Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

F. Fedorenko

MY TESTIMONY

When the bolsheviks retreated before the German onslaught in

the Second World War they took care in advance not to leave any

prisoners behind when the Germans arrived.

The prisoners were driven, en masse, under heavy NKVD guard

deep into Russia or Siberia, day and night. Many of them were so

tired that they could go no further. These were shot without

compunction where they fell. Terrible things happened then.

Sometimes, wives recognized their husbands among the evacuees, as

the prisoners were being driven through the villages. There was

great despair when they saw their loved ones taken under the

muzzles of automatic guns, to far, unknown places.

The villagers took care of those who did not die at once from

the NKVD bullets, but this was a very dangerous thing to do before

all the bolsheviks cleared out.

But the NKVD could not evacuate all the prisoners, there were

so many arrests, and jails were replenished constantly. In such a

case the NKVD, before making a hasty retreat, would murder the

prisoners in their cells.

I recall that when the Germans came, in the fall of 1941, to a

little town, Chornobil, on the Prypyat River, 62 miles west of

Kiev, 52 corpses of recently murdered people, slightly covered with

earth, were found in the prison yard.

These corpses had their hands tied at the back with wire; some

had their backs flayed, others had gouged eyes or nails driven into

their heels; still others had their noses, ears, tongues and even

genitals cut away. Instruments of torture which the communists

used were found in the dungeon of the prison.

Many of the tortured people were identified because they were

mostly farmers from the local collectives who had been arrested by

the NKVD for some unknown reason.

For instance, one girl (whose name I cannot recall now) from

the village of Zallissya, a mile and a quarter from Chornobil, was

arrested because one day she failed to go to dig trenches. All

were compelled at that time, to dig anti-tank trenches. The girl

was sick but there was no doctor to examine her and the NKVD

arrested her, never to return.

Two days later, when the Germans arrived, she was found among

the fifty-two corpses. (F. Fedorenko, My Testimony, in The Black

Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of

Victims of Russian Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, pp. 97-98)

(15) Executed 180 persons.

Andriy Vodopyan

CRIME IN STALINE

In this city in the NKVD prison factory the communists executed

180 persons and buried them in two holes dug in the prison yard.

The corpses were liberally treated with unslaked lime, especially

the faces.

My brother was sentenced to three months in jail for coming

late to work. After serving 18 days in the factory prison he was

set free, and a month later was drafted to the Red Army because

this was in July 1941.

Later, his wife and my mother found him among the corpses,

identifying him by the left hand finger, underwear and papers he

had on him.

This atrocity came to light when prisoners who remained alive

were liberated. They had also a very close call. Six days before

the arrival of the German troops they heard muffled shots.

The prison was secretly mined by NKVD agents in preparation for

the German invaders. (Andriy Vodopyan, Crime in Staline, in The

Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of

Victims of Russian Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 121)

(16) Had their breasts cut off.

Yuriy Dniprovy

INNOCENT VICTIMS

In the little town of Zolotnyky in the Ternopil region the

bolsheviks murdered a captain of the former Ukrainian Galician Army

(UHA) of 1918-1922, Mr. Dankiw, and clerks of the Ukrainian

cooperative store, the sisters Magdalene, Sophia and Clementine

Husar from the suburb of Vaha. Clementine and Magdalene were

tortured in a beastly manner and had their breasts cut off.

Other people executed at that time were: Slavko Demyd, Yosyp

Vozny, Vasyl Burbela, Zynoviy Kushniryna, Pavlo Kushniryna and a

non-commissioned officer of the UHA, Mr. Tsiholsky. (Yuriy

Dniprovy, Innocent Victims, in The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A

White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist

Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 122)

(17) The chopped bones and flesh of the victims fell into the sewers.

P. K.

THE INFERNAL DEVICE OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS

(By an eyewitness)

In the year 1942, when the Red Army, harassed by the German

divisions, retreated from Katerynodar (Krasnodar), the regional

NKVD division evacuated all the prisoners and sent them in the

direction of Novorossiysk. The railway line between Katerynodar

and the station of Krymska was jammed by nearly two hundred freight

boxcars filled to capacity with political prisoners.

Suspecting that all these prisoners might fall into German

hands the Russian NKVD men, as a precautionary measure, poured

gasoline on the cars and let them burn.

Thus a few thousand people perished in inhuman torture merely

because they were suspected of anti-communism.

When the Germans entered Katerynodar they found in the regional

divisional building of the NKVD in Sinny Bazar, a horrible torture

chamber. In the vault of this building there was a dark passage

which ended with a wooden platform which dipped down at a sharp

angle. Right underneath it there was a machine which resembled a

straw chopper. It was a disk equipped with a system of big knives

that revolved at great speed. It was powered by a motor.

