Koselsk special camp

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The Koselsk Special Camp ( Russian Козельский спецлагерь - Koselski Spezlager ) was an internment camp for Polish prisoners of war operated by the Soviet secret police NKVD from the end of September 1939 to July 1941 in the dispossessed Optina monastery not far from the small town of Koselsk in the western Russian region of Kaluga Oblast . Around 4,400 of its inmates, mostly reserve officers from the country's educated ranks, were shot near the village of Katyn in April and May 1940 .

prehistory

The Optina monastery was dissolved by the Bolshevik authorities in 1923. A sawmill was temporarily set up in the main church and a sanatorium in other buildings .

Establishment of the warehouse

On September 19, 1939, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs ordered Lavrenti Beria , head of the newly established Administration for prisoners of war of the NKVD Pyotr Soprunenko , a total set up eight camps for Polish officers, NCOs and officers who since the arrival of the Red Army in eastern Poland on September 17th as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in Soviet hands. Three camps were declared special camps, in which a total of around 15,000 officers and ensigns of the Polish armed forces , judicial and police officers as well as landowners from eastern Poland were to be carefully examined as "politically dangerous persons": Koselsk, Ostashkow and Starobelsk .

The first prisoners arrived on September 22, 1939. The Koselsk camp had a total area of ​​4788 square meters. It was surrounded by a 2.5 meter high wooden fence that was reinforced with barbed wire at the top. In addition, a barbed wire fence was drawn around the site. At night guards patrolled sheepdogs . After three weeks, according to a report by Soprunenko, the camp was completely overcrowded with 9,045 prisoners, and some of them were subsequently transferred to other camps; Ordinary soldiers of the Polish army who belonged to the Belarusian or Ukrainian minority in the Republic of Poland were released to their hometowns. The number of prisoners was reduced to 4,727 by December 1, 1939. 4457 were officers and ensigns , 70 percent of them were reservists , among them larger groups of university professors, doctors, high school teachers, journalists and engineers.

One of the prisoners was the chief rabbi of the Polish armed forces, Baruch Steinberg . There were also several top athletes among them, including Zdzisław Kawecki , winner of the silver medal with the eventing team at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, as well as two former national soccer players : Adam Kogut and Marian Spoida . Among the celebrities of her time was the pilot Janina Lewandowska , the only woman in the camp who had become known as a sports pilot before the war.

Everyday warehouse life

The prisoners also slept in the churches, as well as in the chapels and the vaulted cellars. Since there was not enough sleeping space, some of them had to spend the night on the floor. Shifts were slept in several houses. Baths and laundries were not operational. There was a lack of crockery and cutlery in the kitchens, and the water supply was poor. When eating, the prescribed amounts per head were never reached. The prisoners repeatedly protested the poor quality of the food.

In January 1940, temperatures dropped to 40 degrees of frost over several nights. In view of the poor equipment in the infirmary, the camp commandant allowed the Poles to organize a health service themselves. Among them were 14 medicine professors and several hundred doctors. They performed operations under primitive conditions and without medication. They also set up a dental practice. The prisoners were allowed to write letters once a month and had to give “ Gorki- Erholungsheim, Postfach 12” as the address . They organized language courses, Russian was particularly popular, as well as evening lectures in which the scientists among them reported on their specialist fields.

Among the prisoners were a total of 16 field chaplains who had officer ranks, among them a Polish Orthodox and a Ukrainian Uniate priest as well as an Evangelical Augsburg pastor. Despite a strict ban, several of them secretly held church services and Bible studies. Most of them were taken to the Smolensk NKVD prison in mid-December 1939.

The entertainment and training programs of the Politruks of the NKVD, which also showed Soviet feature films and documentaries , took up a lot of space . The NKVD instructors reported to their superiors that most Poles were not interested in the Soviet propaganda brochures, which were often even used as toilet paper. Several journalists among the prisoners secretly published two handwritten camp newspapers: "Merkury" (4 issues) and "Monitor" (15 issues). But the initiators were denounced and were given 20 days' jail for “propaganda of Polish patriotism”.

The NKVD tried to identify “counter-revolutionaries” among the prisoners through repeated interviews. Members of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) , national democrats , all senior officers, former Soviet citizens who fled to Poland and the initiators of unauthorized groups and events in the camp were considered “anti-Soviet elements” . The NKVD interrogators were also supposed to win informers among the prisoners. Soprunenko was reported from Koselsk that 20 out of 32 recruitment interviews were successful.

