Here I will deviate from the "straight line" of my memories and in the next 6 chapters I will try to characterize general environment- what happened in Kharkov, and also, to some extent, in other cities of Ukraine after the capture fascist troops vast territory, touching on the painful topic of the genocide of Jews. The reason for describing the tragic events of this period was the fact that, trying to find some traces of the last days of the life of my loved ones (grandparents and uncles who died in the Kharkov and Nikolaev ghettos), I, plunging into a huge array of disparate data available in Internet, was overwhelmed by the numerous, often very contradictory details and details that fell upon me.
Intertwining and “stringing” on each other, they create a “holistic” and terrifying picture, illustrating all the abomination and murderous meanness that can come to homo sapiens”, armed with a false, vile and cannibalistic basically fascist ideology, which substantiated the “mission of the Aryan blond beast” on this Earth ... And also often prompted to atrocities - alas - by primitive and vile animal instincts, not limited elementary concepts and the laws of human morality...
We will have to touch upon the topic of cooperation with the invaders, traitors from among the local residents of non-Jewish nationality, who helped the Germans in the destruction of the Jews and, in particular, some motives for the behavior during the occupation and after the war of various apologists for Ukrainian nationalism and unofficial state anti-Semitism ...
I considered it my duty to clarify (at least for myself) and lead to some kind of conditional common denominator some incomplete and tendentious materials that the Internet is full of, and try to convey as objectively, concisely and intelligibly as possible the essence of a number of conflicting interpretations of individual events. Finally, to remind your descendants about the tragic events of the Holocaust, the victims of which, among more than 5 million Jews, were some of their relative ancestors...
Most of the below actual materials concerning the death of Jews in Kharkov and Nikolaev (where my relatives were destroyed), as well as in Kyiv during the German occupation of Ukraine and the western regions of the RSFSR, are taken from various sources on the Internet, in particular from the publications of my fellow countryman, the famous writer Felix Rakhlin (see the site< ПРОЗА.РУ >
Some texts are partly compiled, revised and presented with my comments and - where detailed, and where schematized - interpretations of events. As illustrations, photos of German occupiers - "amateur photographers" and frames from captured German newsreels posted on the Internet were used.
May the Lord help those who read the sad descriptions of the terrible events of those years placed below to preserve, to the best of their ability, at least a little peace of mind, faith in man and the triumph of justice ...
...Kharkov was one of the first large cities in the country, in which government plans the evacuations were carried out completely: all the equipment of the factories, all the stocks of grain were taken out so as not to leave anything to the enemy. Everything that could not be taken out was destroyed. A power plant and a water pump were blown up. Warehouse stocks of food, which did not have time to take out, were actually given to the population for looting. All the remaining residents of Kharkov suddenly found themselves without work, without information and, in the end, without a livelihood ...
Abandoned by the Red Army, Kharkov was occupied by the Germans without a fight on October 25, 1941. In the very first weeks of the occupation, punitive operations began in the city in response to acts of sabotage by the abandoned Soviet underground. Caught underground hanged. Hostages were usually taken by Jews who never returned home.
According to the memoirs of Maya Reznikova (currently living in Germany), after a mansion on st. Sadovaya, where they died German general and 28 officers, and when the Germans announced on the radio that 500 Jews with documents would come to the International Hotel (as hostages until the guilty partisans were found, and then they were released), her mother herself voluntarily went to the hotel.
Then they still believed in the "humanism" of the new authorities. Fortunately, the irritated porter sent her back with the words: "Why are you all going and going, there are already so many people. Leave immediately!" It was November 1941.
In general, in the first weeks after the capture of Kharkov by the Germans, the life of the Jews, in terms of their safety, did not differ much from the life of all the Kharkovites who remained in the city. It would seem that nothing boded bad. But at the beginning of December, announcements of the Kharkov City Council in 3 languages (German, Russian and Ukrainian) were posted around the city about the registration of the entire population of Kharkov by December 8th. Only Jews were recorded in a separate list, regardless of their religion. In paragraph 12 of the announcement, in particular, it was indicated that information about nationality should be submitted in accordance with the actual national origin, regardless of the nationality indicated in the passport ... This "clarification" was certainly the result of active participation anti-Semites from local population in the preparation of the "Announcement". The invaders did not delve into such "subtleties". Having experience of mass expulsion at the end of the 30s and the subsequent extermination of Jews in Germany itself, they completely and completely relied on the activity of local "anti-Semitic enthusiasts" who were eager to profit from the "Jewish" good. In the title of the advertisement, instead of the word "Jews", the expression "Jews" was used. For registration, a fee of 1 ruble was charged from each adult resident, and 10 rubles from the “Kids”.
Registration of Jews in Kharkov took place on pre-prepared sheets yellow color. Hence the name "yellow lists", rooted in the press and documents. Not a single mention has been found of who came up with the idea to call these “proscriptions” like that, but the fate of those on the “yellow lists” was already a foregone conclusion. A sad fate awaited them - to get into the "ghetto". This name originated in the Middle Ages in Italy to designate an area that is a place of isolated residence of Jews). But for the Nazis, it acquired an ominous meaning: as it turned out, they moved people to the ghetto only in order to destroy them later.
"Yellow Lists" are of interest not only as documentary evidence of the existence in the city a large number Kharkov Jews who remained at the beginning of the occupation, their age, professions (and this is important, since entire families were often destroyed and there was no one to fill this gap). These lists are of great psychological interest. The very entry in the column "nationality" by those who carried out the registration was made in different ways - in some lists it is written the usual - "Jew", "Jewish", in others - aggressively insulting "Jew", "Jewish". They wrote, of course, "their own" - the occupying power did not give any specific guidelines. It was actually impossible for the Germans themselves (“and there was no time”) - without house books and other documents - to distinguish and accurately determine who is a Jew and who is not ... There were also enough local diligent collaborators.
Unfortunately, it should be noted the very negative role of some residents of Kharkov - not Jews - who, due to everyday anti-Semitism and / or mercantile interests (profit from other people's property, seize a “Jewish” apartment and thus expand their living space), denounced their neighbors Jews (“reminded” them to the German authorities or “clarified” who is who in mixed families) ... Although there were also cases when Russians and Ukrainians, honest and noble people, - often at great risk to their lives - saved many Jewish families, helping them with fake documents or saving and hiding Jewish children ...
However, as an example of the negative "zeal" of some occupation officials from local traitors, one can cite the "List orphanage N 3 of the Department of Health of the City Government "for 80 pupils, filled out on a regular white sheet. There, the director of the orphanage, Mitrofanov Leonid Ivanovich, on his own initiative, also filled out the "yellow sheet" - the verdict. In it, among three girls of two and three years old, one - Kozulets Antonina (a typical Ukrainian surname), born in 1939, ended up in an orphanage on November 13, 1941 as a foundling! And this two-year-old foundling girl, with the unwavering hand of the manager, was for some reason recorded as a Jewess and given to the executioners. With one stroke of the pen, three little girls are sent by a man appointed to take care of their pupils - to death!
Kharkiv City government(“Miska Administration”) - something like an occupational City Council - consisting of terry nationalist traitors and diligent German servants, issued all sorts of decrees and orders that regulated the Jewish population every step and behavior in the occupied city - with numerous prohibitions and restrictions.
