Starobelsk special camp

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The Starobelsk Special Camp ( Russian Старобелский спецлагерь - Starobelski 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 a former women's monastery not far from the small town of Starobelsk in the east of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic . Around 3,900 prisoners, mostly Polish reserve officers were, at the same time to the massacres of Katyn and Kalinin in April and May 1940 in Kharkov shot. While the Katyn massacre became known around the world as early as 1943 after the discovery of the mass graves, the public did not find out about the fate of the prisoners in Starobelsk until 1990 during the perestroika in the Soviet Union.

The Skorbyashchensky convent in the 19th century

prehistory

The Skorbjaschtschenski women's monastery near Starobelsk was closed by the Bolshevik authorities in 1924, when some of the premises were stormed by secret police, several of the nuns were killed and some of the survivors were imprisoned. Units of the Red Army were stationed in the building complex .

POW camp

On September 19, 1939, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs, Lavrenti Beria , ordered the head of the newly established prisoner-of-war administration of the NKVD, Piotr Soprunenko , to set up a total of eight camps for Polish officers, non-commissioned officers and civil servants who had been in since the Red Army marched in Eastern Poland were in Soviet hands on September 17th as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact . 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 in the three special camps on September 22, 1939. Since there was not enough sleeping space, some of them had to sleep on the floor. Shifts were slept in several houses. In the main church they made five-story beds. 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 were allowed to write letters once a month and had to give “ Gorki- Erholungsheim, Postfach 15” as the address . In all three camps, the prisoners organized language courses, with Russian being particularly popular, as well as evening lectures in which the scientists among them reported from their specialist areas. In Starobelsk, the painter and writer Józef Czapski , who had lived in Paris, spoke about French painting and literature.

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 . These included films about Tsar Peter the Great , the revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin and party leader Josef Stalin . The NKVD tried to gain informants when questioning the prisoners. One of those who became NKVD informants was Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Berling , who in 1943 took command of the newly established Polish armed forces in the Soviet Union.

Most of the Polish officers were taken prisoner by the Soviets near Lemberg without a fight . In return, the commander of the Red Army units attacking there , Semyon Timoshenko , had promised them free withdrawal. But Tymoshenko did not keep this promise. General Franciszek Sikorski, who had been in charge of the defense of Lviv in September 1939, wrote a letter of complaint to Tymoshenko as the highest-ranking prisoner in Starobelsk, but received no answer. A group of colonels signed a letter on behalf of the detainees, demanding clarification of their legal status, denouncing the conditions of detention and demanding their immediate release. The Polish doctors and pharmacists deported to Starobelsk protested just as unsuccessfully in a letter to Stalin against their imprisonment, which contravened all legal norms.

Execution of the Poles

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 3,894 inmates of the Starobelsk camp. The NKVD documents listed them by profession and rank, including: a .: 8 generals, 55 colonels, 126 lieutenant colonels, 232 majors, 843 captains, 2527 lower-ranking officers. One of them was Jakub Wajda, the father of the later film director Andrzej Wajda . Eight field chaplains were among the victims . 78 people were brought to the Juchnow camp around 150 kilometers southwest of Moscow for further questioning and thus escaped execution. Among them were Józef Czapski, who later led the search for the missing Polish officers in the Anders Army , and Lieutenant Colonel Zygmunt Berling, who had been recruited by the NKVD.

From April 3 to May 12, 1940, the Poles scheduled for execution were brought in groups of mostly 200 to 300 people on a train to Kharkov and shot there in the basement of the NKVD prison. The executions were carried out by a command specially traveled from Moscow, which was reinforced by local NKVD forces. The bodies were buried in mass graves in a forest near Pyatychatky , a suburb of Kharkov.

14 of the NKVD officers and soldiers who were involved in the preparation and implementation of the execution of the Poles from Starobelsk in Kharkov received awards and medals for “performing extraordinary tasks”.

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 1940 Starobelsk had around 22,000 Polish prisoners.