After questioning, the innocent victims were driven by the NKVD

agents towards the wooden platform and rolled under the knives of

the hellish meatchopper. The chopped bones and flesh of the

victims fell into the sewers and were carried away with a stream of

sewage into the river Kuban.

Having discovered this horrible place, the Germans gave

permission to all who wished to view this inhuman device.

Thousands of people visited the place, among them the author of

these lines.

Other nations direct their talents towards the discovery of

better medicines, new materials, better means of communication to

make living conditions better. The Russian people are using all

their talents for the production of machines and new methods of

mass murder and torture. (P. K., The infernal device of the

Russian Communists (by an eyewitness), in The Black Deeds of the

Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian

Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, pp. 123-124)

(18) Some had nails driven into their skulls.

M. Kowal

BOLSHEVIK MURDERS

I am Michael Kowal, from the town of Kaminka Strumylova in the

Lviw Region in Ukraine. During the communist occupation of Western

Ukraine I personally witnessed three arrests in my native town on

June 22, 1941, those of Bohdan Mulkevich, and Michael Mulkevich who

lived on Zamok Street, and Michael Mulkevich's blacksmith

apprentice, presumably from the village of Rymaniw in the same

Region. They were suspected of disloyalty to the communist regime.

After the communist retreat from Kaminska-Strumylova they were

found in the town prison with 33 other victims, murdered in a

horribly sadistic manner. All the corpses were tied together with

barbed wire and all bore signs of terrible beatings. Some had

nails driven into their skulls. None of them had been shot to

death. Their bodies, nude and badly mauled, were practically

unrecognizable to their relatives.

Bohdan Mulkevish's wife recognized her husband, but, trying to

verify her identification by his gold teeth, found them missing.

All the bodies were taken away for interment.

That Same day 19 other bodies were discovered near the village

of Todan about 9 or 10 kilometers from Kaminka-Strumylova. They

were tied to trees and their chests were pierced with bayonets.

These were all identified by relatives and taken away for burial.

(M. Kowal, Bolshevik Murders, in The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A

White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist

Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)

(19) Shot the children in cold blood.

Andriy Vodopyan

A RAVINE FILLED WITH THE BODIES OF CHILDREN

I was serving in the Soviet Russian Army. Our artillery unit

was retreating before the Germans in the direction of Yeletsk. On

September 18, 1941, our unit came to a wide ravine situated about

14 miles from Chartsysk station, and about 60 miles from the city

of Staline. The ravine stretched from the station of Chartsysk to

the station of Snizhy. When we approached the ravine we were taken

aback by a horrible sight. The whole ravine was filled with the

bodies of children. They were lying in different positions. Most

of them were from 14 to 16 years of age. They were dressed in

black, and we recognized them as students of the F.S.U., a

well-known trade and craft school. We counted 370 bodies

altogether. All of them had been killed by machine gun fire.

This group of children was being evacuated from Staline when

the Germans neared the city. The children had marched 60 miles,

and, exhausted and unable to continue walking, asked for

transportation. The officers in charge promised to send them

trucks. Instead of trucks, a detachment of the Russian political

police (NKVD) arrived, and shot the children in cold blood with

machine guns. This ravine, filled with hundreds of bodies of slain

children, moved even the soldiers, accustomed as they were to the

sight of death. (Andriy Vodopyan, A Ravine Filled With the Bodies

of Children, in S. O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black Deeds of the

Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian

Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)

(20) Throwing hand-grenades into the crowded cells.

Rev. J. Chyrva was imprisoned in 1941 when the Russian Communist armies were withdrawing from the city of Riwne. He happened to be

cast into one of those jails in which the communists, fleeing from

advancing German armies, attempted to rid themselves of as many

prisoners as possible by throwing hand-grenades into the crowded

cells. When the first grenade was thrown into the cell where Rev.

J. Chyrva was kept, he was the first to fall - his foot shattered.

On him fell many mutilated bodies, covering him, thus saving his

life. Later, when people came into the cell, they found all the

prisoners dead with the exception of Rev. J. Chyrva. He is alive

today, a witness of that horrible manslaughter. (Rev. Lev Buchak,

Persecution of Ukrainian Protestants under the Soviet Rule, in S.

O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book,

Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist Terror,

Toronto, 1953, p. 529)

(21) Exhumed corpses were found without skin.

The Bolsheviks had arrested thousands of Ukrainian patriots, and

prior to their retreat, they killed them savagely. For some reason

even highly regarded Jewish authors understate the number of

Ukrainian victims of Bolshevik terror. Gerald Reitlinger gives a

figure of three to four thousand in Lviv alone. Hilberg speaks of