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mine pit was discovered. It was completely filled with dead
bodies. In the immediate neighborhood, there is a 6X15m mass
grave. The number of those murdered in the Dobromil area is
estimated to be approximately several hundred.
In Sambor on June 26, 1941, about 400 Ukrainians were shot by
the Bolsheviks. An additional 120 persons were murdered on June
27, 1941. The remaining 80 prisoners succeeded in overpowering the
Soviet guards, and fled. [...]
As early as 1939, a larger number of Ukrainians was shot, and
1,500 Ukrainians as well as 500 Poles were deported to the east.
Russians and Jews committed these murders in very cruel ways.
Bestial mutilations were daily occurrences. Breasts of women and
genitals of men were cut off. Jews have also nailed children to
the wall and then murdered them. Killing was carried out by shots
in the back of the neck. Hand grenades were frequently used for
these murders.
In Dobromil, women and men were killed with blows by a hammer
used to stun cattle before slaughter.
In many cases, the prisoners must have been tortured cruelly:
bones were broken, etc. In Sambor, the prisoners were gagged and
thus prevented from screaming during torture and murder. The Jews,
some of whom also held official positions, in addition to their
economic supremacy, and who served in the entire Bolshevik police,
were always partners in these atrocities.
Finally, it was established that seven [German] pilots who had
been captured were murdered. Three of them were found in a Russian
military hospital where they had been murdered in bed by shots in
the abdomen. [...]
[...] Prior to their withdrawal, the Bolsheviks shot 2,800 out
of 4,000 Ukrainians imprisoned in the Lutsk prison. According to
the statement of 19 Ukrainians who survived the slaughter with more
or less serious injuries, the Jews again played a decisive part in
the arrests and shooting. [...]
The investigations at Zlochev proved that the Russians, prior
to their withdrawal, arrested and murdered indiscriminately a total
of 700 Ukrainians, but, nevertheless, included the entire [local]
Ukrainian intelligentsia. (Operational Situation Report USSR No.
24, July 16, 1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel
Spector, The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches
of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July
1941-January 1943, Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p. 29-33)
(13) Ukrainians thrown into cauldrons of boiling water.
Location: Pleskau [Pskov] [...]
The population is in general convinced that it is mostly the
Jews who should be held responsible for the atrocities that are
committed everywhere. [...]
As it was learned that the Russians before they left have
either deported the Ukrainian intelligentsia, or executed them,
that is, murdered them, it is assumed that in the last days before
the retreat of the Russians, about 100 influential Ukrainians were
murdered [in Pleskau]. So far the bodies have not been found - a
search has been initiated.
About 100-150 Ukrainians were murdered by the Russians in
Kremenets. Some of these Ukrainians are said to have been thrown
into cauldrons of boiling water. This has been deduced from the
fact that the bodies were found without skin when they were
exhumed. [...]
[...] Before leaving Dubno, the Russians, as they had done in
Lvov, committed extensive mass-murder.
[...] Before their flight [from Tarnopol], as in Lvov and
Dubno, the Russians went on a rampage there. Disinterments
revealed 10 bodies of German soldiers. Almost all of them had
their hands tied behind their backs with wire. The bodies revealed
traces of extremely cruel mutilations such as gouged eyes, severed
tongues and limbs.
The number of Ukrainians who were murdered by the Russians,
among them women and children, is set finally at 600. Jews and
Poles were spared by the Russians. The Ukrainians estimate the
total number of [Tarnopol] victims since the occupation of the
Ukraine by the Russians at about 2,000. The pla
the Ukrainians already started in 1939. There is hardly a family
in Tarnopol from which one or several members have not
disappeared. [...] The entire Ukrainian intelligentsia is
destroyed. Since the begi
Ukrainian intelligentsia were either murdered or deported.
Inhabitants of the town had observed a column of about 1,000
civilians driven out of town by police and army early in the
morning of July 1, 1941.
As in Lvov, torture chambers were discovered in the cellars of
the Court of Justice. Apparently, hot and cold showers were also
used here (as in Lemberg [Lviv]) for torture, as several bodies
were found, totally naked, their skin burst and torn in many
places. A grate was found in another room, made of wire and set
above the ground about 1m in height, traces of ashes were found
underneath. A Ukrainian engineer, who was also to be murdered but
saved his life by smearing the blood of a dead victim over his
face, reports that one could also hear screams of pain from women
and girls. (Operational Situation Report USSR No. 28, July 20,
1941, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, The
Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections from the Dispatches of the Nazi
Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July 1941-January 1943,
Holocaust Library, New York, 1989, p.38-40)
(14) Had their noses, ears, tongues and even genitals cut away.
F. Fedorenko
MY TESTIMONY
When the bolsheviks retreated before the German onslaught in
the Second World War they took care in advance not to leave any
prisoners behind when the Germans arrived.
The prisoners were driven, en masse, under heavy NKVD guard
deep into Russia or Siberia, day and night. Many of them were so
tired that they could go no further. These were shot without
compunction where they fell. Terrible things happened then.
Sometimes, wives recognized their husbands among the evacuees, as
the prisoners were being driven through the villages. There was
great despair when they saw their loved ones taken under the
muzzles of automatic guns, to far, unknown places.
The villagers took care of those who did not die at once from
the NKVD bullets, but this was a very dangerous thing to do before
all the bolsheviks cleared out.
But the NKVD could not evacuate all the prisoners, there were
so many arrests, and jails were replenished constantly. In such a
case the NKVD, before making a hasty retreat, would murder the
prisoners in their cells.
I recall that when the Germans came, in the fall of 1941, to a
little town, Chornobil, on the Prypyat River, 62 miles west of
Kiev, 52 corpses of recently murdered people, slightly covered with
earth, were found in the prison yard.
These corpses had their hands tied at the back with wire; some
had their backs flayed, others had gouged eyes or nails driven into
their heels; still others had their noses, ears, tongues and even
genitals cut away. Instruments of torture which the communists
used were found in the dungeon of the prison.
Many of the tortured people were identified because they were
mostly farmers from the local collectives who had been arrested by
the NKVD for some unknown reason.