In addition, the NKVD personnel were supposed to filter out those prisoners whose specialist knowledge could be of interest to the Soviet warfare. A group of specially trained interviewers arrived from Moscow and had intensive discussions with these prisoners. It was headed by the major of the State Security Vasily Sarubin , who had worked for Soviet foreign espionage in previous years. He did not introduce himself under his name, but was later identified in photos by survivors. Sarubin was educated, he brought around 500 books for the camp library, including many foreign-language works, including an original edition of Winston Churchill's "The World Crisis". He was extremely polite, he had entertained his Polish interlocutors, even offered them oranges.

In March 1940 a total of 115 of the prisoners were taken to the NKVD prison in Smolensk, some of them were suspected of being agents of the Polish secret service or "provocateurs" (sic!). Among them were 26 staff officers .

Eviction of the camp

On March 5, 1940, the Politburo under Stalin accepted a proposal from Beria, in which Beria recommended the shooting of the Polish " counter-revolutionaries ". According to the NKVD files on the transport of prisoners, this affected 4,403 inmates from Kozelsk. 198 people were scheduled for further questioning in the Juchnow camp around 150 kilometers southwest of Moscow and thus escaped execution . In the opinion of Polish historians, the conversations of the leader of the interrogation group, Vasily Sarubin, were the decisive factor in which of the prisoners were brought for further questioning and which were executed.

Before the camp was cleared, the camp management recorded the prisoners in rank groups, including 1 admiral, 4 generals, 26 colonels, 72 lieutenant colonels, 232 majors, 674 captains, 3,480 lower-ranking officers and ensigns, 61 civil servants, and eight field chaplains .

From April 3 to May 10, 1940, the Poles scheduled for execution were brought in a total of 18 batches in a prison train to the Gnjosdowo train station near Smolensk and from there to the Katyn forest for execution. Only one of the prisoners from Koselsk survived, the economics professor Stanisław Swianiewicz . When he had already left the train in Gnjosdowo, the order was received by the accompanying NKVD command that he should be taken to Moscow for further questioning.

Further use

On June 9, 1940, the camp administration informed the NKVD headquarters in Moscow that up to 5,000 new prisoners could be admitted. After the annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, Polish officers arrived at the camp who had fled to one of the Baltic republics at the beginning of the war. The NKVD also carried out mass arrests in occupied eastern Poland. At the end of July 1940, the Koselsk special camp again had 2,553 men, including around 1,500 officers, the others were civil servants and police officers.

After the war a kolkhoz got part of the building. There was also a technical college. During perestroika , the building complex was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1987, and the first church was consecrated again in 1988.

enlightenment

The search for the Polish officers and ensigns, police officers and officials interned in the Koselsk, Ostaschkow and Starobelsk special camps occupied the Polish government- in- exile in London since it was informed from occupied Poland that the correspondence between the prisoners and their relatives in the spring of 1940 canceled. The Polish leadership learned in 1942 from Stanisław Swianiewicz's report that the prisoners from Koselsk had been brought to the Gnjosdowo train station. However, some of the Polish experts assumed that they had been deported from there to another camp. The fact that the NKVD had shot them before the reports published in April 1943 on the mass graves in the Katyn forest was beyond the imagination of Polish politicians.

1959 recommended KGB boss Alexander Shelepin in a handwritten report to party leader Nikita Khrushchev to destroy the files on the prisoners of the three special camp for Polish prisoners of war largely. The censorship authority of the People's Republic of Poland decreed that their prisoners are called "internees" who were shot by the "Hitlerists" in the Katyn forest in 1941.

On April 13, 1990, the Soviet news agency TASS published a communiqué according to which Lavrenti Beria and his deputy Vsevolod Merkulov were responsible for the "misdeeds" (злодеяния) perpetrated on the inmates of the Koselsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk special camps. The content of the communiqué had previously been approved by KP General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev .

