He was dragged to the headquarters of the enemy unit. On the porch of the hut stood a young officer with puffy cheeks blue in the cold. Exhausted from the loss of blood, the junior commander barely climbed the steps of the porch. The officer punched the commander in the back with all his might and muttered, addressing the nearby officers:

Why are they being interrogated? They keep their mouths shut anyway. Isn't it better to hang them!

The commander was taken out of the fascist headquarters in a fainting state. His face was covered in bruises and bruises. Five minutes later he was hanged from a roadside aspen. The next day, several officers staged a terrible shooting range. The hanged man was their target. From a distance of 300 meters they shot at the dead man.

All this was told by a soldier of the 11th company of the 8th German motorized regiment Alfons Kunkel, who defected to our side. Every day of the war by the German invaders brings new evidence that the fascist military clique has trampled all human laws into the mud. She, of course, does not comply with international rules for the detention of prisoners of war. Anyone who has been taken prisoner by the Germans is outside any law. Lieutenant Khudenko penetrated behind enemy lines for reconnaissance purposes. He witnessed a terrible picture. A group of captured Red Army soldiers was led along the road. They walked half naked, stepping bare feet over the snow. The German escorts put on the fighters' padded jackets, their boots and earflaps. One of the Red Army men bent down and took a handful of snow. Apparently he was thirsty. He couldn't satisfy her. A shot rang out, and the Red Army soldier fell. The German officer kicked his lifeless body and slowly holstered his pistol.

With particular frenzy, the Germans finish off the wounded soldiers. Our truck stopped two kilometers south of the village of Akimovka. She followed to the regimental hospital, but the engine stalled on the way. There were four wounded soldiers in the car. They were accompanied by a girl - lekpom. A group of German machine gunners who appeared on the road surrounded the car.

With tears in their eyes, the residents of Akimovka spoke about the fate of those who were in the truck. The girl was stripped naked by the Germans, raped and killed. Four fascists opened the side of the car, climbed into it and, in front of the soldiers, began to cast lots - who should shoot which prisoner. This activity seemed to amuse them greatly. One accused the other of throwing the wrong coin, and they continued their sinister "game" from the beginning.

The wounded looked at the Germans, still not understanding what awaited them. Finally, having distributed the victims, the Germans opened fire. For a moment the car was covered with smoke, and when it cleared, a monstrous spectacle opened up.

The corpses of the dead were thrown to the ground, and four Germans, stained with blood spattered from the wounds of the fighters, stood in the truck, smiling smugly. They posed. The fifth submachine gunner pointed the lens of a small camera at them. The killers were in a hurry to "perpetuate" their crime. They wanted to get a memory card about Soviet country. But our memory will preserve in the minds of the people the wild scenes of fascist atrocities against prisoners better than any photograph. We won't forget anything!

We will not forget that frosty day when a group of German motorcyclists, jumping out of the woods, suddenly cut the path of an ambulance moving along the road between the village of Podvysokoye and their farm. Shevchenko. The wounded lying in it shared the fate of their brothers who died near the village of Akimovka.

The corpse of the deputy political officer of the 7th company, Komsomol member Vasily Igumenov, who was burned alive by the Nazis.

The subtle sadistic methods used by the fascists to slaughter our people evoke horror and indignation that can only be measured by the strength of our hatred for the villains. Motorcyclists, having jumped off their cars and shivering shiveringly from one foot to the other, turned to the wounded soldiers in broken Russian. One of the fascists said:

Kalt, that is cold! Ein moment - we will warm up a little!

The motorcyclists doused the ambulance with gasoline and set it on fire. The flame grew stronger and stronger. The car was on fire along with the fighters. Motorcyclists surrounded her. Looking at this living fire, they exchanged happy exclamations and stretched out their stiff hands to the flame.

German soldiers and officers are systematically implementing the program and instructions of the leaders of the Hitlerite Party and the fascist command, the program and instructions of people who have lost their human appearance and fallen to the level of wild animals. These barbarians, deprived of conscience and honor, with the morality of animals, torment captured and wounded Red Army soldiers.

One of these two-legged animals, Corporal Helmut Glunk, wrote in his diary: “Three prisoners. They are beaten to death. You can't think it's cruel. That's the command's order. We do it not without pleasure.” Another entry: “There is no mercy for the Russians. In general, the war with them took on a completely different look. Thus, capture is eliminated. But if this happens, then I don’t envy them.”

We will not forget these cynical lines written by the hand of the executioner. Let every soldier of the Red Army know that fascist captivity is a dungeon, it is worse than death. The duty of our fighters is to exterminate the bloody fascist dogs, the enemies of the Russian people.

Regimental Commissar M. Burtsov

Near the village of Medved, near the station Gorodishche, the Nazis set up a prisoner of war camp. A large pasture was surrounded by barbed wire, machine guns were placed at the corners - they are aimed at the camp. Along the wire with rifles at the ready go sentries.