The photo reproductions of the announcements distributed in many cities during the occupation of Ukraine by the German army show that many announcements in Ukrainian are full of ominous warnings against “non-Ukrainians”. Their list included instructions to the “Zhydiv population” (Jewish population) on the need for mandatory registration (for the convenience and speed of subsequent punitive measures), a ban on gathering together indoors and outdoors. Places were listed where Jews were forbidden to enter (“Jews were fenced in”). The local population was forbidden to give shelter to the Jews, to provide them with food and things, etc., which was punishable by death (see "perestoroga" - a warning).
Most of the Jews, like our family, managed to leave Kharkov before its occupation. Of those who remained in the city, at first not all the Jews of the city ended up on the “yellow lists” mentioned above. A certain part of the Kharkov Jews, in anticipation of the tragedy, tried to impersonate Russians or Ukrainians, but the occupation authorities mercilessly exposed all these attempts (unfortunately, mainly with the assistance of local "helpers" from the non-Jewish population).
By December 12, 1941, the population registration was completed. There are archival references in German and Ukrainian with a list of nationalities and their quantitative composition. Jews - 10271 people. The memoirs (both Soviet and German) sometimes mention a figure of about 30 thousand. This discrepancy is due to the fact that many Kharkov Jews initially deliberately evaded registration, but were subsequently “given away” or “caught” with the help of the local population. In addition, along with the Kharkovites, this “registration” (with all its consequences) later included Jewish refugees from the western regions of Ukraine (the so-called “Polish” Jews), many of whom ended up in Kharkov in the hope of getting away from the Germans “for east", but, not having time to leave here, they divided tragic fate Kharkov Jews...
On December 14, 1941, the infamous order of the German commandant was issued in Kharkov on the resettlement of all Jews, INCLUDING BABY CHILDREN, to the Tractor and Stankozavod barracks on the eastern outskirts of Kharkov within two days before December 16. Disobedience was punishable by death. All Jews were ordered to assemble ("with valuables") on the outskirts of Kharkov. Unfortunately, in the official Soviet press of the 50-70s, the words of this vile document were distorted so as not to emphasize the selectivity of Hitler's attitude towards the Jews, who always and everywhere had to be subjected to TOTAL extermination in the first place. In all post-war Soviet publications of those years, instead of the words of the order "ALL JEWS must" we read: "ALL RESIDENTS OF THE CENTRAL STREETS must" move ... Of course, the Nazis killed not only Jews. They killed Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians ... But if in relation to other peoples, the SELECTIVE destruction of objectionables was carried out - somehow partisans, communists, Komsomol members, underground workers (regardless of their nationality), then THE JEWS WERE DESTROYED EVERYONE IN A ROW - REGARDLESS OF AGE, SOCIAL STATUS AND MERITS - WITHOUT ANY REASON - JUST FOR THAT THEY ARE JEWS!
The mention of the “central streets” was probably invented by the then Soviet political enlightenment in order to shift the national aspect of the genocide of Jews by the German invaders towards purely social discrimination of only wealthy residents, who, allegedly, could only live in the city center ... As a “consolation” for domestic anti-Semites, such a linguistic (and in fact - purely ideological) trick could, if desired, be perceived as a hint of a predominant National composition these mythical "high street dwellers"
All this was, of course, a blatant lie. Kharkiv Jews, making up the middle-class population, historically worked mainly in the service sector, partly in medicine and culture (doctors, teachers). They lived, for the most part, not at all in the center, but in the more “quiet” outlying parts of the city, like, for example, we live in the eastern part of Kharkov, in the area called Osnova, built up with one-story houses without any amenities. The center of the city was populated mainly by the party and administrative nomenclature, managing the production and technical apparatus of factories, factories and various institutions - the so-called (in Soviet times) "iteerovtsy" (from the abbreviation "ITR" - engineering and technical workers), and as well as creative minds.
... On the appointed day, crowds of people from all over the city were drawn under escort to the ghetto organized by the Nazis. For two days, with interruptions, streams of people were walking along the streets of Kharkov. These streams merged into one big human river, which slowly flowed along Stalin Avenue (now Moskovsky Prospekt). There were thousands of Jews from the city. They were humiliated, robbed, expelled from their homes people, mostly women, the elderly, the elderly and children. For several days, in severe frost, they walked towards their death. Only a few managed to find carts to move. Most of the people walked, dragging sleds, carts, troughs with necessary things hastily assembled. Mothers were carrying children in their arms, someone was carrying a paralyzed mother, an old grandfather. SOMEWHERE IN THESE COLUMNS AMONG THE UNHAPPY AND DOOMED PEOPLE THERE WAS ALSO MY GRANDMA TSILIA AND UNCLE GREGORY…
People went voluntarily also because, until the last moment, they hoped that, “having thought”, the new authorities would send them somewhere to the settlement, where they hoped for, albeit difficult, but at least some kind of existence. The optimists even believed that eventually they would all be resettled in Palestine, the Promised Land. No one could even imagine what they would have to endure and what, in the end, awaits them - hope dies last ...
Far from everyone overcame the multi-kilometer path through the severe frost - the avenue along the path of the exiles was littered with corpses. Some women, guessing about something - foreseeing their tragic fate - and wanting to save their children, decided to take a desperate step - they pushed them onto the sidewalk from the crowd of the doomed who were constantly moving under escort, hoping that one of the residents standing on the side of the road ( not Jews) will save them, will not let them perish... for 70-80 people the barracks of the Tractor and the unfinished through frozen buildings of the Stankozavod.
The conditions were terrible - the premises were literally packed with people, so on the first night, everyone who got here alive could only stand, closely clinging to each other. A miraculously saved witness says: “It was so crowded and cold in the barracks, there was such a stench that people were already dying there by the hundreds. People defecated standing under themselves, fainted, there was nowhere even to sit down. lay interspersed. Many went crazy, but they were also left in a common room.
In fact, the systematic extermination of prisoners began from the very first days of their stay in this hell. In the created ghetto, the Jews were starved. Those noticed in the slightest violation of the “regime” were immediately shot. And the first victims were the disabled, the elderly and those who had lost their minds from the experience. Soon everyone finally realized the meaning of what was happening (which was impossible at first even to believe) and realized that they were taken here simply for destruction ...
So 10 days passed - in terrible conditions of uncertainty, waiting for at least some clarity in their fate and every day dying hope for the best ... But, on December 26, the Germans announced a record for "those who want to leave" - supposedly "relocate" to Poltava, Romny and Kremenchug. Only "valuable personal items" were allowed to be taken with them. The next day, closed cars drove up to the barracks. People, realizing the provocation, refused to get into them, but the German soldiers from the “Sonderkommando” - special teams - pushed them into the bodies by force and took them out of the camp. For several days, Jews in these vehicles (as well as on foot) were transported in batches of 300-500 people and led towards the Travnitskaya Valley to the deserted Drobitsky Yar, not far from the Chuguevsky Highway. This is where the final ended. terrible tragedy…
Near two huge pits dug in advance, people began to be mercilessly shot ... The “technology” of destruction in Drobitsky Yar was “rational and simple” in German: people were gathered at the edge of the pit and shot with a machine gun. Bodies "packs" fell into the pit. At one of the numerous graves, a barrel from a German machine gun was found, this barrel was torn: the executions were carried out continuously and for so long that even the metal could not stand it, it was torn apart ... Those who resisted and did not want to go to the execution to the pit were dragged there by force and finished off with pistols. Bullets were often not spent on children, they were thrown into the pits alive. They remained there to lie or crawl near their dead parents until they were buried along with the dead. A few more days after the action, groans were heard here and the earth literally stirred over a terrible burial that was badly buried by a bulldozer ...
