Germans in Katyn

Germans in Katyn. Documents on the execution of Polish prisoners of war in the autumn of 1941.
Compiled by: R. I., Kosolapov, V. E. Pershin, S. Yu. Rychenkov, V. A. Sakharov

Responsible for the issue: S. A. Lozhkin.

Moscow: ITRK Publishing House, 2010 - 280 p. ISBN 978-5-88010-266-2

Special report of the special department of the NKVD of the Western Front on the situation in the regions. December 10, 1941

Archive: CA FSB RF, f. 14, on. 4, d. 589, l. 248-250

December 10, 1941

Top secret

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT

SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS OF THE NKVD

UNION SSR

TO THE COMMISSIONER OF STATE SECURITY 3rd RANK

Comrade ABAKUMOV

The special department of the NKVD of the 50th army received the following information from agents and servicemen who left the encirclement about the state of the territory temporarily occupied by the enemy:

In the village of Korolovka, the Germans killed a pregnant woman because she did not allow them to take food cooked for dinner from the oven.

In one of the villages, the Germans gathered 36 women for washing clothes in the infirmary, who were kept until the morning and raped all of them. In the same village, the Germans raped a 16-year-old girl, after which they let her go home, threatening that if she told anyone about this, she and her family would be shot.

In the village Kochetovka the Germans raped a 14-year-old girl.

On the collective farm Nikulyiino, Pochinkovsky district, Smolensk region, the Germans flogged the chairman of the collective farm and the foreman for the slow harvesting of potatoes and flax from the fields of the collective farm. In the same village, 13 collective farmers were flogged for being late for work.

The German gendarme, who carried out the flogging, warned the rest of the collective farmers that in the future they would be shot for their dishonest attitude to work.

In Smolensk and Vyazma there are a large number of prisoners, among whom there are many wounded. The prisoners are occasionally given a glass of oats or rye per person and sometimes 3-5 potatoes. Bread is given out very rarely - 1 kilogram per 10 people.

The Germans take kerosene from the population.

In the Belevsky district, the Germans issued an order to mobilize the male population from 19 to 50 years old.

In the Odoevsky region, the Germans taxed the entire population in the amount of 5 marks or 50 rubles. from every person.

In Mogilev, the Germans appointed doctor Filitsyn as mayor. There is a police force in the city, in the service of which there are mainly Germans, but there are also Russians. Anna Alekseevna Ivanova works as a secretary in the police, ex. accountant of the Mogilev Pedagogical College. In addition to the police, there is a Gestapo apparatus in Mogilev. In the city, the Germans opened a church and a brothel. One newspaper is published in German. Residents are allowed to walk around the city from 6 am to 7 pm.

Money is in circulation both German and Soviet, and one mark is equated to 10 rubles of our money.

The Germans evicted the Jews from the city to the town of Dubrovka, where they are used for hard work. Each Jew has been pinned with a distinctive badge; bread is not given to them at all. The Germans gathered 128 Jews from different settlements to the city of Yelnya, locked them in a barn and burned them. Those who tried to get out of the barn were shot.

Among the personnel of the German units there is a depressed, decadent mood.

In one of the villages near Tula, left by the Germans, it was written in German "Farewell, Moscow!".

Through the village of Pochinka, 2 echelons of Poles with their hands tied followed, who went deep into Germany for refusing to fight against the USSR.

In all the villages of the Pochinkovsky district there are many weapons (machine guns, rifles, grenades, cartridges and even cannons), which are carefully hidden from the Germans.

ZAM. HEAD OF THE NGO NKVD OF THE WESTERN FRONT

MAJOR OF STATE SECURITY

GORGONS