Kharkov during the German occupation in color. Liberation of Kharkov from the Nazi invaders Kharkov process 1943

The search for the Nazis continues to this day. And the verdict on the first four Nazis was pronounced 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 took place here.

In the dock were military counterintelligence captain Wilhelm Langheld, deputy SS company commander Untersturmführer Hans Ritz, senior corporal Reinhard Retzlaw and gas chamber driver Mikhail Bulanov. The court sentenced them to death penalty. On December 19, war criminals were publicly hanged on the Market Square of the Central Market.

There are many memoirs of witnesses, photographs and video materials about the Kharkov trial. Its progress, for example, was observed by such famous writers and journalists as Alexey Tolstoy, Leonid Leonov, Pavlo Tychina, Petro Panch, Ilya Erenburg, Vladimir Sosyura, Maxim Rylsky and many others. In addition, the process was covered by correspondents from leading foreign agencies and international observers. War correspondent from Kharkov Andrey Laptiy took photographs and videotaped. Immediately after the end of the trial in December 1943, a brochure with materials from 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 one day he accidentally came across the records of the secretary of the Kharkov city party committee, Vladimir Rybalov, who during the trial of the fascists was also in charge of the military department of the party.

Rybalov’s unedited and uncensored memoirs, 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 Emergency state commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders back in September. The commission searched for facts and collected testimony from witnesses of German terror. Together with Tolstoy, Rybalov visited the sites of mass executions in Drobitsky Yar, Forest Park and Pravda Ave., where the Germans burned the hospital along with the wounded.

“The military tribunal of the fourth Ukrainian Front. Of the ten main war criminals identified during the investigation, who committed atrocities on the territory of the city and region during their temporary occupation, only four were in the dock, and even then not the organizers, but “small fry”, just the perpetrators of the atrocities: captain, lieutenant SS, chief corporal and driver of the Sonderkommando, 25-year-old Mikhail Bulanov, sobbed during the entire trial and even during the last word,” Valery Vokhmyanin quotes an eyewitness account.

Vladimir Alekseevich and his wife were also present in the packed hall. In his memoirs, he notes that it was difficult to contain his emotions when hearing the frank confessions of the criminals.

From the side and behind, every now and then a muffled whisper was heard: “These bastards, they knew how to calmly destroy people, but they themselves, the 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 verdict on Nazi criminals, photographs and other documents can be seen in the only Holocaust museum in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, the eyewitnesses of the famous trial are no longer alive - too much time has passed. After all, only adults were present at the trial - the authorities decided 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 was taking place through the roof. But this witness is not with us today.

The director of the Holocaust Museum, who spoke with eyewitnesses of the trial, notes that most of all people hated their compatriot, the gas chamber driver Mikhail Bulanov.

Many fainted, especially when one woman told how she escaped from a “gas chamber” and her children were taken away, confirms Andrei Laptiy.

Valery Vokhmyanin, after getting acquainted with the minutes of the court hearing, was amazed that the criminals did not play silent, but talked about their atrocities in every detail. The researcher suggests that the suspects were still counting on a reduced sentence. Obviously, they played cat and mouse with the condemned, promising not to execute them, the historian speculates. It is not for nothing that even in the last word the criminals, admitting that they had committed terrible things, asked for their lives to be spared.

Of course, the court was faced with the task of not only justly punishing those responsible for massacres against residents of the occupied territories, but also forcing them to tell the whole world about it, emphasizes Valery Vokhmyanin. - Newspapers published articles about Nazi atrocities, they talked about it on the radio and in documentaries that were shown in liberated cities and on the front lines. Thus, 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 those responsible answered for the deaths of thousands of Kharkov residents

According to Valery Vokhmyanin, the main wave of fascist terror against the local population (with the exception of executions in Drobitsky Yar and massacres of prisoners of war) hit Kharkov in March 1943, after the city was occupied for the second time. The punitive forces exterminated Kharkov residents for hiding Jews, cutting communication lines, storing weapons or radio devices, anti-German propaganda, attempting to kill or simply disobeying German soldiers and collaborators who collaborated with them. If the culprit was not found, residents of the surrounding area were shot. settlements or streets.

In addition, according to historians, it was in Kharkov that the Nazis tried out their “invention” - gas cars.

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 died. In the “Book of Memory” they noted: “killed by a German patrol, he was mistaken for a Jew,” says Valery Vokhmyanin.

The collection of materials “Trial about 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 hunger during the occupation, while others left.

In addition, the materials of the investigation of the State Extraordinary Commission did not mention the executions of more than 16 thousand Jews, states the director of the Holocaust Museum Larisa Volovik.

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 to be 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 were only four executioners in the dock in Kharkov? Historians believe that the Germans desperately covered up the traces of the crimes, destroying documents and witnesses. Sometimes it was impossible to find witnesses to 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 extermination 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 of the 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 forces, - Valery Vokhmyanin gives an example. - However, for the same reason, many Nazis escaped fair punishment, served their time in prison and were released.

Some criminals even fled from Europe to safe countries. For example, the creator of the gas van, Walter Rauch, ended up in Chile, where he became an adviser to dictator Augusto Pinochet.

By the way, even the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch, who gave orders for mass executions, was convicted in Poland. He was not sentenced to death, although he was behind bars until his death.

Precursor to the Nuremberg Tribunal

17-year-old Igor Maletsky witnessed the Nazi atrocities. To avoid going to work in Germany, the guy repeatedly escaped from custody, and then, together with his wounded mother, risked leaving his hometown altogether. Getting to his relatives in the Kirovograd region, he carried her three hundred kilometers on a sled. Mom remained alive, 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.

Please note that the Kharkov convicts were hanged by a fair court verdict on a rope, and not as they did in the 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 trial, and not a trial or reprisal, agrees the professor of the Department of History of Russia at KhNU. V.N. Karazin, doctor historical sciences Yuri Volosnik. - It became obvious that civilized norms would be applied to the vanquished, and not the bestial instincts of revenge.

After the Kharkov trial, it became clear that everyone would have to answer for crimes, and not just those who gave the orders, historians emphasize. It was the Kharkov trial that laid the foundation for future tribunals, including the Nuremberg trial, which took place two years later. Moreover, the Nuremberg Tribunal used materials from the first trial of the Nazis in the USSR. By the way, rector Kharkov University During the tribunal, Vladimir Lavrushin was the chairman of a commission of an international group of experts that studied the operation of “death machines” in concentration camps.

Nazis and policemen are still wanted

As Mikhail Gritsenko, a veteran of the SBU, and in Soviet times, senior investigator for especially important cases of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, told Vecherny Kharkov, 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 again into the eyes of their victims and listen to curses addressed to them, since the trials were still open and public. In 1970-1980, the law enforcement officer personally participated in the search and capture of former German accomplices who ruled in Belgorod, Barvenkovo and Bogodukhov.

The policeman from Barvenkovo, Mayboroda, was discovered in Donetsk, and the Bogodukhovsky Sklyar in Altai, says Mikhail Petrovich. - They all lived under other people's names. Sklyar went to be shot, and Mayboroda received 15 years.