From the memoirs of Elena P., who miraculously escaped (still a child at the time): “They selected from the crowd of doomedly standing half-dead and petrified with horror people who realized what was waiting for them now, 20-50 people each and led them there. They announced: "those who have gold, get out of order!". They put them aside and shot first those who had nothing. Then they took the jewels from those who stood aside and killed them. Then the next group was brought in.
“Clean executioners”, “so as not to get dirty” after being shot in bloody clothes in search of hidden jewelry, before being shot, they forced women to undress (at first only until underwear). But many women, hoping to escape, hid in clothes, intimate places and often swallowed valuable things (gold rings, pendants, watches, etc.). Therefore, parties of the doomed, where there were especially many women, were shot without outerwear, and then completely stripped naked. And only after the “completion of the operation” did the killers in uniform go around and inspect the dead people lying side by side and finish off everyone who still showed signs of life ... Then, with true German accuracy, they methodically rummaged through the piles of clothes of the newly killed people, once again checking it for jewelry : carefully shake it up in order to find hidden valuables.
In addition to the Germans from the Einsatzkommandos, the local police, which recruited various traitors and scum from the local population, also took part in the executions and confiscation of Jewish property. But besides the Germans themselves and the police, "on their own initiative" this was also done by individual marauders who came from the suburbs and surrounding villages. However, the occupiers did not encourage such “amateur activity” and did not favor such “competitors”, who also wanted to profit from the good of the executed. Soldiers of the Einsatzkommandos and policemen sometimes also killed some local residents for looting - “for the company” (mainly so that there were no extra witnesses to their own crimes).
By mid-January, all the inhabitants of the ghetto were completely destroyed - about 16 thousand people who were in the barracks were taken in cars to Drobitsky Yar and shot from machine guns and machine guns ... This was the "first stop". In the future, additionally identified hidden Jews, as well as captured single underground workers and partisans, were brought here and shot ...
At the beginning of 1942, a special “gazvagen” car appeared on the streets of Kharkov, which was intended for additional destruction of people and was nicknamed by the people as a “gas chamber”. The reason for the widespread use of this “technical equipment” during executions was the instruction of the “sensitive” chief executioner Himmler, who, somehow present at the mass executions in August in Belarus, received a nervous shock from what he saw and ordered the development of “more humane methods murder than shooting.
These machines were commonly used by the Germans to kill women, children, the elderly and the sick. Before boarding the van, people were ordered to hand over all valuables and clothing. After that, the doors were closed, and the gas supply system switched to exhaust. In order not to cause premature fear in the victims, the van had a light bulb that turned on when the doors were closed. After that, the driver turned on the engine in neutral for about 10 minutes. After the cries of suffocating people and any of their movement in the van stopped, the corpses were taken to the burial place and unloaded (there are also cases when gas wagons were placed right next to the ditches).
The first models of "gas wagons" had a design flaw, due to which the people placed in them died painfully from suffocation, and then the bodies had to be removed from excrement, vomit, blood and other secretions, which caused dissatisfaction with the "maintenance personnel". Loading the gas chambers was considered a cleaner job: it was one thing to push thirty or forty people into each of the cars, and quite another to pull the corpses out of them, bury them, and then wash the vans. The Germans did not dirty their hands, and, as a rule, traitors who went over to the side of the Nazis were engaged in servicing the gas chambers. One of the Russian policemen of the Sonderkommando SS 10-A complained: “Always in the mud, in human shit, they didn’t give bathrobes, they didn’t give mittens, there wasn’t enough soap, and they demanded to clean up carefully!” In general, the Germans were greedy - they did not provide poor helpers with overalls and detergents. It's time to sympathize with the bastards... Since the beginning of the spring of 1942, this "defect has been eliminated" - the gas supply rate has been adjusted, placed in the body at first gradually lost consciousness and only then died ...
Such a car with a hermetically sealed body also regularly "cruised" along the streets of the city during raids in order to "preventively clean up objectionable elements." Up to 50 "suspicious" residents were driven into it at the same time - mostly Jews who "avoided" resettlement in the ghetto, who subsequently died in terrible agony due to poisoning with specially injected carbon monoxide- "Cyclone-B". “Caught” with their parents in a round-up of small children who cried and resisted strongly, they were allowed to sniff cotton wool soaked in some kind of liquid, and they lost consciousness. In this form, they were thrown into the "gas chamber". The gas wagon “worked” on the move, and when it drove up to the ditches dug in advance, the corpses of people already suffocated from the gas fell out ...
Later, throughout 1942, small groups of additionally caught hiding Jews and Gypsies were brought to Drobitsky Yar and other places, where they were shot and buried in new pits ... Here, the “gas chambers” that periodically ran around the city were “emptied”, where they drove those caught in the time of round-ups of often completely random people who did not have the necessary documents with them.
Actress Lyudmila Gurchenko wrote in her memoirs - the book "My adult childhood" - how by chance she also almost got into such a roundup in the Kharkov market ... "Imagine that you are walking down the street, and suddenly there is a cry" Roundup! from where people in German uniforms appeared and pushed into the gas chamber. Ten minutes later you stop breathing. That's it ... This could happen to every inhabitant anytime and anywhere!"
Subsequently, only more than ten places of mass extermination of people were witnessed in Kharkov. Among them are Drobitsky Yar, Lesopark, prisoner-of-war camps in the Kholodnogorsk prison and the KhTZ area (destroyed Jewish ghetto), Saltovsky village (place of execution of patients in the Saburova dacha - a madhouse), the clinical town of the regional hospital on the street. Trinkler (place of burning alive several hundred wounded), places of public hangings on the street. Sumy and Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, courtyard of the International Hotel (place mass execution hostages)... One group - about 400 people - was locked in a synagogue on Grazhdanskaya Street, where they died of hunger and thirst. Among the dead - eminent figures culture and sciences: mathematician A. Efros, musicologist professor I. I. Goldberg, violinist professor I. E. Bukinik, pianist Olga Grigorovskaya, ballerina Rosalia Alidort, architect V. A. Estrovich, professor of medicine A. Z. Gurevich and others. All these places have become memorial monuments and remind the living of the crimes of the occupiers.
Zealous local "registrars" (from Ukrainian nationalists and Russian traitors) gradually "got into the taste of cleaning" the city from the remaining "disguised Jews". They began to seek out and catch the few hidden Jews, including lonely old people who, due to age or illness, could not move independently and leave the house.
Here is a letter from the burgomaster of the 17th district of the Kublitsky City Council: “Before Pan Oberburgomaster of the city of Kharkov, born in 1941: ... “in the 17th district entrusted to me, 5 Jewish families remained and are hiding, who have not yet left< к месту сбора >because some of them are sick, others are old. Their addresses:
1. Chernyshevskaya st. N 84 - one person
2. "N 48 - one person
3. Mironositskaya st. N 75 - two people
4. Sumska st. N 68 - one person
5. Pushkinskaya st. N 67 - "-"
I ask you to give your order what to do with them.
Such was the concern...
Personal reports also appear, such as: “To the chief of police of the 17th district of Kharkov: I inform you that lists have been filed for Jews, in which Yakubovich Raisa Nikolaevna appears ... that she lost him. I believe that Yakubovich Raisa is actually a Jew, although, approximately, in 1904 she accepted Orthodox faith and got married in a church. The passport, which she does not show, is with her, it would be desirable to conduct a search for a passport. January 5, 1942 House Manager Dutov.