The director Andrzej Wajda was unable to shoot the scenes from his film “ The Katyn Massacre ” (2007) , which are set in Koselsk, in the original locations ; they were shot in and near Jarosław in southern Poland.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Istorija Optiny pustiny patriarchia.ru (website of the Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church).
  2. ^ Wording of the order: Prikas No. 308, September 19, 1939 alexanderyakovlev.org , website of the Alexander Yakovlev Foundation.
  3. ↑ Claudia Weber : War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Kozel'skij i Juchnovskij lagerja NKVD dlja pol´skich voennoplennych 1939-1941 gg. ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 6 (2007). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / memorial-katyn.ru
  5. ↑ Zofia Waszkiewicz, Baruch Steinberg, in: Polski Słownik Biograficzny , T. XLIII, 2004–2005, pp. 305–306.
  6. ↑ To im Prezydent i Prezes PKOl chcieli się pokłonić  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. interia.pl , April 16, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / sport.interia.pl  
  7. ↑ Bogdan Tuszyński: Za cenę życia. Sport Polski Walczącej 1939–1945. Warszawa 2006, p. 130
  8. ↑ Numer zwłok 3624. Nazwisko: Spojda Marian gazeta.pl , April 10, 2010.
  9. ↑ Krzysztof Mroczkowski, Lotniczka w za duźym mundurze ... - Janina Lewandowska, in: Katyń 1940. Walka o prawdę. Ed. W. Lis. Toruń 2012, p. 379.
  10. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 1. Jeńcy niewypowiedzianej wojny. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1995, pp. 381-382, 434-437.
  11. ↑ Natal'ja Lebedeva: Katyn - čelovečestva Prestuplenie protiv. Moscow 1994, pp. 81-84, 89.
  12. ↑ Zofia Waszkiewicz, Kapelani wojskowi drugiej Rzeczpospolitej - ofiary zbrodni katyńskiej in: Kharkov - Katyn - Tver - Bykownia. W 70. Rocznicę zbrodni katyńskiej. Zbiór studiów. Ed. A. Kola / J. Sziling. Toruń 2011, pp. 105-106.
  13. ↑ Natal'ja Lebedeva: Katyn - čelovečestva Prestuplenie protiv. Moscow 1994, pp. 89-90, 94.
  14. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 1. Wyd. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warszawa 1995, p. 401.
  15. ↑ Katyn '. Plenniki neob-javlennoj vojny. Red. R. Pichoja. Moscow 1999, p. 31.
  16. ↑ GA Andreenkova, VM Zarubin i katynskoje delo, in: Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 14 (2014), pp. 70–72.
  17. ↑ Kozel'skij i Juchnovskij lagerja NKVD dlja pol´skich voennoplennych 1939-1941 gg. ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 6 (2007). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / memorial-katyn.ru
  18. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, p. 344.
  19. ↑ Wasilij Zarubin - cichy patron polskiej wymiany elit Fronda , 55 (2010).
  20. ↑ Kozel'skij i Juchnovskij lagerja NKVD dlja pol´skich voennoplennych 1939-1941 gg. ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 6 (2007). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / memorial-katyn.ru
  21. ↑ Andrzej Przewoźnik / Jolanta Adamski: Katyń. Zbrodnia prawda pamięć. Warsaw 2010, p. 141.
  22. ↑ Stanisław Swianiewicz: W cieniu Katynia. Warsaw 2010, pp. 111–114.
  23. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, p. 366.
  24. ↑ Kozel'skij i Juchnovskij lagerja NKVD dlja pol´skich voennoplennych 1939-1941 gg. ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Vestnik Katynskogo Memoriala , 6 (2007). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / memorial-katyn.ru
  25. ↑ Kratkaja istorija Optinoj pustyni optina.pustyna.ru
  26. ↑ Istorija Optiny pustiny patriarchia.ru (website of the Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church).
  27. ^ Józef Mackiewicz : Katyń - zbrodnie bez sądu i kary. Red. Jacek Trznadel. Warsaw 1997, p. 66.
  28. ↑ Claudia Weber: War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, pp. 414–415.
  29. ↑ Czarna księga cenzury PRL. T. 1. London 1977, p. 63.
  30. ↑ Claudia Weber: War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, p. 431.
  31. ↑ Katyń filmpolski.pl

literature

  • Katyń, Starobielsk, Ostaszkow, Kozielsk. Ed. Janusz Bielecki et al. Komitet Katyński w Warszawie / Ed. Dembinski w Paryżu. Warsaw / Paris 1990.
  • Natal'ja Lebedeva: Prestuplenie protiv čelovečestva. Progress, Moscow 1994, pp. 77-101.
  • Zdzisław Peszkowski / Stanisław Zdrojewski: Kozielsk w dołach Katynia: dzienniki kozielskie. Wyd. Bernardinum, Pelplin 2003.
  • Charków - Katyń - Tver - Bykownia. W 70. rocznicę zbrodni katyńskiej. Zbiór studiów. Ed. A. Kola and J. Sziling. Toruń 2011.
  • Thomas Urban : Katyn 1940. History of a crime. Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67366-5 , pp. 27-38.

Web links

Coordinates: 54 ° 3 ′ 12 ″  N , 35 ° 49 ′ 57 ″  E