The last trial of Kharkov police officer Alexander Posevin took place in the 1980s. In the fall 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 sought.

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 NKVD continued their work. And now the SBU archive contains unfinished cases that were 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 did not have agreements on the extradition of criminals: the USA, Brazil, Argentina.

System of government in the city from October 24, 1941 to February 9, 1942

The particular cruelty of the occupiers was determined, among other factors, by the system of local government organized in Kharkov. Unlike other captured Ukrainian cities, where power was transferred to civilian bodies, in front-line Kharkov, special military administration bodies were created to manage the occupied territory. The combat units had complete control over the city. The organization of military administration was carried out on the basis general principles and the experience gained during the war. Even on the eve of the capture of the city, an order was issued to create a city commandant's office headed by General Ervin Firov. He became the first commandant of the city, holding this position until December 3, 1941. The main task of the Kharkov city commandant’s office, in accordance with the directive of the command, was to resolve all military issues relating to the city. She also had to give orders and instructions to the local Ukrainian administration and monitor their implementation. The direct functions of the commandant's office were assigned to the 55th Army Corps, which was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Wagner. The headquarters included several departments, between which the functions of the city commandant’s office were distributed:

Division Ia Led by Major Werner, he was responsible for the use of occupation troops to protect important military and civilian installations in the city.
Division Ic led by captains Vital was supposed to deal with the security service and police in the fight against terrorist attacks, sabotage and espionage.
Division IIb under the leadership of Captain Kinkeway, he was engaged in the arrangement of prisoners of war and the organization of concentration camps in the city.
A wide range of problems was also solved quartermaster's department, who managed and directed the work of the field and military commandant's offices, the activities of civilian institutions (Ukrainian city administration, Red Cross, Ukrainian auxiliary police).
Division III dealt with issues of military jurisdiction and executions.
Division IVa was in charge of food supply issues.
Division IVb dealt with sanitary and medical issues.
Division IVc was responsible for veterinary issues.

The headquarters of the 55th Army Corps served as the city commandant's office until December 3, 1941, when military operations were still taking place near the city. However, with the gradual moving away of the front line, and most importantly, the formation of rear area 6A under number 585, the city was transferred to the jurisdiction of the headquarters of the commandant of the rear army area, Lieutenant General von Putkamer. Thus, now, for 6 weeks, from December 3, 1941 to February 9, 1942, the commandant of the rear army region was simultaneously the commandant of the city. In addition to General von Putkamer, this position was held by:

General Dostler (06.12.1941 - 13.12.1941);
Colonel Keltch (01/08/1942 - 02/07/1942);
General Hartlieb (02/07/1942 - 02/09/1942).

In order to relieve the burden on the command institutions of 6A and the 55th Army Corps, combat divisions in the implementation of their security functions in Kharkov, at the beginning of the occupation, field commandant's office 787, which was located on Sumskaya street, 54, as well as three orthopedic commandant's office - "Nord" (st. Sumskaya, 76), “Zuyd” (Feuerbach Square, 12), “West” (Tyuremnaya St., 24). Later, the “New Bavaria” military commandant’s office was created. The responsibilities of the field commandant's office were defined in the order of the command of the 55th Army Corps on October 23, 1941. Among the main tasks assigned to the commandant's office, we note the following:

German soldiers before visiting a cinema, 1943

pacifying the city as quickly as possible with the help of troops of the 55th Corps;
the immediate creation and protection of a city council headed by the burgomaster;
creation of Ukrainian auxiliary police;
maintaining order in the city;
organization of housing stock for officers and soldiers of the German army;
guardianship of social and cultural institutions for German soldiers (soldiers' houses, cinemas, theaters, baths, laundries, etc.);
putting into operation enterprises to meet German needs;
maintaining good road conditions and traffic control;
creation and supervision of concentration camps;
air and fire safety.

A new stage in the development of military control (from February 9, 1942)

A new stage in the development of military administration in Kharkov began on February 9, 1942, when power in the city was taken over by Field Commandant’s Office 787, transformed through appropriate personnel reinforcement into the Standort Commandant’s Office. And on February 28, the headquarters of the rear army region 585 left Kharkov for Bogodukhov. Due to the special significance of Kharkov, the city was transferred directly to the commander of the rear region of Army Group “B”

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

Ukrainian civil administration

Activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Kharkov

Despite all the atrocities of the Nazis, in Kharkov, as in other cities, there were forces that supported the invaders. First of all, these included the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. This organization declared its main goal to be the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. To achieve this goal, the OUN members cooperated with the occupation regime. For this reason, Ukrainian auxiliary police were created in Kharkov, supporting the actions of the Germans. In December 1941, the Ukrainian police were able to organize several marches around the city with an orchestra and the singing of nationalist songs. However, the OUN members did not find a broad social base in Kharkov. Moreover, subsequently most of the OUN members in Kharkov were repressed by the occupation authorities.

Cruel treatment of the local population by the Nazis

Mass extermination of people in the first days of the occupation

Creation so complex structure governing bodies was aimed primarily at demoralizing the local population. For this purpose, from the first days of the occupation, public hangings of real or fictitious participants began to be carried out. Soviet movement resistance. The city's military command gathered the population in the city's central square, after which they hanged those doomed to execution on the balcony of the house of the regional party committee. Such a terrible picture caused panic among those present, people began to run away from the execution site, a stampede began, women and children screamed. But the Nazis did not stop there; they constantly improved their methods of exterminating people. 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 the “gas chamber”. Up to 50 people were driven into such a car, who subsequently died in terrible agony due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

The Germans began their rule by killing, dumping into pits, the entire Jewish population, about 23 - 24 thousand people, starting from infants. I was at the excavation of these terrifying pits and I can attest to the authenticity of the murder, and it was carried out with extreme sophistication in order to bring as much agony to the victims as possible.

Abuse of prisoners of war

The German command treated Soviet prisoners of war with no less rudeness, while violating the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention, according to which the warring parties were obliged to adhere to a humane attitude towards people captured. A great tragedy occurred in the 1st army triage hospital on the street. Trinklera, 5. March 13, 1943, after the second capture of Kharkov, soldiers of the SS division “Adolf Hitler” burned alive here 300 wounded Red Army soldiers who did not have time to be evacuated to the Soviet rear. And over the next few days, the rest of the wounded who remained in the hospital were shot - more than 400 people in total. Their corpses were buried in the hospital courtyard.

Places of mass extermination of people

The war brought pain and tears to every home, every Kharkov family. Death was the face of war. More than ten places of mass extermination of people remind us of this even today. Among them are Drobitsky Yar, Forest Park, prisoner of war camps in the Kholodnogorsk prison and the KhTZ area (destroyed Jewish ghetto), the Saltovsky village (the place of execution of patients at Saburova Dacha), the clinical campus of the regional hospital on the street. Trinklera (the place where several hundred wounded were burned alive), places of public hangings along the street. Sumskaya and at the Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, the courtyard of the International Hotel (Kharkov) (the site of the mass execution of hostages), gas vans.. All of them have become memorial monuments and remind the living of the crimes of the occupiers, the tragedy of the war.