Also zealous cattle ...
I note that even their belonging to the Orthodox denomination did not help baptized Jews to be saved. They were all destroyed "on the vine" only because of their origin...
There are many such statements in the archives. Letter No. 146 on the letterhead of the Kharkov City Council dated January 6, 1942 (translated from Ukrainian):
“To all art institutions in Kharkov.
In agreement with German Power, again offer no later than 12.1. s.g., conduct a thorough check personnel employees and students of your institution in order to identify all Jewish elements or related to Jews (wives, parents, etc.), as well as to identify communists and Komsomol members. Verification must be carried out according to the metrics, military IDs and passports (in the absence of metrics and military IDs, other reliable documents should be required). Personal responsibility for the accuracy of verification and the correctness of the statements rests with the rectors, their deputies or heads of institutions. It is necessary to draw up lists of identified Jews or those related to them, as well as communists and Komsomol members, and send the latter to the department of arts. Signed - “Head of the Department of Arts prof. AT.
Kostenko. What can I say about this "professor of art" ...
The "hunt" for everyone who could only be suspected of belonging to the remaining and "disguised Jews" continued throughout German occupation Kharkov. The euphoria from the successfully carried out action for the mass liquidation of the Jewish population of Kharkov in Drobitsky Yar and the calm attitude of the city residents towards it (support and even complicity of part of the population in the "events" of the occupiers), in general, tightened the measures applied to those national "halves" and " quarters" from mixed marriages, etc., who previously hoped to be saved. All of them, to a single one, were also gradually identified, “collected” into groups and additionally shot. Therefore, the “conveyor of death” worked for months after that. In the same place, in the Drobitsky Yar, “the additionally identified Jews and half-breeds”, as well as prisoners of war and the mentally ill, were subsequently shot. Archival materials are still being studied and will bring many, if not discoveries of a historical nature, they will undoubtedly constitute the richest material for sociological and psychological research…
On August 23, 1943, Kharkov was finally liberated from the Nazis. The city was a terrible sight these days. Writer Alexei Tolstoy (Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Nazis) ... wrote the following lines about what he saw: "This is probably what Rome was like when the hordes of German barbarians swept through it in the 5th century - a huge cemetery ... The Germans began to rule<здесь>by the fact that in December 1941 they killed, dumping into pits, without exception the entire Jewish population, about 23 - 24 thousand people, starting from infants. I was at the excavation of these terrifying pits and I certify the authenticity of the murders, and it was carried out with extreme sophistication in order to deliver the largest possible m;ki to the victims ... I believe that many more people living far from the war, with difficulty and even with distrust, represent anti-tank ditches, where under the filled earth - half a meter deep, a hundred meters long - lie respectable citizens, old women, professors, previously wounded Red Army soldiers along with crutches, schoolchildren, young girls, women, clutching babies with decayed hands, whose medical expertise found earth in her mouth, as they were buried alive.
Survived Leningrad blockade the poet N. Tikhonov wrote about the Kharkov tragedy, about the destroyed Kharkov: "This is a cemetery, a cluster of empty walls, fantastic ruins." In the Forest Park, as well as in Drobitsky Yar, giant ditches filled with corpses were excavated. According to the calculations of the Extraordinary Commission (organized specifically to investigate the atrocities of the Nazis in Kharkov), there were at least thirty thousand of them. The rest of the victims were found in other graves.
ACCORDING TO THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF CRIMES
FACISTS IN THE OCCUPIED SOVIET LANDS, KHARKIV AFTER STALINGRAD BECAME THE MOST DESTROYED OF ALL THE MAJOR CITIES OF THE USSR. THE PERMANENT POPULATION OF THE CITY DECREASED AT LEAST 700 THOUSAND PEOPLE. WITH REFUGEES - MORE THAN A MILLION. BY THE TIME THE CITY FROM THE GERMANS, ITS POPULATION WAS LESS THAN 190 THOUSAND PEOPLE. AND THE JEWISH POPULATION OF KHARKOV, WHICH MADE 19.6% OF ALL ITS RESIDENTS BEFORE THE WAR, WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED.
VIDEO "DROBITSKY YAR":
http://objectiv.tv/220811/59611.html#video_attachment
(insert directly into the top Yandex window by clicking on the words "insert and go"; the video materials themselves are at the end of the site).
In December 1943, the first trial of war criminals in the history of wars began in Kharkov. They decided not to transfer the trial to Moscow, but to hold it here, where everything happened. Despite the obvious crimes, lawyers were allocated to the defendants. Many were captured, but those who gave orders were judged.
The trial, which lasted four days, attracted the attention of the whole world. The trial in Kharkov in December 1943 became the first legal precedent for the punishment of Nazi war criminals. It was at this Kharkov court that for the first time they started talking about the atrocities and bloody mockeries of the Nazis over defenseless people. For the first time, the German commanders themselves spoke about their crimes, called specific figures. For the first time in court, it was stated that reference to the order of the chief does not exempt from responsibility for the commission of war crimes.
Four were charged: German military counterintelligence officer Wilhelm Langheld; Deputy SS company commander SS Untersturmführer Hans Ritz; the youngest in rank, senior corporal of the German secret field police (Gestapo) Reinhard Retslav and a local resident - the driver of the infamous Kharkov “gas chamber” car Mikhail Bulanov.
Here is how Ilya Ehrenburg, a writer and journalist for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, describes the Kharkiv trial: “The trial takes place in wounded, offended Kharkov. Here even stones scream about crimes... More than 30,000 Kharkovites died, tortured to death by the Germans... The atrocities of the defendants are not the pathology of three sadists, not the debauchery of three degenerates. This is the fulfillment German plan extermination and enslavement of peoples.
On December 18, 1943, after the accusatory speech of the prosecutor, the Military Tribunal of the Front sentenced all four defendants to death penalty through hanging. The sentence was carried out the next day market square, where over forty thousand Kharkovites gathered. While the execution was going on, the crowd in the square was silent ...
VIDEO FILM: "THE TRIAL IN KHARKOV OVER WAR CRIMINALS IN MARCH 1943"
http://varjag-2007.livejournal.com/3920435.html - paste directly into the top Yandex window by clicking on the words "paste and go"; the video itself is at the end of the site).
The search for the Nazis continues to this day. And the first four Nazis were sentenced exactly 70 years ago in Kharkov liberated from the Nazis.
On December 15-18, 1943, the world's first trial of Nazi criminals and their accomplices.
In the dock were the captain of military counterintelligence Wilhelm Langheld, the deputy commander of the SS company Untersturmführer Hans Ritz, the senior corporal Reinhard Retslav and the driver of the gas chamber Mikhail Bulanov. The court sentenced them to death. On December 19, on the Market Square of the Central Market of War Criminals, they were hanged in public.
There are many recollections of witnesses, photographs and video materials about the Kharkiv trial. For example, such well-known writers and journalists as Alexei Tolstoy, Leonid Leonov, Pavlo Tychina, Petro Panch, Ilya Ehrenburg, Vladimir Sosyura, Maxim Rylsky and many others watched its progress. In addition, the process was covered by correspondents from leading foreign agencies and international observers. Photographed and videotaped by Kharkiv war correspondent Andrei Laptiy. Immediately after the end of the trial in December 1943, a pamphlet with the materials of the trial was published in mass circulation. However, historians and local historians continue to find new data about that historical event.