Bilingual plaque, Ukrainian and Polish, placed in the monastery in 2012

After the war, the former monastery district was converted back into a barracks for the Soviet armed forces. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991 which took over the Moscow Patriarchate belonging Ukrainian Orthodox Church the complex and set again a monastery.

enlightenment

The search for the Polish officers and ensigns, police officers and officers interned in the Koselsk, Ostaschkow and Starobelsk special camps occupied the Polish government- in- exile in London, ever since it was informed from occupied Poland that the correspondence between the prisoners and their relatives was in the Canceled in spring 1940. While the Germans announced the discovery of the mass graves in Katyn in April 1943, there was clarity about the whereabouts of the prisoners from Koselsk, the fate of the inmates of Ostashkov and Starobelsk remained unresolved. The Soviet propaganda tried to give the impression by incorrect numbers that they had also been shot in the Katyn forest by the Germans in late summer 1941.

The reports of Polish officers who were brought from Starobelsk to Moscow for further interrogation caused confusion. They were present at an exchange between Lieutenant Zygmunt Berling and NKVD chief Beria. When he explained plans to set up Polish units under the Moscow High Command, Berling said he could suggest many suitable comrades from the Koselsk and Starobelsk camps. Beria then said: “These are no longer considered. We made a mistake with them, a mistake. ”He added:“ We gave them to the Germans. ”Berling wrote in his memoir that this declaration initially reassured the Polish officers; for there had indeed been an exchange of prisoners between the Soviet Union and the German Reich.

On July 20, 1957, a sensational report in the German magazine "7 Tage" claimed that the location of the graves of the missing Poles had been determined: From the documentation of an NKVD officer named Tartakow, which the Germans captured in the war and which were then taken into their hands The American had advised that the victims from the Starobelsk camp in Dergachi near Kharkov and those from Ostashkov near Bologoje were buried 180 kilometers northwest of Kalinin. The Tartakow report, which also entered the Katyn literature as a genuine document, was called a forgery by experts from Polish emigration, including the writer Józef Mackiewicz .

1959 recommended KGB boss Alexander Shelepin in a handwritten report to party leader Nikita Khrushchev to destroy the files on the prisoners of the special camp largely. In the early 1960s, he was told that playing children had found bones and Polish uniform buttons on the site of the mass graves near Kharkov. Schelepin gave instructions to pour concrete over it. When reports of unauthorized excavations by unknown perpetrators reached the site again in Moscow in 1969, Schelepin's successor, Yuri Andropov, had the site fenced in and guarded.

The censorship authority of the People's Republic of Poland decreed that the prisoners of the three camps 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 Beria and his deputy Merkulov were responsible for the "crimes" ( злодеяния ) perpetrated on the inmates of the special camps in Koselsk, Ostashkov and Starobelsk . The contents of the communiqué was previously owned by KP - General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev approved. It was not until October 14, 1992 that an emissary of Russian President Boris Yeltsin presented his host Lech Wałęsa with a facsimile of documents on the fate of the Polish prisoners from the three special camps, including Beria's submission dated March 5, 1940, signed by Stalin, before his state visit to Warsaw and other members of the Politburo.