Living conditions of ordinary Kharkov residents. Recruitment of specialists for work in Germany

Kharkov residents in the occupied city (February 1943)

Thus, ordinary Kharkov residents suffered the most from the Nazi occupation. According to the registration of the city's population carried out by the Germans in December 1941, 77% of the population of Kharkov were its most vulnerable categories - women, children and the elderly. The people who remained in the city lived under the constant threat of robbery, abuse, and violence from the occupation regime. The German command did not consider them to be people; the population of the occupied city was considered by the Germans as an inexhaustible source of forced labor to satisfy the needs of Germany. Therefore, since the end of 1941, a campaign to recruit specialists to work in Germany has been unfolding in Kharkov; posters with texts of appeals are pasted on the walls of houses. The newspaper “Nova Ukraine”, published in occupied Kharkov, was filled with articles about the “happy life of Kharkov residents in Germany.” At the same time, the emphasis was placed on the fact that in case of disobedience, it is necessary to attract people to work in favor of Germany by force:

German armed forces who made such great sacrifices for the liberation of Ukraine, will not allow young strong people wandered the streets and did little things. Those who do not work must be forced to work. It is clear that then he will no longer be asked what kind of work he likes.
From the newspaper “Nova Ukraine” dated November 26, 1942.

However, over time, the townspeople began to hear rumors that those who had left were being beaten, tortured, that they were starving and “dying like flies.” Despite the need to recruit healthy and strong workers during recruitment, in 1942 people were driven away, despite the serious and chronic illnesses they had. Naturally, in such conditions, a person’s personality was reduced to nothing; he became a cog in a well-oiled German military machine.

Food problems

Hunger

The living conditions of Kharkov residents in the occupied city were extremely difficult. The main problem at this time was a terrible famine, which arose due to the complete indifference of the city authorities to issues of food supply. People ate literally everything: potato peels, fodder beets, casein glue, domestic animals.

The famous Kharkov artist Simonov said that there were even cases when human meat was sold at the bazaar, although such crimes were punished by hanging. Academician of architecture Alexei Beketov died of hunger and cold at the end of November 1941. People began to swell, most of them found it difficult to even move basicly. The picture became common: hunched figures of Kharkov residents harnessed to children's sleighs, on which they transported their deceased relatives. In many cases, there was not enough strength to bury the suicide bombers, or there was simply no one to do it.

In the spring of 1942, many corpses accumulated in the houses. According to the city sanitary station, 54% of those who died in February 1942 were not buried as of March 2. There were many such cases in the future. There is a known example when a woman who died of exhaustion in May 1942 was registered only in November. The scale of hunger is very difficult to comprehend, especially since today there are no complete statistics.

According to the Kharkov city government, in 1942, 13,139 Kharkov residents died of hunger, which accounted for more than half of all deaths during this period.

Bazaars in occupation Kharkov

Under these conditions, 14 markets became the centers of life for the population of Kharkov - Blagoveshchensky, Konny, Rybny, Kholodnogorsky, Sumskoy, Zhuravlevsky, Pavlovsky and others. At first there was no trading for money here at all; barter dominated everywhere: almost everything was exchanged in the most unexpected combinations. Subsequently, it became possible to buy some things for money, but the prices for all goods exceeded all imaginable limits. The highest prices were in January-February 1942. At this time, a kilogram of rye bread cost 220 rubles, wheat - 250, potatoes - 100, sugar - 833 rubles. And this despite the fact that the average salary at that time was 500-600 rubles. per month - naturally, in this state of affairs, most people could not purchase food at the market. There was only enough money to purchase makukha or sunflower seeds. Analysis of the movement of market prices allows us to determine the factors influencing their dynamics. Undoubtedly, main reason There were significant price hikes at the front: the highest prices were in January 1942, at the beginning of the occupation of the city, and in March 1943, when the Germans managed to recapture the city liberated by the Red Army. The second most important reason for the high cost of goods is the dominance of speculators in the bazaars, especially in the central ones - Sumy and Rybny. Accordingly, these bazaars were the most expensive. The cheapest were Kholodnogorsky and Konny, which was explained by direct supplies of products from the village and less influence of speculators and intermediaries.

Dynamics of market prices for agricultural products in 1942-1943.
The product's name	Unit	1942						1943
		01.01, rub.	01.01	01.02	01.05	01.08	01.10	01.01	01.02	02.06
		01.01, rub.	As a percentage compared to 01/01/1942
1. Bread
Rye	kg	133	100	167	83	72	71	68	100	86
Wheat	kg	143	100	175	80	85	77	73	105	108
Barley	kg	125	100	165	86	94	72	60	96	76
Oats	kg	80	100	187	100	100	94	50	100	62
Corn	kg	111	100	200	100	100	72	63	104	86
Rye bread	kg	130	100	169	85	100	65	69	100	88
Millet	kg	139	100	240	140	132	101	72	115	68
Peas	kg	125	100	200	120	75	68	88	-	88
Beans	kg	-	-	-	-	-	100	107	193	167
2. Vegetables
Potato	kg	40	100	250	110	125	100	87	150	88
Cabbage	kg	-	-	-	-	-	214	357	643	-
Onion	kg	70	100	143	57	43	50	50	93	150
Beet	kg	32	100	250	175	100	62	62	73	62
Carrot	kg	-	-	-	-	-	150	125	175	135
3. Meat products
Beef	kg	-	-	-	130	160	120	220	300	350
horsemeat	kg	80	100	187	94	-	-	-	-	-
Chicken	kg	-	-	-	-	-	100	113	162	245
4. Dairy products and fats
Milk	liter	80	100	162	75	50	37	62	81	85
Butter	kg	1700	100	141	50	45	41	47	65	67
Salo	kg	1400	100	143	50	55	57	61	79	81
Sunflower oil	liter	500	100	160	90	86	90	76	120	92
Chicken eggs	ten	-	-	-	100	115	90	200	240	200
5. Groceries
Sugar	kg	556	100	150	75	110	90	99	99	81
Salt	kg	40	100	150	90	100	100	300	300	250
Tomatoes	kg	50	100	150	100	100	100	100	100	100

Barter

It is important to note that Kharkov residents did not sit idly by, waiting to starve to death. Everyone who could went to the village, to the so-called “exchanges”. The townspeople carried all the valuables they had outside the city, hoping to get food for them. For example, director Dubinsky managed to exchange more than 2 pounds of flour for his jacket, and 2 pounds of wheat and 1.5 kg of lard for his son’s coat. A gold watch could be exchanged for a loaf of bread. Thanks to the “exchanges”, many Kharkov residents saved their lives.

German military graves in the Shevchenko garden

The Germans were going to build a “pantheon of German military glory” on this site. After the final liberation of the city, in 1943, the occupation cemetery was destroyed.

Renaming streets, squares and districts

In February, Dzerzhinsky Square was called “German Army Square”. From March to

Before the war, Kharkov was the second largest city in Ukraine - 900,000 people of 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. Few managed to survive the first (October 24, 1941 - February 15, 1943) and second Nazi occupation (March 10 - August 23, 1943) - only 200,000 exhausted people remained in the finally liberated city.