Military historian Valery Vokhmyanin says that once he accidentally got the notes of the secretary of the Kharkov City Party Committee Vladimir Rybalov, who during the trial of the Nazis was also in charge of the military department of the party.
The unedited and uncensored memoirs of Rybalov, written by him in 1961, when he was already retired, were given to me by his stepdaughter, the daughter of his second wife, recalls Valery Vokhmyanin.
According to the historian, Vladimir Rybalov worked closely with Alexei Tolstoy, who arrived in Kharkov as a representative of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the Nazi Invaders back in September. The commission searched for facts and collected testimonies from witnesses of the German terror. Together with Tolstoy, Rybalov visited places mass executions in Drobitsky Yar, Lesopark and on Pravda Avenue, where the Germans burned down the hospital along with the wounded.
“The trial was entrusted to the military tribunal of the fourth Ukrainian front. Of the ten main war criminals identified during the investigation, who committed atrocities in the city and region during the period of their temporary occupation, only four turned out to be in the dock, and even then they were not organizers, but “small fry”, just perpetrators of atrocities: captain, lieutenant SS, chief corporal and driver of the Sonderkommando, 25-year-old Mikhail Bulanov, who sobbed during the whole process and even during the last word, ”Valery Vokhmyanin quotes an eyewitness record.
Present in a crowded hall and Vladimir Alekseevich with his wife. In his memoirs, he notes that it was difficult to restrain emotions, hearing frank confessions of criminals.
Every now and then a muffled whisper was heard from the side and behind: “These bastards, they knew how to calmly destroy people, but they themselves, scoundrels, are afraid to die. They should not be shot, but quartered, as under Ivan the Terrible, ”recalls an eyewitness.
The criminals asked for their lives
The trial took place in a partially destroyed building opera house on Rymarskaya Street, 21. Entrance there was available only to citizens with a special pass.Today, such a pass, as well as a copy of the sentence to Nazi criminals, photographs and other documents can be seen in the only Holocaust museum in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, the eyewitnesses of the famous process are no longer alive - too much time has passed. After all, only the adult population was present at the trial - the authorities considered that children should not hear about the atrocities of the Nazis. Larisa Volovik recalls a woman who, as a child, managed to get into the building where the trial took place through the roof. But even this witness is not with us today.
The director of the Holocaust Museum, who spoke with eyewitnesses of the process, notes that most of all people hated their compatriot, the driver of the "gas chamber" Mikhail Bulanov.
Many fainted, especially when one woman told how she escaped from the "gas chamber" and her children were taken away, - Andrey Laptiy confirms.
Valery Vokhmyanin, after getting acquainted with the minutes of the court session, was amazed that the criminals did not play silent, but spoke about their atrocities in all details. The researcher suggests that the suspects still counted on a commutation of the sentence. Obviously, they played cat and mouse with the condemned, promising not to execute them, the historian conjectures. No wonder even in last word the criminals, admitting that they had done terrible things, asked for their lives.
Of course, the task before the court was not only to fairly punish those responsible for the massacres of the inhabitants of the occupied territories, but also to force them to tell the whole world about it, - emphasizes Valery Vokhmyanin. - The newspapers published articles about the atrocities of the Nazis, they talked about it on the radio and in documentaries that were shown in the liberated cities and on the front lines. So, one of the first documentary evidence was a report filmed at the Kharkov trial, where a fascist tells how he personally killed old people and children.
Not all perpetrators answered for the deaths of thousands of Kharkiv residents
According to Valery Vokhmyanin, the main wave of fascist terror against the local population (with the exception of executions in Drobitsky Yar and reprisals against prisoners of war) covered Kharkov in March 1943, after the city was occupied for the second time. Punishers destroyed Kharkiv residents for hiding Jews, cutting communication lines, possession of weapons or radio devices, anti-German propaganda, attempted murder, or simply disobedience to German soldiers and collaborators who collaborated with them. If the culprit was not found, the inhabitants of the surrounding settlements or streets.
In addition, according to historians, it was in Kharkov that the Nazis tried their "invention" - gas wagons.
Local residents could be shot right on the street. For example, if the patrol met a person who looked like a Jew or a Gypsy. So many Armenians, Georgians or Tatars perished. In the "Book of Memory" they noted: "killed by a German patrol, was mistaken for a Jew," says Valery Vokhmyanin.
The collection of materials “The trial of the atrocities of the Nazi invaders on the territory of Kharkov and the Kharkov region during their temporary occupation” mentions that in December 1941 the population of the city was 457 thousand people, and by the end of the occupation - about 190 thousand. Although, Of course, part of the population died of starvation during the occupation, and part left.
In addition, the investigation materials of the State Extraordinary Commission did not mention the executions of more than 16,000 Jews, Larisa Volovik, director of the Holocaust Museum, states.
In the documents published after the trial, there is also not a single word that Jews died in Drobitsky Yar. Until now, some consider the burial a mass grave, but this is not so: only Jews and people of other nationalities who did not want to leave their doomed relatives were shot there, - Larisa Volovik is sure.
Why did only four executioners end up in the dock in Kharkov? Historians believe that the Germans desperately covered up the traces of crimes, destroying documents and witnesses. Sometimes it was impossible to find witnesses of even the most massive executions of civilians. Although the members of the Extraordinary State Commission still managed to establish the names of the leaders of the Gestapo and the commanders of the SS units who gave orders for the destruction of people. The list of perpetrators was published at the end of the indictment. But, unfortunately, after the war, not all Nazi executioners were convicted for atrocities committed in Ukraine.
The head of the Kharkov "Sonderkommando SD" Sturmannführer Hanebitter was executed, but he was tried by the Americans, and they did not consider his crimes on Eastern Front, but only the execution of prisoners of war of the allied troops, - Valery Vokhmyanin gives an example. - However, for the same reason, many Nazis escaped a fair punishment, served their time in prisons and were released.
Some criminals even fled from Europe to safe countries. For example, the creator of the gas wagon, Walter Rauch, ended up in Chile, where he became an adviser to the dictator Augusto Pinochet.
By the way, even the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine, Erich Koch, who ordered mass executions, was convicted in Poland. He was not sentenced to death, although he was behind bars until his death.
Forerunner of the Nuremberg Trials
Igor Maletsky, 17, was a witness to the atrocities of the Nazis. In order not to get to work in Germany, the guy repeatedly escaped from custody, and then, together with his wounded mother, risked leaving native city. Getting to relatives in the Kirovograd region, he drove her three hundred kilometers on a sled. Mom survived, but the daredevil was still caught. Igor survived concentration camps in Austria and Germany. Now he heads the Kharkov regional committee of prisoners of fascist concentration camps.Note that the Kharkiv convicts were hanged on a rope by a just verdict of the court, and not as they did in concentration camps, hanging people on meat hooks by the chin or rib, - says the chairman of the committee.
The whole world saw that it was a court, and not a trial or reprisal, - agrees the professor of the Department of Russian History, KhNU named after. V.N. Karazin, Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Volosnik. - It became obvious that civilized norms would be applied to the vanquished, and not bestial instincts for revenge.
After the Kharkov process, it became clear that everyone would have to answer for the crimes, and not just those who gave orders, historians emphasize. It was the Kharkov trial that laid the foundation for future tribunals, including the Nuremberg Tribunal, which took place two years later. Moreover, the Nuremberg Tribunal used the materials of the first trial of the Nazis in the USSR. By the way, the rector Kharkiv University Vladimir Lavrushin during the tribunal was the chairman of the commission of an international group of experts who studied the operation of "death machines" in concentration camps.