From June 20, 1990, the Chief Military Prosecutor in Moscow questioned the former NKVD soldier Mitrofan Syromyatnikov, who was involved in the execution of the prisoners in Kharkov, several times. The interviews continued in 1992 by the public prosecutor's office in Ukraine , which has now become sovereign . The minutes of the interviews appeared in Polish translation. The victims from the Starobelsk special camp are listed on the official Polish “List of Katyn” (Lista Katyńska), which also includes the Polish prisoners of war from the Ostashkov special camp who were shot in Kalinin.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Starobel'skij monastyr ' doroga.ua
  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. ↑ Katyn '. Plenniki neob-javlennoj vojny. Pod red. R. Pichoi. Moskva 1999, p. 19.
  5. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 1. Jeńcy niewypowiedzianej wojny. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1995, pp. 434-437.
  6. ↑ Natal'ja Lebedeva: Katyn - čelovečestva Prestuplenie protiv. Moskva 1994, p. 84.
  7. ↑ Pamiętniki Znalezione w Katyniu . Red. A. Stepek. Warsaw 1990, pp. 118, 178.
  8. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 1. Jeńcy niewypowiedzianej wojny. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1995, p. 405.
  9. ↑ Claudia Weber: War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, p. 241.
  10. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 1. Jeńcy niewypowiedzianej wojny. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1995, pp. 203, 364-365.
  11. ↑ Katyn '. Plenniki neob-javlennoj vojny. Red. R. Pichoja. Moscow 1999, pp. 158, 173.
  12. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, p. 344.
  13. ^ Andrzej Przewoźnik / Julia Adamska: Katyń. Zbrodnia prawda pamięć. Warsaw 2010, pp. 131, 568.
  14. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, p. 344.
  15. ↑ Claudia Weber: War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, p. 241.
  16. ^ Andrzej Przewoźnik / Julia Adamska: Katyń. Zbrodnia prawda pamięć. Warsaw 2010, p. 147.
  17. ↑ Nikita Pietrow : Poczet Katow katyńskich. Warsaw 2015, p. 160.
  18. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, p. 366.
  19. ↑ Natalja Lebedeva, Operacija po “razgruzke” speclagerej, in: Katynskaja drama: Kozel'lsk, Starobelsk, Ostaškov. Sud'ba internirovannych polskich voennoslužaščich. Moscow 1991, pp. 156-157.
  20. ↑ Skorbjaščenskij ženskij monastyr ' website of the monastery
  21. ↑ Józef Czapski : Na nieludzkiej ziemi. Warsaw 1990, pp. 150-166.
  22. ↑ Jacek Trznadel, Katyń a źródła as well asckie, in: Zeszyty Katyńskie , 1 (1990), p. 117.
  23. ↑ “Never, oni nie chodzą w rachubę. Myśmi robili bląd. Bląd zrobiliśmy z nimi (dosłownie: my sdelali oszybku, oszybku sdelali) ... 'Oddaliśmy ich Niemcom'. ”, Quoted from: Józef Mackiewicz : Katyń - zbrodnie bez sądu i kary. Red. Jacek Trznadel. Warsaw 1997, p. 51.
  24. ^ Zygmunt Berling: Wspomnienia. Z łagrów do Andersa. Warsaw 1990, p. 53.
  25. ↑ z. B. Louis Fitz Gibbon : Unpited and Unknown. Katyn ... Bologoye ... Dergachi. London 1975.
  26. ^ Wojciech Materski: Murder Katyński. Siedemdziesiąt lat drogi do prawdy. Warsaw 2010, pp. 50–51.
  27. ↑ Claudia Weber: War of the perpetrators. The Katyn mass shootings. Hamburg 2015, pp. 414–415.
  28. ↑ Nikita Pietrow: Poczet Katow katyńskich. Warsaw 2015, pp. 88–90.
  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. ↑ Gerd Kaiser: Katyn. The state crime - the state secret. Berlin 2002, pp. 377-378.
  32. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. T. 2. Zagłada. Ed. A. Giesztor / R. Pichoja. Warsaw 1998, pp. 472-500.
  33. ↑ Lista Katyńska ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.katedrapolowa.pl

literature

  • Josef Czapski : Inhuman Earth. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, 1967.
  • 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. 101-124.
  • Charków - Katyń - Tver - Bykownia. W 70. rocznicę zbrodni katyńskiej. Zbiór studiów. Ed. A. Kola and J. Sziling. Toruń 2011.
  • Beata Gałek: Starobielsk - obóz jeniecki NKVD - wrzesień 1939 - May 1940. Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa. Oficyjna wydawnicza Rytm, Warsaw 2014.
  • Thomas Urban : Katyn 1940. History of a crime. Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67366-5 , pp. 27-38.

Web links

Coordinates: 49 ° 16 ′ 36.8 ″  N , 38 ° 54 ′ 0 ″  E