The Nazis varied (but systematically - " new order") they destroyed civilians and prisoners of war: they buried hundreds of children from the Kharkov hospital alive in pits, burned 300 wounded Red Army soldiers, shot about 16,000 Jews in Drobitsky Yar, and starved tens of thousands of Kharkov residents to death. However, as senior corporal R. Retzlav said, “mass executions by hanging and shooting 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” (“gas vans”) - sealed trucks where people were poisoned with exhaust gases. The use of “gas chambers” was kept secret (that’s why, by the way, the machines themselves were not preserved, there are not even photographs); for the sake of secrecy, the corpses of poisoned Kharkov residents were burned. It is unknown how many names and crimes the Nazis hid in this way. In 1943, the investigation was able to identify only 30,000 documented murders with specific culprits. Some were caught for a fair trial.

December 15, 1943 began first in the world open trial of Nazi criminals. There are three German executioners in the dock: captain of military counterintelligence W. Langheld, G. Ritz, R. Retzlav. Next to them sat a Soviet traitor - their henchman M. Bulanov.

Gestapo officer Retzlav extracted testimony through torture, including accusing 25 Kharkov workers of anti-German activities (of which 15 were shot, 10 were poisoned in gas chambers). He personally put 40 people into the gas chamber and helped burn the corpses. Deputy SS company commander Ritz beat those 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.

Gestapo driver Bulanov drove the “gas chamber” (and also cleaned and repaired it after use), and drove Kharkov residents to executions, including 60 children. For this he received 90 marks a month, rations, and those things of those executed that the Germans neglected.

Their guilt was exposed by captured documents, forensic medical examinations, testimony of victims, interrogations of German prisoners of war, and acts of the ChGK. There were qualified translators and three well-known lawyers in the USSR.

The accused themselves spoke in detail and even casually about their crimes. They emphasized that many occupiers do this, because the authorities (Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg) directly spoke about the destruction of “inferior races” and called for punishing residents for any resistance. Therefore, in Kharkov, in fact, not only three executioners and a traitor were tried, but also the entire Nazi inhumane system.

Defendants (from right to left): captain V. Langheld, senior corporal R. Retzlav, lieutenant G. Ritz, Gestapo driver M.N. Bulanov at the Kharkov trial of German war criminals.
Photo by A.B. Kapustyansky
Storage location: Russian state archive film and photo documents (archive no. 0-320085)
Photo from the site “Victory. 1941-1945" (all-Russian portal "Archives of Russia")

For the main ones Soviet newspapers the court was covered famous writers— Ilya Erenburg and Konstantin Simonov (“Red Star”), Alexey Tolstoy (“Pravda”), Leonid Leonov (“Izvestia”). For Ukrainians: Yuriy Smolich, Maxim Rylsky, Vladimir Sosyura, Pavlo Tychina, Vladimir Lidin. Foreign correspondents from The New York Times, The Times, The Daily Express and others worked in the hall. One of the world's best documentary filmmakers (Oscar in 1943 for the film The Defeat of German Troops near Moscow) Ilya Kopalin directed documentary“The trial is underway” is about the trial. A month later it was shown in all Soviet cinemas, and then in many countries.

All the defendants admitted their guilt in the last word, that is personal participation in the murders of thousands of Soviet citizens. Despite this, the Germans made excuses for 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 the German people, Bulanov wanted to atone for guilt with blood.

The court sentenced them to capital punishment - death penalty. The sentence was carried out on Bazarnaya Square on December 19, 1943 in the presence of tens of thousands of Kharkov residents. The trial and execution were approved not only by them, but also by tens of millions of readers, listeners, and moviegoers around the world.

International reaction to the Kharkov process

Source: Lebedeva N.S. Preparation for the Nuremberg Trials. M. 1975.

Chapter 1: Policy of the USSR, USA and England towards war criminals in 1943-1944, paragraph “Policy of the USSR, USA and England towards 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 represented the implementation of the Allied declarations on the punishment of war criminals and gave an irreversible character to government statements. At the same time, the Kharkov trial put a kind of pressure on the Allied governments, making it impossible for them to refuse to conduct such trials. It was here that for the first time it was stated with certainty that reference to a superior’s order does not exempt from responsibility for committing 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 Soviet authorities hold the German government accountable and High Command for crimes and atrocities committed in their name and on their orders.” He also reported that 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 adherence to legal norms. The ambassador recommended using this occasion to launch a broad campaign of protests 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 concerns in connection with the conduct of such a process. The matter was considered by the London Political Military Coordination Committee, which decided that a repetition of the processes should in any case be avoided, “at which statements would be made that they fall within or exceed the scope of the Moscow Declaration”. Thus, the ruling circles of England and the United States feared that they might 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 Soviet Union to punish war criminals. American Senator K. Pepper wrote in July 1944: “The Soviet Union has already taken certain steps that instill confidence that war criminals will be punished. The Extraordinary 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 on the spot where they committed their crimes."(meaning the Kharkov process. - N.L. ) .

Many lawyers and public figures from the countries of the United Nations noted the timeliness of the trials carried out in the Soviet Union against German war criminals, the strength of their legal basis, the public nature of the trial and the fairness of the sentences. So, for example, the Czech lawyer V. Benes to the merits Soviet government attributed the holding of the Kharkov trial, which showed that “The punishment of war criminals is not only an interesting issue for discussion among lawyers and politicians, but first of all a practical necessity that must be implemented without delay. In addition, the Kharkov trial 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» .

Editor of the Journal of the American Association for foreign policy, the famous publicist Vera M. Dean emphasized that the goal of the Kharkov trial was not only to convict three German criminals and one Russian traitor, but also to obtain from the defendants material for accusing the true masterminds of all crimes - Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg and others.

True, in Western countries voices were heard expressing “concern” and “concern” about the alleged policy of mass executions being pursued in the USSR. In this regard, the Washington correspondent of the Colliers newspaper G. Creel wrote: “Nothing in the Kharkov trial gives any right to fear... that the court has in any way violated legal norms. Although the trial was military and not civilian..., the defendants were provided with lawyers for their defense. The process was open to the public and the press.". G. Creel compared this process with the closed American military trial of eight German saboteurs and noted the greater democracy of the Kharkov process. The fairness of the verdict of the Kharkov court was also recognized by the famous American lawyer S. Gluck.

Capture of Kharkov by the Germans

Despite the stubborn resistance of Soviet units and fierce fighting in the center and individual 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).

System of occupation power in the city

System of government in the city from October 24, 1941 to February 9, 1942

A new stage in the development of military control (from February 9, 1942)

A new stage in the development of military administration in Kharkov began on February 9, 1942, when power in the city was taken over by the field commandant’s office, transformed through appropriate personnel reinforcement into the standort commandant’s office. And on February 28, the headquarters of the rear army region 585 left Kharkov for Bogodukhov. Due to the special significance of Kharkov, the city was transferred directly to the commander of the rear region of Army Group B.

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

General police functions in the city were to be performed by the order police, which consisted, in accordance with the decree of June 26, 1936, of the Schutzpolice, gendarmerie, fire police and some other units. Its main task was to ensure the security of occupied areas. However, even significant German forces were clearly not enough to restore order in Kharkov. That's why new government attracted the local population to serve in the police.