Nazis and policemen are still wanted
As a veteran of the SBU told Vecherny Kharkov, and in Soviet time- Senior Special Investigator important matters KGB of the Ukrainian SSR Mikhail Gritsenko, active searches and arrests of war criminals continued until the 1980s. They changed their place of residence and surnames, but in the end the executioners had to look into the eyes of their victims again and listen to curses addressed to them, since the courts were still open and public. In 1970-1980, the law enforcement officer personally participated in the search and capture of former German accomplices who were in charge in Belgorod, Barvenkovo and Bogodukhov.
A policeman from Barvenkovo Mayboroda was found in Donetsk, and a Bogodukhovsky Sklyar was found in Altai, - says Mikhail Petrovich. All of them lived under false names. Sklyar went under execution, and Mayboroda received 15 years.
The last trial of Kharkiv police officer Alexander Posevin took place in the 1980s. In the autumn of 1988 he was shot.
As Valery Vokhmyanin notes, the statute of limitations does not apply to war crimes against humanity, so some criminals are still being searched for.
The first to search for the Nazis and their accomplices in the newly liberated territory were employees of a special department, which would later be called SMERSH, the historian notes. - Then the work was continued by the NKVD. And now the archives of the SBU store unfinished cases opened at that time. This happened in cases where the suspect was either not found, or it was established that he lived in countries with which the USSR had no agreements on the extradition of criminals: the USA, Brazil, Argentina.
Capture of Kharkov by the Germans
Despite the stubborn resistance of the Soviet units and fierce battles in the center and in certain areas, on October 24-25, 1941, the city was captured by German troops (finally abandoned by the Red Army at 22:30 on October 25).
Occupation power system in the city
The system of power in the city from October 24, 1941 to February 9, 1942
The special cruelty of the occupiers was determined, among other factors, by the system local authorities organized in Kharkov. Unlike other captured Ukrainian cities, where power was transferred to civilian bodies, in front-line Kharkov, special military command and control bodies were created to manage the occupied territory. In the hands of the combat units was complete control over the city.
A new stage in the development of military administration (since February 9, 1942)
A new stage in the development of military administration in Kharkov began on February 9, 1942, when the power in the city was taken over by the field commandant's office, which was transformed into a standard commandant's office through an appropriate personnel increase. And on February 28, the headquarters of the rear army district 585. For a reason special significance Kharkov, the city was transferred directly to the commander of the rear area of Army Group B.
Ukrainian Auxiliary Police
General police functions in the city were to be performed by the order police, which, in accordance with the decree of June 26, 1936, consisted of the Schutzpolice, the gendarmerie, the fire brigade police and some other units. Its main task was to ensure the security of the occupied areas. However, even significant German forces was clearly not enough to restore order in Kharkov. That's why new government involved in the police service of the local population.
In Ukraine, from the very first days of the occupation, the creation of the Ukrainian militia began, which over time became more and more uncontrolled by the German occupation authorities and dealt with the issues of building Ukrainian statehood and local government. However, this course of events did not suit the occupation authorities. Considering the great need for special police forces and the unacceptability of the existence of a poorly controlled local militia, the Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police Himmler issued a decree on November 6, 1941 on the creation of special police forces from the local population, or the order on the so-called "Schutzmannschaft". Fulfilling Himmler's directive, on November 18, 1941, a decree was issued in Ukraine on the "dissolution of the uncontrolled Ukrainian militia" and the organization of the "Schutzmannschaft". The order referred to the need to attract the best representatives of the Ukrainian police to the "Schutzmannschaft" and to disarm and liquidate the rest of the Ukrainian police. In the summer of 1942, the formation of Ukrainian police battalions was stopped due to great influence they contain Ukrainian nationalists and incomplete control.
Holocaust in Kharkov
Most of the Jews managed to leave the city. Not all the Jews of the city were on the list, but almost all of them were destroyed: according to German sources - 11 thousand, according to an extrapolation estimate of the Extrapolation State Commission of the Soviet Union for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes - 15 thousand. The bulk of the Jews were destroyed in December 1941 - January 1942 . in Drobitsky Yar near Kharkov. Another group - about 400 people (mostly older) were locked in a synagogue on Grazhdanskaya Street, where they died of hunger and thirst. Among the dead were outstanding figures of culture and science, mathematician A. Efros, musicologist Professor I. I. Goldberg, violinist Professor I. E. Bukinik, pianist Olga Grigorovskaya, ballerina Rozalia Alidort, architect V. A. Estrovich, professor of medicine A. Z Gurevich and others.
According to the already mentioned mandatory registration of the population, 10271 people of Jewish nationality were included in the special “yellow” lists, among which more than 75% were women, the elderly and children. From the very first days of the occupation, Jews experienced bullying and persecution. A certain part of the Kharkiv Jews, in anticipation of the tragedy, tried to impersonate Russians or Ukrainians, but the occupation authorities mercilessly exposed all these attempts. On December 14, 1941, an order was issued, according to which the entire Jewish population of the city was to move within two days to the outskirts of the city, to the barracks of the machine-tool plant. Disobedience was punishable by death. For several days, in severe frost, people walked towards their death. Up to 800 people were driven into barracks designed for 70-80 people. In the created ghetto, the Jews were starved. Those noticed in the slightest violation of the regime were immediately shot. On December 26, the Germans announced an entry for those wishing to leave for Poltava, Romny and Kremenchug; it was not allowed to take personal belongings with them. The next day, closed cars drove up to the barracks. People, realizing the provocation, refused to sit in them, but the soldiers took them out of the camp by force. Over the course of several days, some of the Jews in these vehicles, some of the Jews were driven on foot to Drobitsky Yar, where they were all shot.
Alexei Tolstoy wrote the following lines on this subject:
The Germans began their rule by killing, in December 1941, by dumping into the pits, without exception, the entire Jewish population, about 23-24 thousand people, starting from infants. I was at the excavation of these terrifying pits and certify the authenticity of the murder, and it was carried out with extreme sophistication in order to bring the victims as much torment as possible.
In January 1942, a special car with a sealed body appeared on the streets of Kharkov, intended for the destruction of people - a gas van, popularly nicknamed "gas chamber". Up to 50 people were driven into such a car, who later died in terrible agony due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Places of mass extermination of people
More than ten places of mass extermination of people have been witnessed in Kharkov. Among them are Drobitsky Yar, Lesopark, prisoner of war camps in the Kholodnogorsk prison and the KhTZ area (destroyed Jewish ghetto), Saltovsky village (place of execution of Saburova dacha patients), the clinical town of the regional hospital on the street. Trinklera (place of burning alive several hundred wounded), places of public hangings along the street. Sumy and Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, the courtyard of the International Hotel (Kharkiv) (a place of mass execution of hostages), gas-vans, gas chambers .. All of them have become memorial monuments and remind the living of the crimes of the occupiers, the tragedy of war.
Hunger
The living conditions of Kharkiv residents in the occupied city were extremely difficult. The main problem at this time was terrible famine arising due to complete indifference city government to the food supply. People ate literally everything: potato husks, fodder beets, casein glue, pets.
People began to swell, most of them found it difficult to move even elementarily. The picture became common: hunched figures of Kharkiv residents, harnessed to children's sledges, on which they transported dead relatives. In many cases, there was not enough strength to bury the dead, or there was simply no one to do it.