Bare ground - this is the "camp". When the prisoners, in order to somehow hide from the cold and bad weather, began to dig their minks in the ground, cover them with grass and straw, and some tried to build something like a canopy from branches and boards, a drunken officer appeared and, threatening with a revolver, scattered everything branches, forced to dig holes.

You will live like this, Russian pig!

A little below the latrine, a pit was dug in which swamp water collects, sewage flows down here in dirty streams. From this pit, the Germans force prisoners to take rotten, contaminated water for drinking.

At first, no food is given at all.

If you want to eat, change things, russ! - the bandits mockingly offer.

And when the prisoners pull off the last tunics from their shoulders (boots are taken away immediately, no one has any watches left, and, of course, money), they take them away, beat them and say:

Yeah, so you could do without it, but why did you keep it?

A few days later, all arrivals are driven out to work. Soldiers walk through the camp and with blows of rifle butts, bayonet thrusts, they force them to line up. Those who are driven to work will receive a bowl of some kind of green vodka and a few potatoes a day. And work from dawn to dusk. Barefoot, half-dressed, emaciated people drag stones and logs onto the roads, dig the ground, and carry loads. Behind each party are overseers armed with whips and simple sticks. They beat those who stagger from fatigue, drive like pack animals, and simply shoot the fallen, exhausted.

It's not just slavery. The world has not yet seen such abuse, not only of people - of cattle!

When one prisoner picked up a leaflet lying near the camp, in which German command paints a "well-fed and comfortable life" in captivity, and handed it to the guard officer, the Nazi knocked the unfortunate man down and began to trample with his boots. That is the price of their false words!

Groups of drunken officers often come behind the wire to “have fun”. It is impossible to convey on paper what these beasts are doing to defenseless people.

Not a day goes by without a few prisoners escaping from the camp, in spite of the brutal supervision. Those caught are threatened with death on the spot, those who remain are subject to total flogging, those suspected of sympathy are shot, but still death is better than fascist captivity.

DON'T FORGET, DON'T FORGIVE!

The history of wars has not yet known examples of such a senseless thirst for murder, which is characteristic of fascist cannibals. Even the wild hordes of Tamerlane, famous for their ferocity, are far from the frenzied bestiality of the Nazi executioners.

The bestial hatred of the Nazis for the captured Red Army soldiers is especially great. Life has long established the unshakable law of war: the wounded enemy is inviolable, and the dead deserve respect. Fascism cynically rejected these regulations: a wounded enemy deserves torture, a dead one deserves disgrace, and a healthy one, even if he is disarmed three times, deserves both torture and shame. These are the rules of the fascist scoundrels. Now there is no need to talk about individual cases atrocities. Documents fell into the hands of the Soviet command, indicating that the torture and killing of captured Red Army soldiers is a system in the fascist troops established by official orders.

The order for the rear of the 16th German Army obliges wounded prisoners to be treated in the same way as healthy ones. One of the last orders of the main German headquarters, notifying the army of the imminent sending of instructions regarding the maintenance of prisoners, recommends that for the time being they be fed on the basis of "amateur". If he wants to eat, let him get food himself. This is what Hitler's order means "treat wounded prisoners in the same way as healthy ones." But sitting behind barbed wire, it goes without saying, nothing can be obtained.

Five Red Army soldiers emerged from the deep German rear, fighting side by side with the partisans for 52 days. Here's what they say.

On the highway, under heavy rains, for a whole week, wounded Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoner were lying around. The Germans left them to the mercy of fate, they do not treat them, they feed them once a day with steamed beets, for which they send the wounded themselves.

In the camp, prisoners are given a glass of rye (in grain) and a glass of water for the day. If you want - cook porridge, but there is nowhere to cook it and nothing. If you want, chew the grain raw.

Mortality among prisoners, from whom overcoats and boots have long been removed, is unusually high. The camp must clean up the corpses of those who died from exhaustion on their own.

Partisan S. Sivtsov, who left the village of Pokrovskoye, testifies that the abuse of captured Red Army soldiers is becoming more terrible day by day. Once the Germans, having learned that the prisoner was a tanker from the unit that inflicted big losses, tongs tore off the prisoner's genitals.

Coming to the villages, the Germans look for Red Army soldiers among the collective farmers. The search is simple. The hat is torn off the head, and if the head is cut short - a Red Army soldier, if the hairstyle is a commander. On this basis, tens and hundreds of civilians are sentenced to death, like disguised Red Army soldiers.

In the town of Porkhov, several local natives were among the captured Red Army soldiers. Relatives asked to be allowed to feed their own. The commandant handed over the corpses to the relatives. “It will be cheaper,” he said.