In Ukraine, from the first days of the occupation, the creation of the Ukrainian police began, which over time became increasingly uncontrollable by the German occupation authorities and dealt with issues of building Ukrainian statehood and local self-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 an uncontrolled 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 of the so-called “Schutzmannschaft”. Fulfilling Himmler's directive, in Ukraine on November 18, 1941, a decree was issued on the “dissolution of the uncontrolled Ukrainian police” and the organization of the “Schutzmannschaft”. The order spoke about the need to attract the best representatives of the Ukrainian police to the “Schutzmannschaft” and about the disarmament and liquidation of the remaining part of the Ukrainian police. In the summer of 1942, the formation of Ukrainian police battalions was stopped due to the great influence of Ukrainian nationalists in them and incomplete control.

Holocaust in Kharkov

Most of the Jews managed to leave the city. Not all of the city’s Jews were on the list, but almost all of them were exterminated: according to German sources - 11 thousand, according to the extrapolation estimate of the Extrapolation State Commission of the Soviet Union for the Investigation of Fascist Crimes - 15 thousand. The bulk of the Jews were exterminated 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 cultural and scientific figures: 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.

According to the already mentioned mandatory registration of the population, 10,271 people of Jewish nationality were included in special “yellow” lists, among whom more than 75% were women, old people and children. From the first days of the occupation, Jews experienced bullying and persecution. A certain part of Kharkov Jews, in anticipation of the tragedy, tried to pass themselves off as Russians or Ukrainians, but all these attempts were mercilessly exposed by the occupation authorities. On December 14, 1941, an order was issued, according to which the entire Jewish population of the city was to move to the outskirts of the city, to the barracks of a machine tool factory, within two days. Disobedience was punishable by execution. For several days, in severe frost, people walked towards their death. Up to 800 people were forced into barracks designed for 70-80 people. In the created ghetto, Jews were starved to death. Those caught in the slightest violation of the regime were immediately shot. On December 26, the Germans announced registration for those wishing to leave for Poltava, Romny and Kremenchug; however, it was not allowed to take personal belongings with you. The next day, closed cars drove up to the barracks. People, realizing the provocation, refused to get into them, but the soldiers forcibly took them out of the camp. Over the course of several days, some of the Jews in these cars, some of the Jews were driven on foot to Drobitsky Yar, where they were all shot.
Alexey Tolstoy wrote the following lines about this:

The Germans began their rule by killing, dumping into pits, the entire Jewish population, about 23 - 24 thousand people, starting from infants. I was at the excavation of these terrifying pits and I can attest to the authenticity of the murder, and it was carried out with extreme sophistication in order to bring as much agony to the victims 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 the “gas chamber”. Up to 50 people were driven into such a car, who subsequently 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 documented in Kharkov. Among them are Drobitsky Yar, Forest Park, prisoner of war camps in the Kholodnogorsk prison and the KhTZ area (destroyed Jewish ghetto), the Saltovsky village (the place of execution of patients at Saburova Dacha), the clinical campus of the regional hospital on the street. Trinklera (the place where several hundred wounded were burned alive), places of public hangings along the street. Sumskaya and at the Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, the courtyard of the International Hotel (Kharkov) (the site of the mass execution of hostages), gas vans.. All of them have become memorial monuments and remind the living of the crimes of the occupiers, the tragedy of the war.

Hunger

People began to swell, most of them found it difficult to even move basicly. The picture became common: hunched figures of Kharkov residents harnessed to children's sleighs, on which they transported their deceased 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 Kharkov city government, in 1942, 13,139 Kharkov residents died of hunger, which accounted for more than half of all deaths during this period.

Consequences of the occupation

Links

Kharkiv. Occupation 1941-1943 // Name is Dali. (Retrieved February 23, 2009)

Here I will deviate from the “straight line” of my memories and in the next 6 chapters I will try to characterize the general situation - what happened in Kharkov, and also, partly, in other cities of Ukraine after the seizure of a huge territory by fascist troops, touching on the painful topic of the genocide of the 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 (grandmothers, grandfathers and uncles who died in the Kharkov and Nikolaev ghettos), I, immersed in a huge array of disparate data available in on the Internet, I was overwhelmed by the numerous, often very contradictory, details and details that fell upon me.
Intertwined and “strung” on each other, they create a “complete” and terrifying picture, illustrating all the abomination and murderous meanness that can come to “ homo sapiens", armed with a false, vile and fundamentally cannibalistic fascist ideology that substantiated the "mission of the Aryan blond beast" on this Earth... And also often prompted to atrocities - alas - by primitive and base animal instincts, not limited by the elementary concepts and laws of human morality...
We will have to touch on the topic of cooperation with the occupiers of traitors from among local residents of non-Jewish nationality who helped the Germans in the extermination of Jews and, in particular, some motives of behavior during the occupation and after the war of various apologists of Ukrainian nationalism and unofficial state anti-Semitism...

I considered it my duty to clarify (at least for myself) and bring to some conditional common denominator some incomplete and tendentious materials that the Internet is full of, and try to convey the essence of a number of contradictory interpretations of individual events as objectively, briefly and intelligibly as possible. Finally, remind your descendants about tragic events The Holocaust, of which more than 5 million Jews also became victims, included some of their ancestors and relatives...

Most of the factual materials given below concerning the deaths of Jews in Kharkov and Nikolaev (where my relatives were exterminated), 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 website< ПРОЗА.РУ >
Some texts are partly compiled, revised and presented with my comments and – sometimes detailed, sometimes schematized – interpretations of events. As illustrations, photographs of German occupiers-“amateur photographers” and frames from captured German newsreels posted on the Internet were used.

May the Lord help those reading the sad descriptions of the terrible events of those years 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 major cities a country in which government evacuation plans were fully implemented: all plant equipment and all grain reserves were removed so as not to leave anything to the enemy. Everything that could not be taken out was destroyed. A power station and water pumping station were blown up. Warehouse stocks of food that did not have time to be removed were actually given over to the population for plunder. All the remaining residents of Kharkov suddenly found themselves without work, without information and, in the end, without a means of livelihood...

The Germans occupied Kharkov, abandoned by the Red Army, 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 workers were hanged. Jews were usually taken hostage and never returned home.
According to the memoirs of Maya Reznikova (currently living in Germany), after a mansion on the street blew up in the city. Sadovoy, where they died German general and 28 officers, and when the Germans announced on the radio that 500 Jews with documents should come to the International Hotel (as hostages until the guilty partisans were found, and then they would be released), her mother herself voluntarily went to the hotel.
Back then they still believed in the “humanism” of the new authorities. Fortunately, the irritated doorman sent her back with the words: “Why are you all walking and walking, there are already too many people there. Leave immediately!” It was November 1941.