According to the Kharkiv City Council, in 1942, 13,139 Kharkiv residents died of starvation, which accounted for more than half of all deaths during this period.
Consequences of the occupation
see also
- Kharkov trial of war criminals (December 1943)
- Drobitsky Yar - a place of mass extermination of Jews
Links
- Kharkiv. Occupation 1941-1943 // Dali is called. (Retrieved February 23, 2009)
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Before the war, Kharkov was the second largest city in Ukraine - 900,000 people different nationalities(According to the 1939 census: 50% Ukrainians, 40% Russians, 16% Jews, etc.). In July-October 1941, up to 600,000 residents of neighboring regions fled there. Mostly they were women, old people and children. Survive the first (October 24, 1941 - February 15, 1943) and the second Nazi occupation(March 10 - August 23, 1943) few succeeded - only 200,000 emaciated people remained in the finally liberated city. The Nazis varied (but systematically - " new order”) destroyed civilians and prisoners of war: hundreds of children from the Kharkov hospital were buried alive in pits, 300 wounded Red Army soldiers were burned, about 16,000 Jews were shot in Drobitsky Yar, and tens of thousands of Kharkovites starved to death. However, as senior corporal R. Retslav said, "mass executions by hanging and executions seemed too troublesome and slow means for the German command." Therefore, as in Krasnodar and other cities, for mass executions, the occupiers and their accomplices used "gas chambers" ("gazenvagens") - pressurized trucks, where people were poisoned with exhaust fumes. The use of "gas chambers" was kept secret (therefore, by the way, the cars themselves were not preserved, there are not even photographs), for secrecy, the corpses of the poisoned Kharkiv residents were burned. How many names and crimes the Nazis concealed in this way is unknown. In 1943, the investigation was able to establish only 30,000 documented murders with specific perpetrators. Some managed to catch - for a fair trial. |
December 15, 1943 began first in the world open process over Nazi criminals. There are three German executioners in the dock: the captain of military counterintelligence V. Langheld, G. Ritz, R. Retslav. Sitting next to them Soviet traitor- their henchman M. Bulanov.
Gestapo officer Retslav beat out testimony by torture, including accusing 25 Kharkov workers of anti-German activities (of which 15 were shot, 10 were poisoned in gas chambers). I personally loaded 40 people into the gas chamber and helped to burn the corpses. The deputy commander of the SS company, Ritz, beat the arrested and shot innocent people.
Military counterintelligence officer Langheld tortured prisoners of war, fabricated a number of cases in which up to a hundred people were shot.
Bulanov, the Gestapo driver, operated the “gas chamber” (and also cleaned and repaired it after use), drove Kharkiv residents to executions, including 60 children. For this, he received 90 marks a month, rations, and those things of the executed, which the Germans neglected.
Their guilt was exposed by trophy documents, forensic medical examination, testimonies of victims, interrogations of German prisoners of war, acts of the ChGK. Qualified translators and three well-known lawyers in the USSR worked.
The defendants themselves spoke in detail and even casually about their crimes. They emphasized that many invaders do this, because the authorities (Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg) spoke directly about the destruction of the “lower races”, called for punishing the inhabitants for any resistance. Therefore, in Kharkov, not only three executioners and a traitor, but the entire Nazi inhuman system were tried.
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Defendants (from right to left): Captain V. Langheld, Senior Corporal R. Retslav, Lieutenant G. Ritz, Gestapo driver M.N. Bulanov
at a meeting of the Kharkov trial of German war criminals.
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Famous writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Konstantin Simonov (“Red Star”), Alexei Tolstoy (“Pravda”), Leonid Leonov (“Izvestia”) covered the court for the main Soviet newspapers. For Ukrainians: Yuri Smolich, Maxim Rylsky, Volodymyr Sosiura, Pavlo Tychyna, Volodymyr Lidin. Foreign correspondents from The New York Times, The Times, The Daily Express and others worked in the hall. One of the best documentary filmmakers in the world (1943 Oscar for the film German troops near Moscow") Ilya Kopalin directed documentary"Court is coming" is about the process. A month later, it was shown in all Soviet cinemas, and then in many countries.
All the defendants pleaded guilty in the last word, that is, personal involvement in the murders of thousands of Soviet citizens. Despite this, the Germans were justified by the "system" and the hierarchy of orders. Everyone asked for the preservation of life - Langheld referred to his "advanced age", Ritz and Retzlav promised to conduct anti-Hitler propaganda for German people, Bulanov wanted to atone for his guilt with blood.
The court sentenced them to capital punishment - the death penalty. The sentence was carried out on Bazarnaya Square on December 19, 1943, in the presence of tens of thousands of Kharkiv residents. The trial and execution were approved not only by them, but also by tens of millions of readers, listeners, moviegoers all over the world.
International reaction to the Kharkiv process
Source: Lebedeva N.S. Training Nuremberg Trials. M. 1975.
Chapter 1: The policy of the USSR, the USA and England in relation to war criminals in 1943-1944, paragraph "The policy of the USSR, USA and England in relation to war criminals in 1943-1944".
Of particular note is the role of the trial in Kharkov as the first legal precedent for the punishment of Nazi war criminals. This process was the implementation of the declarations of the Allies on the punishment of war criminals and made government statements irreversible. At the same time, the Kharkov trial put some kind of pressure on the allied governments, making it impossible to refuse to hold such trials. It was here that for the first time it was clearly stated that the reference to the order of the chief does not exempt from responsibility for the commission of war crimes.
US Ambassador to the USSR A. Harriman, in a report to the State Department, emphasized that “the process leaves no doubt about the intention of the Soviet authorities to bring to justice German government and high command for crimes and atrocities committed in their name and by their order." He also reported that the American correspondents who were present at the Kharkov trial were convinced of the guilt of the accused, the validity of the charges brought, and noted the court's strict observance of legal norms. The Ambassador recommended that this occasion be used to launch a broad campaign of protest against war criminals. However, neither the State Department nor the War Department not only did not consider it necessary to support this proposal, but expressed serious concern in connection with the conduct of such a process. The issue was considered by the London Political Military Coordinating Committee, which decided that a repetition of the processes should in any case be avoided, “on which statements would be made that they enter or go beyond the framework of the Moscow Declaration”. Thus, the ruling circles of England and the USA feared that they would be suspected of involvement in the implementation of practical measures to punish war criminals carried out by the Soviet government.
The world community highly appreciated the significance of the actions of the Soviet Union in punishing war criminals. American senator K. Pepper wrote in July 1944: « Soviet Union has already taken certain steps to inspire confidence that war criminals will be punished. emergency state commission prepared a documentary report on war crimes and criminals on Russian territory. Three Nazis and one traitor have already been tried and executed at the place where they committed their crimes.(meaning the Kharkov process. — N.L. ) .
Many lawyers and public figures in the United Nations noted the timeliness litigation conducted in the Soviet Union over German war criminals, the strength of their legal base, the public nature of the trial and the fairness of the sentences. So, for example, the Czech lawyer V. Benes to merit Soviet government attributed the holding of the Kharkov trial, which showed that “The punishment of war criminals is not only an interesting subject for discussion among lawyers and politicians, but is primarily a practical necessity that must be implemented without delay. In addition, the Kharkiv process demonstrated to the world that the punishment of war criminals can be successfully carried out in a well-organized society and at the same time all the necessary guarantees of substantive and procedural law can be observed.» .