The diabolical sophistication of the fascist fanatics knows no bounds. Having torn off his overcoat and boots from a prisoner, he is sometimes released, and the next day they are shot as a partisan, because a soldier in disguise is a partisan; a person who appears at night on the street or on the road is also a partisan.

It's hard to write about all this.

Terrible will be the end of these creatures, mistakenly looking like people!

P. Pavlenko

1. DOCUMENTS AND FACTS ABOUT GERMAN ASTRICTS

Note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs comrade. V. M. MOLOTOVA On the outrageous atrocities of the German authorities against Soviet prisoners of war

SHOOTING BY THE GERMANS OF THE PRISONERS OF THE RED ARMY

ATTACK BY GERMAN VULTURES ON THE AMBULANCE TRAIN

GERMANS FILLING OFF THE WOUNDED

THE GERMANS TORTURE AND BURN THE PRISONERS

THE GERMANS TORTURE THE PRISONERS AND Mock THEM

IN GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS

THE GERMANS ARE DRIVING THE PRISONERS OF THE RED ARMY TO THE MINES

2. STORIES FROM THE GERMAN CAPTIVITY

"UMAN PIT" The story of the senior political instructor S. Evorsky

WILD Beasts Sergeant Koversun's story

IN THE PAWS OF GERMAN OFFICERS The story of the deputy political instructor Petrosyan

HITLER ATTACK ON THE HOSPITAL The story of a military doctor of the 3rd rank Ivanchenko

HUNGRY, TORTURED AND MISTERED The story of the Red Army soldier Stepan Sidorkin

THE WHOLE WORLD SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE ANIMALS OF THE GERMANS Letter from Senior Sergeant Zharkov

3. DEATH IS BETTER THAN FASCIST CAPTURE

Outrageous atrocities of the Germans over prisoners

DEATH IS BETTER THAN FASCIST CAPTURE

DON'T FORGET, DON'T FORGIVE! X Username * Password * Remember me

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The clatter of many feet, some rustling, as if something had been dragged along the stone floor, muffled exclamations. And suddenly, over all this, a desperate treble cry. It drags on for a long time on one note and finally breaks off unexpectedly.

All clear. Someone is resisting. And yet they drag him to the punishment cell. He screams again. She fell silent. They gagged their mouths.

Just don't go crazy. Anything but this. “God forbid I go crazy. No, it’s better to have a staff and a bag…” But the first sign of impending madness is, probably, precisely the desire to howl like that on one note. This must be overcome. The work of the brain. When the brain is busy, it maintains balance. And I again read by heart and compose poems myself. Then I repeat them many times so as not to forget. And mainly, not to hear, not to hear this cry.

But he keeps going. Penetrating, uterine, almost implausible. It fills everything around, becomes tangible, slippery. Compared to him, the cries of a woman in labor seem like an optimistic melody. Indeed, in the cries of a woman in labor, there is a hope for a happy outcome. And then there is great despair.

I am seized by such fear as I have not yet experienced since the beginning of my wanderings in this underworld. It seems to me - another second, and I will start screaming just like this unknown neighbor in the punishment cell. And then you will surely slip into madness.

But now the monotonous howl begins to be interspersed with some cries. I can't make out the words. I get up from my bed and, dragging huge bast shoes behind me, crawl to the door, put my ear to it. It is necessary to make out what this unfortunate woman is screaming.

– What are you? Fell, right? - distributed from the corridor. Yaroslavsky again opens the door window for a minute. Along with a streak of light, quite clearly spoken words on some kind of foreign language. Isn't that Carolla? No, it doesn't sound like German.

Yaroslavsky has an upset face. Oh, what a disgusting burden all this is for a peasant's son with a pig-like blond bristle on his cheeks! I am sure that if he had not been afraid of the damned Satrapuk, he would have helped both me and the screaming one.

At the moment, Satrapyuk is apparently not around, because Yaroslavsky is in no hurry to close the window. He holds her hand and mutters in a whisper:

- Tomorrow is your time. You will go back to the cell. Get through the night. Or maybe take some bread, huh?

I want to thank him for these words, and especially for the expression on his face, but I'm afraid to frighten him off with some unacceptable familiarity. But still I dare to whisper:

- Why is she like that? Scary to hear...

Yaroslavsky waves his hand.

- Their guts are painfully thin, those of these foreign ones! There is no patience at all. After all, just planted, but how ruined. Ours, the Russians, I suppose everything is silent. You’ve been sitting out for five days, but you’re silent after all ...

And at this moment I clearly distinguish the words “communist Italiano”, “communist Italiano…” coming from somewhere along with a drawn-out howl.

So that's who she is! Italian communist. Probably, she fled from her homeland, from Mussolini, just as Klara, one of my Butyrka neighbors, fled from Hitler. Evgenia Ginzburg - "Steep Route" Excerpt.