In general, in the first weeks after the Germans captured Kharkov, the life of the Jews, in terms of their safety, was not particularly different from the life of all Kharkov residents who remained in the city. It would seem that nothing boded ill. But at the beginning of December, announcements from the Kharkov City Council were posted around the city in 3 languages (German, Russian and Ukrainian) about registering the entire population of Kharkov by December 8th. Only Jews were included in a separate list, regardless of their religion. In paragraph 12 of the announcement, in particular, it was stated that information about nationality should be submitted in accordance with the actual national origin, regardless of the nationality indicated in the passport... This “clarification”, of course, was the result of the active participation of anti-Semites from the local population in the preparation of the “Announcement " The occupiers did not delve into such “subtleties”. Having the experience of mass expulsion in the late 30s and the subsequent extermination of Jews in Germany itself, they relied entirely on the activity of local “anti-Semitic enthusiasts” who were eager to profit from “Jewish” goods. In the original of the announcement, 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 “Jews.”

Registration of Jews in Kharkov took place on pre-prepared sheets yellow color. Hence the name “yellow lists”, which has taken root in the press and documents. Not a single mention was found of who came up with the idea of calling these “proscriptions” that way, but the fate of those on the “yellow lists” was already predetermined. A sad fate awaited them - to end up in the “ghetto”. This name originated in the Middle Ages in Italy to designate an area that was a place of isolated residence of Jews). But among the fascists it acquired a sinister meaning: as it turned out, they moved people into ghettos only in order to then destroy them there.

“Yellow Lists” are of interest not only as documentary evidence of the existence of large quantity 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 entry itself in the "nationality" column was made differently by those who carried out the registration - in some lists the usual words are written - "Jew", "Jewish", in others - the aggressively offensive "Jew", "Jewish woman". They wrote, of course, “their own” - the occupation authorities did not give any specific instructions. It was virtually impossible for the Germans themselves (“and they don’t have enough 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” the German authorities about them or “clarified” who was 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 forged documents or rescuing and hiding Jewish children...

However, as an example of the negative “zeal” of some occupation officials from local traitors, one can cite the “List of orphanage No. 3 of the Health Department of the City Government” for 80 pupils, filled out on an ordinary white sheet. There, the director of the orphanage, Leonid Ivanovich Mitrofanov, on his own initiative, also filled out the “yellow sheet” - the sentence. In it, among three girls, two and three years, one - Antonina Kozulets (a typically Ukrainian surname), born in 1939, ended up in an orphanage on November 13, 1941 as a foundling! And so this two-year-old foundling girl, with the unwavering hand of the manager, was for some reason registered as a Jew and given to the executioners. With one stroke of the pen, three little girls were sent to death by the man assigned to take care of his pupils!

Kharkovskoe City government(“Miska Uprava”) - something like an occupation City Council - consisting of terry nationalist traitors and diligent German servants, issued many all sorts of decrees and orders that regulated the Jewish population every step and behavior in the occupied city - with numerous prohibitions and restrictions.
On photographic reproductions of advertisements distributed in many cities during the occupation German army Ukraine, it is clear that many advertisements in Ukrainian are full of threatening warnings addressed to “non-Ukrainians.” Their list included instructions to the “zhydivsky naselenny” (Jewish population) about the need for mandatory registration (for the convenience and speed of subsequent punitive measures), a ban on gathering together indoors and outdoors. The places where Jews were prohibited from entering were listed (“zhydam vhid fenced off”). The local population was forbidden to give shelter to Jews, provide them with food and things, etc., which was punishable by death (see “overstroke” - 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 of the city’s Jews ended up on the above-mentioned “yellow lists.” A certain part of Kharkov Jews, in anticipation of the tragedy, tried to pass themselves off as Russians or Ukrainians, but all these attempts were mercilessly exposed by the occupation authorities (unfortunately, mainly with the assistance of local “helpers” from the non-Jewish population).
By December 12, 1941, population registration was completed. There are archival certificates in German and Ukrainian with a list of nationalities and their quantitative composition. Jews - 10271 people. In memoirs (both Soviet and German) a figure of about 30 thousand is sometimes mentioned. This discrepancy is caused by the fact that many Jewish Kharkov residents initially deliberately evaded registration, but were subsequently “extradied” or “caught” with the help of the local population. In addition, along with the Kharkov residents, Jewish refugees from the western regions of Ukraine (the so-called “Polish” Jews) later fell under this “registration” (with all its consequences), many of whom ended up in Kharkov in the hope of moving away from the Germans “for East,” but, not having time to leave here, they shared the tragic fate of Kharkov Jews...

On December 14, 1941, in Kharkov, the infamous order of the German commandant was issued to resettle, within two days until December 16, all Jews, INCLUDING INFANTS, to the barracks of the Tractor and Machine Tool Plants on eastern outskirts Kharkov. Disobedience was punishable by execution. All Jews were ordered to gather (“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 CENTRAL STREETS must” move... Of course, the Nazis killed not only Jews. They killed Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians... But if in relation to other nations, SELECTIVE extermination of undesirables was carried out - such as partisans, communists, Komsomol members, underground fighters (regardless of their nationality), then the JEWS WERE DESTROYED EVERYONE - REGARDLESS OF AGE, SOCIAL STATUS AND MERIT - WITHOUT ANY REASON - ONLY FOR THE FACT THAT THEY ARE JEWS!

The mention of “central streets” was probably invented by the then Soviet political education in order to shift the national aspect of the genocide of Jews by the German occupiers towards purely social discrimination of only rich residents who, supposedly, could only live in the city center... As a “consolation” to the domestic anti-Semites could, if desired, perceive such a linguistic (and in fact purely ideological) twist as a hint at the predominant national composition of these mythical “residents of the central streets”
All this was, of course, a blatant untruth. Kharkov Jews, constituting the middle-income strata of the population, historically worked primarily in the service sector, partly in medicine and culture (as doctors, teachers). They lived, basically, not in the center at all, but in the “quieter” outlying parts of the city, as, for example, we lived in the eastern part of Kharkov, in an 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 nomenklatura, the leading production and technical apparatus of factories, factories and various institutions - the so-called Soviet times) “Iterists” (from the abbreviation “ITR” - engineering and technical workers), as well as the creative intelligentsia.

...On the appointed day, crowds of people from all over the city flocked under escort to the ghetto organized by the Nazis. For two days, with interruptions, streams of people walked through the streets of Kharkov. These streams merged into one large human river, which slowly flowed along Stalin Avenue (now Moskovsky Avenue). Thousands of Jews from the city were walking. These were humiliated, robbed, expelled from their homes people, mostly women, old people, elderly people and children. For several days, in severe frost, they walked towards their death. Only a few managed to find carts to move. Most people walked on foot, dragging sleds, carts, and troughs with necessary things, collected hastily. 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, WERE MY GRANDMOTHER TSILYA AND UNCLE GRISHA...
People went voluntarily also because last moment They hoped that, having “washed” them, the new authorities would send them somewhere to a settlement, where they hoped for, albeit difficult, but at least some kind of existence. Optimists even believed that over time they would all be resettled in Palestine - the Promised Land. No one could even imagine what they would have to endure and what would ultimately await them - hope dies last...