Vera M. Dean, editor of the journal of the American Foreign Policy Association, noted that the goal of the Kharkov trial was not only to convict three German criminals and one Russian traitor, but also to obtain material from the defendants to accuse the true masterminds of all crimes - Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg and etc.
True, voices were heard in Western countries expressing "anxiety" and "fear" about the fact that the USSR was allegedly pursuing a policy of mass executions. In this regard, the Washington correspondent of the Colliers newspaper G. Creel wrote: “Nothing in the Kharkiv process gives the right to fear ... that the court has violated legal norms in any way. Although the trial was military and not civilian... the defendants were provided with lawyers to defend themselves. The process was open to the public and the press". G. Creel compared this trial with a closed American military trial of eight German saboteurs and noted the great democratic nature of the Kharkov trial. The well-known American lawyer Sh. Gluck also recognized the fairness of the verdict of the Kharkov court.
Ibid., p. 850, 852; USA. Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers., 1944, vol. IV, p. 1198-1211.
C.D. Pepper. Punishment of War Criminals. A Major War Aim. - "Free World", 1944, July, vol. 8, p. 73; see also: H. Munro. plan for the Trial of War Criminals. - "The Law Journal", 1945, Jan. 6, vol. 95, p. 5-9.
V. Benes. The Punishment of War Criminals. - "The Spirit of Czechoslovakia", 1945, vol. 5, No. 1, p. 22.
V.M. Dean. Russians Take Lead in Trying War Criminals. - "Foreign Policy Bulletin", 1943, Dec. 24, vol. XXIII, No. 10, p. 1-2.
Even after so many years, interest in the events of the Second World War does not fade away. There are still disputes regarding the interpretation of many of its episodes and events. Unlike more early wars, this war left behind great amount photographic documents that captured those terrible events. More and more new pictures that were previously in closed archives and private collections are becoming available to the general public. Of particular interest are realistic color photographs, which more fully convey the atmosphere of those years.
Today we will show a series of photographs of occupied Kharkov, taken mainly in 1942. Some of the buildings in the photographs are destroyed by air raids and shelling, but a year later even more Kharkov streets will be destroyed when, in 1943, the city again becomes the scene of fierce fighting. In the photos presented in the selection, many streets are recognizable, but some buildings in the pictures have not survived to this day, as they were destroyed during the fighting or demolished in the post-war years.
Despite everything, life goes on on the streets of the occupied city in 1942 - Kharkiv residents trade, go public transport, signs are full of signs in German and Ukrainian, passers-by are considering German propaganda.
1. Citizens in front of the shopping pavilions of the Central Market of Kharkov.
2. Passers-by on one of the victims of the bombing of the central streets of Kharkov. On the horizon you can see the current building of the Kharkiv National University, and in those days - the House of Projects. The building was badly damaged during the war years and by 1960 it was rebuilt and given to the university.
3. Trade in the Central Market. In the background you can see the domes of the Annunciation Cathedral (on the right) and the dome of the Assumption Cathedral, which has housed the House of Organ and Chamber Music since 1986.
5. Portrait of Adolf Hitler in a shop window in occupied Kharkov in 1942.
6. Kharkiv residents are considering anti-Semitic and anti-Soviet posters.
7. Tevelev Square in occupied Kharkiv (currently - Constitution Square). The building on the right has not been preserved, in its place is a post-war building.
8. Hotel "Red" in occupied Kharkov in June-July 1942. Before the revolution, the hotel was called "Metropol". It was one of the most beautiful buildings in the city, but during the occupation it was badly damaged and could not be restored. In its place, after the war, a new building was built, the architecture usual for that time.
9. M.S. Square Tevelev in occupied Kharkiv (currently - Constitution Square). On the left is the Krasnaya Hotel, badly damaged during the occupation and demolished after the war. The picture was taken from the roof of the Palace of Pioneers (former Assembly of the Nobility), which was also destroyed during the occupation; now in its place is a monument in honor of the proclamation of Soviet power in Ukraine (now being dismantled).
10. German cars in front of the Kharkiv Hotel in 1942, on the central square of the city (now Svoboda Square), which from its foundation to 1996 was called Dzerzhinsky Square. During the German occupation in 1942, the square was called German army. From the end of March to August 23, 1943, it was called the Leibstandarte SS Square after the name of the 1st division of the Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler" that had just captured the city for the second time in the third battle for Kharkov.
11. The queue for groceries near the Kharkov grocery store in 1942.
12. Rembrandt photo studio in occupied Kharkov, 1942.
13. Trading at the entrance to the Central Market.
14. Embankment of the Lopan River near the Central Market. On the horizon you can see the tram and the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral.
15. At the bridge over the Lopan in occupied Kharkov, 1942.
16. Children look at lined german tanks collected at the Railway Station Square (from the main post office) of occupied Kharkov. In the foreground is the commander's version of the Pz.Kpfw. III.
17. Sverdlov Street, now Poltava Way Street.
18. German patrol in front of the Mark V tank near the Historical Museum in Kharkov.
In the early 1940s Kharkov historical Museum became one of the largest in the Ukrainian SSR, its collections numbered more than 100 thousand items. During the Great Patriotic War, the museum was damaged and then restored and replenished with materials from the regions of the region. Currently, the T-34 tank stands next to the Mark V.
19. M.S. Square Tevelev in occupied Kharkiv (currently - Constitution Square). building view Nobility Assembly(1820, architect V. Lobachevsky). Behind him is the Assumption Cathedral.
Before the revolution, once every three years, several hundred Kharkov nobles gathered in the building and elections were held for the Assembly of Nobility. On March 13, 1893, P.I. Tchaikovsky. From 1920 to the transfer of the capital Soviet Ukraine in Kyiv, in the building of the Nobility Assembly, the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee worked. In 1935, after the transfer of the capital to Kyiv and the relocation of the government, the building was transferred to the first Palace of Pioneers in the USSR.
During the battles for Kharkov in 1943, the building was completely destroyed. Now in its place is a monument in honor of the proclamation of Soviet power in Ukraine (now being dismantled).
20. A tram passing along Sverdlov Street (now Poltava Way).
21. The quarters around the Annunciation Cathedral, damaged by bombing and shelling, which, like other Kharkov churches, was open for worship during the years of fascist occupation. The cathedral building was not damaged during the war.
22. The buildings adjacent to the Central Market were seriously damaged during the war years. 
25. The building of Gosprom in occupied Kharkov.
During the German occupation 1941-1943. a stable was arranged on the first floor, on the other floors at the beginning of the occupation there lived monkeys who had escaped from the zoo located next to the building. Until August 23, 1943, three rhesus monkeys survived in Gosprom, to which, on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the city, in August 2008, a monument was opened on the territory of the zoo. Before the retreat in August 1943, during the so-called “cleansing” of Kharkov, the Germans mined Gosprom, like many other buildings in the city, but the explosion was prevented by an unknown patriot, who died in the process. Then the building was set on fire, but this did not harm the reinforced concrete frame of Gosprom.
26. A resident of Kharkov looks at a German propaganda poster. The inscription in Ukrainian reads "For the freedom of peoples."
27. German traffic controller near a grocery store in occupied Zhytomyr (corner of Bolshaya Berdichevskaya (with tram rails) and Mikhailovskaya streets). Above the store is a banner with the inscription in German: "Welcome!". The photos are often erroneously attributed to the well-known series of color photographs of occupied Kharkov.
