Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly the KGB, published on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day 11 secret documents about the murder of Jews in the territories of the former Soviet Union during World War II. These documents were buried in the Russian archives for 82 years and are being published just now to reveal the former USSR's role in the liberation of Auschwitz, as well as the role of Ukrainian nationalists in the murder of Jews in the service of the Nazis.
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The FSB writes in the introduction to the presentation of the documents that the Russian security agencies were entrusted with collecting documentary evidence of the Nazi atrocities against Soviet civilians and prisoners of war in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union. These testimonies came from the special departments of the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. They were originally tasked with conducting regular police work and overseeing the Soviet prisons and labor camps. Eventually they became engaged in internal espionage which included working with units from the Red Army from partisan units, from investigations of German prisoners of war and their collaborators, and from the seizure of documents.
On December 6, 1942, the NKVD sent documents to the body responsible for foreign relations (NKID) in the Soviet Union containing information about "German atrocities against the Jewish population in the territory of the Soviet Union temporarily occupied by the enemy."
The document states: "The execution of Jews in Feodosia (Black Sea port city on the southeastern coast of the Crimean peninsula) was accompanied by unprecedented harassment and torture. Everyone was stripped, including babies, so naked Jewish people waited in the cold, during a blizzard, for their turn to be shot dead in the field. The Jews were forced to lie down in the trench, then they were shot with machine guns, covered with a layer of earth, on which a new row of living people, naked, mad with terror, was placed, and they also were shot. All the children were poisoned in front of their parents with a poison administered by a hospital doctor."
The document refers to the fact that the Nazis created an "auxiliary police" of local nationalists that became direct perpetrators of horrific crimes. "On August 26-27, 1942, in many western Ukraine towns, the Gestapo, with the active participation of Ukrainian nationalists, organized an ethnic cleansing. As a result, the local Jewish population was almost wiped out. Furthermore, it is stated in the documents that just before the massacre began, the Gestapo increased the salaries of policemen up to 1,600 Karbovanets (then-Ukrainian currency) for policemen with families and up to 800 Karbovanets for a single people per month.
The document noted the participation in mass crimes of Nazi collaborators from among local nationalists and traitors. "Immediately after the occupation of Latvia by German soldiers, in July 1941, 60,000 of the Jewish population were shot in Riga. Entire families were shot, regardless of age. Children were torn from their arms and immediately killed in return their eyes or were thrown alive into pits prepared in advance," according to the document
All the Jews in Ludza, Latvia were shot, except six
In the city of Ludza in Latvia, almost all the Jews were shot. Only six Jews remained, who were used by the Germans as experts in certain crafts. Mass executions of Jews also took place in Liepaja and other cities in Latvia. The executions were carried out by members of the Latvian fascist-militant organization Aizsargi, and the Germans recorded these acts as "retaliatory acts of the Latvian people." The document states that the civilian population were outraged by the Nazi atrocities against the Jewish population. "The population hated the Germans for such atrocities. There were many cases in Minsk when people sat and went crazy when they saw the Germans' treatment of our Jews and prisoners, who were shot in large numbers right in the streets," according to the document.
The entire Jewish population, mostly old men, women and children, arrived at the designated gathering place, where they were all shot. This is how up to 30,000 Jews were shot in Kiev
The information obtained made it possible to trace the tactics of the Nazis, who sought to incite hatred against Jews among any local population. For example, after an explosion in the office of a German commander in September 1941, fires began in Kiev. The German government blamed the Jews.
"After the fire, the Germans began to spread rumors and officially announced in the newspaper that Jews were to blame for the explosions and fires. On September 28, 1941, notices were published throughout the city, ordering Jews to gather at the Lukyanovsko cemetery the next morning. The entire Jewish population, mostly old men, women and children, arrived at the designated gathering place, where they were all shot. This is how up to 30,000 Jews were shot in Kiev," according to information in one of the documents.
There is also a horrific description of how the Germans executed the Jews as well as the Ukrainians who helped the Jews carry their property (for a fee) despite their pleas that they were not Jews. After the executions in the killing pit, there is a shocking description of a 12-year-old boy who stood up and started screaming that he was not a Jew but a Ukrainian. The boy removed the sand from his eyes and his whole face was full of blood. At that time a German soldier attacked him, shot him in the eye and killed him.
Among the documents there was a letter from a Latvian soldier, who fought alongside the Nazis in Leningrad, in which he humorously writes how he killed 320 Jews. "I tickled Jews and I killed 320 of them. We were a group of eight soldiers and we brought the Jews 'happiness,'" the soldier wrote and added: "We all shot guns. The shooting was excellent."
According to data from March 27, 1942, in the city of Minsk, "a group of Jews was driven to work, some of them dressed in rags. Their appearance was terrible. Among them were many young girls and old men, who dragged their feet, fell from weakness. The guards kicked them away. They all had six-pointed yellow stars with the words 'Jew' sewn on their chests and backs." Around 75,000 Jews were brought from Hamburg to Minsk and only 15,000 survived. Locals said that at the time there were already three pogroms against the Jews by the Germans and Lithuanians.
The number of Jews murdered in each city
The documents detail the chilling numbers of Jews who were murdered in dozens of cities and how many of them managed to escape. For example, on August 9, 1942, in the city of Voroshilovsk, the Jews were informed that they had to arrive with 30 kg of valuables and food for three days. On August 12, 700 Jews arrived and all of them were murdered. The things they brought were transferred to Germany. In the city of Kislovodsk, 1,500 Jews were murdered; and in the city of Pyatigorsk, 3,000 Jews were killed. The Nazis, with the help of the head of the Jewish community, rounded up all the Jews in the city of Krasnodar, executed them and buried their bodies. In Rokytne, they gathered 1,600 Jews and divided them into lines of six people. Policemen started shooting women. Jews started shouting and running away. The policemen started chasing the Jews in the streets and shot all over so they also hit the surrounding Ukrainians and Poles. A total of 2,400 people were killed.
The documents state that Poles and Ukrainians who hid Jews were murdered together with Jews. For example, in the city of Ludwipol, five Polish families were murdered. In the city of Mariupol, they murdered 10,000 Jews, of which 3,000 were children. On December 27, 1941, in the Bereznyaki area, Germans murdered 350 Jews, of whom 120 were buried alive. In the Dnipro region, Jews who survived were required to pay a fine of 30 million rubles. They failed to collect the money, and were all killed.
Social activist Alex Tanzer, son of Holocaust survivors, said: "Every year on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Russia publishes secret documents about the murder of Jews in the territory of the former Soviet Union during World War II. This year, too, they published documents from an archive that had been buried there for 82 years. On behalf of the families of Holocaust survivors, I demand that President Putin releases all documents about the murder of Jews by Nazis. This can not only help research but also help many families find out what happened to their family members. My mother has been looking for her brother Eli all her life and has not been able to get an answer as to what happened to him. It is unbelievable that they secretly are keeping details of the atrocities of the Nazis and are exploiting publications for political needs."