Not everyone made it through the many kilometers of severe frost; the avenue along the route of the exiles was strewn 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 doomed people 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... At the end of their sorrowful journey - this Golgotha of the 20th century - unfortunate people who did not know their fate (the overwhelming majority - women, old people and children) were driven up to 500 people into calculated for 70-80 people, the Traktorny barracks and the unfinished, completely frozen buildings of the Machine Tool Plant.

The conditions were terrible - the rooms were literally packed with people, so on the first night everyone who got here alive could only stand, huddling closely together. A witness who miraculously escaped says: “it was so crowded and cold in the barracks, there was such a stench that people were already dying there in the hundreds. People defecated on themselves while standing, fainted, there was nowhere to even sit down. Corpses were not allowed to be taken out of the room, dead or alive "They were lying intermittently. Many went crazy, but they were also left in the common room."
In fact, the systematic extermination of prisoners began from the first days of their stay in this hell. In the created ghetto, Jews were starved to death. Those caught in the slightest violation of the “regime” were immediately shot. And the first victims were the disabled, the elderly and those who lost their minds from the experience. Soon everyone finally realized the meaning of what was happening (which was impossible to even believe at first) and realized that they were taken here simply to be destroyed...

So 10 days passed - in terrible conditions of uncertainty, waiting for at least some clarity in their fate and every day the hope for the best was dying... But, on December 26, the Germans announced an appointment for “those who wish to leave” - supposedly to “move” to Poltava, Romny and Kremenchug. You were allowed to take only “valuable personal items” with you. The next day, closed cars drove up to the barracks. People, realizing the provocation, refused to get into them, but German soldiers from the "Sonderkommando" - the special command - they were forced into the back of the truck and taken out of the camp. For several days, Jews in these vehicles (as well as on foot) in batches of 300-500 people were transported and led towards the Travnitskaya Valley to the deserted Drobitsky Yar, not far from the Chuguevskoye Highway. Here the finale of the terrible tragedy ended...

Near two huge pits dug in advance, people began to be mercilessly shot... The “technology” of extermination in Drobitsky Yar was “rational and simple” in German: people were gathered at the edge of the pit and shot from a machine gun. The bodies fell in “bundles” into the pit. At one of the many burials, 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 withstand it, it was torn... Those who resisted and did not want to go to the execution pit were dragged there by force and finished off with pistols. They often did not waste bullets on children; they threw them into pits alive. They remained there lying or crawling near their murdered parents until they were buried along with the dead. A few days after the action, groans were heard here and the earth literally moved over a terrible burial poorly dug by a bulldozer...

From the memoirs of Elena P., who miraculously escaped (at that time still a child): “They selected 20-50 people from the crowd of doomed, half-dead and petrified people who realized what awaited them now, and led them there. They announced: “those who have gold, get out of action!” They put them aside and shot first those who had nothing. Then they took the jewelry from those who stood aside and killed them. Then they brought in the next group.”

The “clean executioners,” “in order not to get dirty” after the execution in bloody clothes in search of hidden jewelry, forced women to undress (at first only down to their underwear) before the execution. But many women, in the hope of saving themselves, hid valuables (gold rings, pendants, watches, etc.) in clothes, intimate parts, and often swallowed them. Therefore, parties of the doomed, where there were especially many women, were shot without outer clothing, and then completely stripped naked. And only after the “completion of the operation” the killers in uniform walked around and examined the shot people lying in piles side by side and finished 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 them for the presence of jewelry : they thoroughly shook it in order to find hidden valuables.

In addition to the Germans from the Einsatzkommandos, the local police also took part in the executions and confiscation of Jewish property, recruiting various traitors and scum from the local population. But besides the Germans and the police themselves, “on their own initiative”, individual looters who came from the suburbs and surrounding villages were also involved in this. However, the occupiers did not encourage such “amateur activity” and did not favor such “competitors” who also wanted to profit from the goods of those shot. Einsatzkommando soldiers and police sometimes also killed some local residents for looting - “for company” (mainly so that there would be no unnecessary witnesses to their own crimes).
By mid-January, all the inhabitants of the ghetto were completely destroyed - about 16 thousand people in the barracks were taken in cars to Drobitsky Yar and shot from machine guns and machine guns... This was the “first approach”. Subsequently, additionally identified hidden Jews, as well as captured single underground fighters and partisans, were brought here and shot...

At the beginning of 1942, a special gas van appeared on the streets of Kharkov, intended for additional destruction of people and popularly nicknamed the “gas chamber.” The reason for the widespread use of this “technical means” in executions was the instruction of the “sensitive” chief executioner Himmler, who, once present at mass executions in August in Belarus, received a nervous shock from what he saw and ordered the development of “more humane methods of murder than shooting "
These machines began to be 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 this, the doors were closed and the gas supply system switched to exhaust. To avoid causing premature fear in the victims, the van had a light that turned on when the doors were closed. After this, the driver turned the engine on in neutral for about 10 minutes. After the screams of gasping people and any movement in the van stopped, the corpses were taken to the burial site and unloaded (there are also cases when gas vans 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 the bodies then had to be cleaned of excrement, vomit, blood and other secretions, which caused dissatisfaction with the “maintenance staff.” Loading 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 out corpses from them, bury them, and then wash the vans. The Germans did not dirty their hands, and, as a rule, the maintenance of the gas chambers was carried out by traitors who went over to the side of the Nazis. One of the Russian policemen of the SS Sonderkommando 10-A complained: “Always in the dirt, in human shit, they didn’t give me dressing gowns, they didn’t give me mittens, there wasn’t enough soap, but they demanded that I clean up carefully!” In general, the Germans were greedy - they did not provide the poor assistants with special clothing and detergents. It’s time to sympathize with the bastards... From the beginning of spring 1942, this “defect was eliminated” - the gas flow rate was adjusted, those placed in the body first gradually lost consciousness and only then died...

Such a car with a hermetically sealed body also regularly “cruised” along the city streets during raids for the purpose of “preventative cleaning of unwanted elements.” Up to 50 “suspicious” residents were driven into it at the same time - mostly Jews who “evaded” relocation to the ghetto, who subsequently died in terrible agony due to poisoning with specially pumped carbon monoxide - “Cyclone-B”. The little children who were “caught” in the raid with their parents, who were crying and resisting a lot, were given cotton wool soaked in some liquid to sniff, and they lost consciousness. In this form they were thrown into the gas chamber. The gas van “worked” while moving, and when it approached the ditches dug in advance, the corpses of people who had 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 plied around the city were “emptied”, where those caught in time of raids of often completely random people who did not have with them necessary documents.

Actress Lyudmila Gurchenko wrote in her memoirs - the book “My Adult Childhood” - how by chance she also almost ended up in such a raid at the Kharkov market... “Imagine that you are walking down the street, and suddenly you hear the cry “Roundup!” where people in German uniforms appear and push you into the gas chamber. After ten minutes, you stop breathing. That’s it... This could happen to every resident, always and everywhere!”

Subsequently, only more than ten places of mass extermination of people were witnessed in Kharkov. Among them are Drobitsky Yar, Forest Park, prisoner-of-war camps in the Kholodnogorsk prison and the KhTZ area (destroyed Jewish ghetto), Saltovsky village (the place of execution of patients of the Saburova Dacha - a madhouse), the clinical campus of the regional hospital on the street. Trinklera (the place where several hundred wounded were burned alive), places of public hangings on the street. Sumy and at the Blagoveshchensky Bazaar, the courtyard of the International Hotel (the site of the mass execution of hostages)... One group - about 400 people - was locked in a synagogue on Grazhdanskaya Street, where they died of hunger and thirst. Among the dead were prominent figures of culture and science: 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.

The zealous local “registrars” (from Ukrainian nationalists and Russian traitors) gradually “got a taste for cleansing” the city from the remaining “disguised Jews.” They began to look for and catch the few hidden Jews, including lonely old people who, due to age or illness, could not move independently or leave the house.
Here is a letter from the burgomaster of the 17th district of the City Government, Kublitsky: “Before Mr. Oberburgomaster M. Kharkov, b.< 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. Sumskaya st. N 68 - one person
5. Pushkinskaya st. N 67 - "- "
I ask you to give your instructions on what to do with them.”
This is how concern was expressed...

Personal reports also appear, such as: “To the Chief of Police of the 17th district of Kharkov: I am informing you that a list of Jews has been submitted, in which Raisa Nikolaevna Yakubovich is listed... According to the house register, she is registered as Russian, at present she does not present a passport, she claims that she had lost it. I believe that Yakubovich Raisa is actually a Jew, although around 1904 she converted to the Orthodox faith and got married in a church. She has the passport, which she does not present, and it would be advisable to conduct a search to find the passport. January 5, 1942. House manager Dutov.”
Also a zealous beast...
I note that even their belonging to the Orthodox confession did not help baptized Jews to save themselves. They were all destroyed “in the bud” only because of their origin...

There are many similar statements found in the archives. Indicative is letter No. 146 on the letterhead of the Kharkov City Government dated January 6, 1942 (translation from Ukrainian language):
“To all art institutions in Kharkov.
In agreement with the German Authority, I propose again no later than 12.1. this year, 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 in order to identify communists and Komsomol members. The check must be carried out in accordance with metrics, military IDs and passports (in the absence of metrics and military IDs, require other reliable documents). Personal responsibility for the accuracy of the check and the accuracy of the statements rests with the rectors, their deputies or heads of institutions. Lists of identified Jews or those related to them, as well as communists and Komsomol members, must be compiled and sent to the arts department.” Signed – “Head of the Art Department prof. IN.
Kostenko". What can you say about this “art professor”...

The “hunt” for everyone who could be suspected of belonging to the remaining and “disguised Jews” continued throughout the entire German occupation of Kharkov. The euphoria from the successful mass liquidation of the Jewish population of Kharkov in Drobitsky Yar and the calm attitude of the city residents towards it (the support and even participation 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. Each and every one of them was also gradually identified, “collected” into groups and additionally shot. Therefore, the “death conveyor” continued to work for months after that. There, in Drobitsky Yar, “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 a lot of, if not discoveries of a historical nature, then 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 these days presented a terrible sight. Writer Alexei Tolstoy (chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of Fascist Crimes) ... wrote the following lines about what he saw: “This was probably what Rome was like when hordes of German barbarians swept through it in the 5th century - a huge cemetery ... The Germans began their rule<здесь>because in December 1941 they killed, dumping into pits, 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 give the victims as much pain as possible... I believe that there are still many people living far from the war who find it difficult and even distrustful to imagine themselves 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 with crutches, schoolchildren, young girls, women, pressing with decayed hands babies who have medical the examination found earth in the mouth, since they were buried alive.”

The poet N. Tikhonov, who survived the Leningrad blockade, wrote about the Kharkov tragedy, about the destroyed Kharkov: “This is a cemetery, a collection 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 remaining victims were identified in other burials.

ACCORDING TO THE FINDINGS OF THE CRIME INVESTIGATION COMMISSION
FASCISTS IN THE OCCUPIED SOVIET LANDS, KHARKOV AFTER STALINGRAD BECAME THE MOST DESTROYED OF ALL MAJOR CITIES OF THE USSR. THE PERMANENT POPULATION OF THE CITY HAS DECREASED BY AT LEAST 700 THOUSAND PEOPLE. WITH REFUGEES - MORE THAN A MILLION. AT THE MOMENT OF THE LIBERATION OF THE CITY FROM THE GERMANS, ITS POPULATION WAS LESS THAN 190 THOUSAND PEOPLE. AND THE JEWISH POPULATION OF KHARKOV, WHICH ACCOUNTED FOR 19.6% OF ALL ITS RESIDENTS BEFORE THE WAR, WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED.

VIDEO “DROBITSKY YAR”:
http://objectiv.tv/220811/59611.html#video_attachment
(paste directly into the top Yandex window by clicking on the words “paste 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 move the trial to Moscow, but to hold it here, where everything happened. Despite the obvious crimes, the defendants were provided with lawyers. Many were captured, but those who gave the orders were tried.
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 trial that people first started talking about the atrocities and bloody bullying of the Nazis against defenseless people. For the first time, the German commanders themselves spoke about their crimes and named specific numbers. For the first time at the trial it was stated that reference to the order of the superior does not exempt from responsibility for committing war crimes.

Four were accused: 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 Retzlaw and local- driver of the notorious Kharkov “gas chamber” car, Mikhail Bulanov.
This is how Ilya Erenburg, a writer and journalist for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, describes the Kharkov trial: “The trial is taking place in wounded, insulted Kharkov. Here, even the stones scream about crimes... More than 30 thousand Kharkov residents died, tortured by the Germans... The atrocities of the defendants are not the pathology of three sadists, not the revelry of three degenerates. This is the fulfillment of the German plan for the extermination and enslavement of peoples.”

On December 18, 1943, after the prosecutor's indictment, the Front Military Tribunal sentenced all four defendants to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out the next day on Bazarnaya Square, where over forty thousand Kharkov residents gathered. While the execution was going on, the crowd in the square was silent...

VIDEO: “TRIAL IN KHARKOV OF 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).

Kharkov during the German occupation in color. Liberation of Kharkov from the Nazi invaders Kharkov process 1943

The criminals asked for their lives

Not all those responsible answered for the deaths of thousands of Kharkov residents

Precursor to the Nuremberg Tribunal

System of government in the city from October 24, 1941 to February 9, 1942

A new stage in the development of military control (from February 9, 1942)

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

Ukrainian civil administration

Activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Kharkov

Cruel treatment of the local population by the Nazis

Mass extermination of people in the first days of the occupation

Abuse of prisoners of war

Places of mass extermination of people

Living conditions of ordinary Kharkov residents. Recruitment of specialists for work in Germany

Food problems

Hunger

Bazaars in occupation Kharkov

Barter

German military graves in the Shevchenko garden

Renaming streets, squares and districts

International reaction to the Kharkov process

Capture of Kharkov by the Germans

System of occupation power in the city

System of government in the city from October 24, 1941 to February 9, 1942

A new stage in the development of military control (from February 9, 1942)

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

Holocaust in Kharkov

Places of mass extermination of people

Hunger

Consequences of the occupation

see also

Links

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