It’s the Google Translation
The original in Russian: http://www.zlev.ru/91_45.htm
Real History: How
the Poles killed Russian prisoners of war, or Anti-Katyn
Arbitrariness or retribution?
I want to preface my local research on the death of Red Army soldiers in Polish
captivity with the words of a speech by a Polish political scientist, Professor
Krzysztof Fyodorovich, delivered at a conference in Kaliningrad in 2004:
"There are a lot
of grievances, pain and suffering in the relations between our countries. There
is no point in arguing about who suffered the most. It's
sad that instead of striving together for a complete "calculation"
with the past and eliminating "white spots", we reanimate the darkest
pages of the general history, more and more plunging into the world of previous
conflicts " ( http://krugozor.pochta.ru/hist/02fedorovich.htm ).
Very true remark. I
would like it to be so. But we have to deal
with these "dark pages"
, since so far, most Polish
politicians and historians are responsible for the tension in the
Polish-Russian relations only for Russia. Therefore,
we have to prove that in our joint history everyone has his own sins, and
considerable, and the most optimal way of developing these relations is "zeroing the counter of mutual insults
. " In the spring of this
year, with a similar appeal to former allies on the Warsaw bloc, President
Vladimir Putin addressed.
Events show that this call has not been heard by the Polish side. In April with. the
Polish media widely covered the campaign filed by the Katyn families for suits
in the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, the solemn ceremony of the "66th anniversary of the Katyn crime at
the foot of the royal castle in Wawel," the "International Katyn
motorcycle raid" of Polish bikers to Czestochowa, and so on.
In May the Katyn theme sounded with renewed vigor. May 8 with. the
representative of the Ministry of National Defense in the Seimas, Vice-Minister
of Defense Alexander Shchiglo said: "Let
the Russians know that we approach the Katyn problem very seriously ..."
and suggested that the Katyn Museum be located opposite the Russian Embassy -
to remind "Russian about
responsibility for Katyn . " True, the Minister of
National Defense Radoslav Sikorsky called this idea "author's" and
expressed the hope that it would not damage the planned Polish-Russian summit.
According to the minister, the best place for the
museum would be the Warsaw Citadel. However,
A. Shchiglo's proposal was widely commented on in the Polish media. The newspaper "Zennik" described this material as
"Katyniem po otsacham"
(Katyniem po oczach) .
He received less response in the press and on television caused the opening
on May 9 with. Marshal of the Sejm Marek Yurek in the building
of the Polish Seim of the exhibition "Memory
and Authenticity - the Army of Anders, Katyn and Golgotha of the East"
, which consists of two parts. One of them is devoted to the Katyn crime, but in fact it
is the dominant theme of the whole exhibition. All
this testifies to the fact that in Poland a well-planned and planned campaign
is underway to give the Katyn topic a new sound.
Carrying out Katyn actions, the Polish side places special emphasis on the
allegedly uncaused shooting of Polish prisoners of war in the spring of 1940,
Russia's refusal to recognize the Poles shot dead as victims of Stalinist
repressions and the fact that "Russia
has been trying for a number of years to absolve itself of responsibility for
the crimes committed . " It is necessary to recognize that in many
respects the position of the Russian side contributes to this.
The insufficiently thorough study by Russian lawyers of all versions and
aspects of the Katyn crime in criminal case No. 159 allows the Polish side to
raise the question of Russia's unambiguous responsibility as the
successor of the USSR for this crime. The
official version of the "Katyn case" is poorly tied to a number of
newly discovered and long-known evidence and facts, in particular about the
involvement of the Nazis in the Katyn crime. Also,
there is no reasonable answer to the question, what were the main reasons and
motive for the execution.
It is believed that the basis for the shooting of Polish prisoners of war
was a general accusation that "they
are all hardened, incorrigible enemies of Soviet power ... full of hatred for
the Soviet system" (Katyn Syndrome, p. 464).
However, one must bear in mind that the general formulations of "enemies of the Soviet regime",
"enemies of the people" in the 1930s meant a wide range of
specific charges (wrecking, committing criminal offenses, etc.). If Stalin, as the Polish side claims, in March
1940 decided to decapitate the Polish nation, destroying its elite for " anti-Sovietism,"
then how to understand the position of the same Stalin, who decided already in
November 1940 from among POWs "to
organize the Polish military unit " ?" Moreover, how can a large group of "anti-Soviet" from the army of General Anders not only survived, but was
in 1942 released from the Soviet Union?
Obviously, in addition to anti-Soviet statements, specific crimes against
Soviet power were necessary. For
example, the war crimes of Polish servicemen in the Polish-Soviet war of
1919-1920. In particular, the unconscioned
executions of the Red Army soldiers when they were taken prisoner, which became
widespread in the Polish army. A large number
of Poles who served in the second department of the Ministry of Military
Affairs of Poland, in the police and border guards, were involved in
repressions against Soviet prisoners of war in 1919-1922. and to anti-Soviet actions carried out from Polish
territory in the 1920s. Evidence of this, with
the names of Polish officers and policemen in the Soviet archives, was kept.
Attempts by some Russian politicians and historians to establish the
relationship between the Katyn tragedy and the massacres of Russian soldiers in
Polish captivity are fiercely protested by the so-called "democratic
public" both in Poland and in Russia: "Katyn and the Red Army soldiers in the Polish captivity in 1919-1920. "THESE TWO
LIKELY INDEPENDENT, INDEPENDENT THEMES ... To confuse them, to oppose one
another, to use them as a means of pressure in political discussions is at
least incorrect" ("Ring A",
No. 34, 2005, p. 113).
But even if these are two independent topics, they require the same
approach and the same moral assessment. Since the 90s, Russia, having shown goodwill, withdrew the
taboo from the discussions of the Katyn theme. Why
does the Polish side try to get away from considering a no less bloody crime?
Moreover, it cynically reduces the problem to the
desire, allegedly demonstrated by the Russian side, "to efface Russian Katyn crime from memory" ("New Poland", No. 5, 2005). It is not by chance that in Poland the situation with the
death of captured Red Army soldiers is called "Anti-Katyn." But is not Russian blood worth anything at all and is
suitable only for reinforcing rhetorical exercises on the topic - who is more
to blame?
Yes, and from a practical point of view, the assertion that between the
death of the Red Army soldiers of 1919-1922. and the execution of Poles in 1940 [1][2] . there is no
connection, they are untenable . It is naive to believe that Stalin was not aware of the
plight of Soviet prisoners of war in Polish camps. The position of the Soviet government on this issue was set
out in a note by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G. Chicherin to the
plenipotentiary of Poland, T. Filipovic, dated September 9, 1921: "... The responsibility of the Polish
government remains wholly indescribable horrors that are still being committed
with impunity in such places like the camp of Stshalkovo ... "
(" Red Army soldiers in the Polish captivity of 1919-1922. ", p.660).
It is significant that in 1939-1940. the NKVD officers were engaged in identifying among Polish
prisoners officers and policemen those who were involved in the repression of
Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Soviet actions from the Polish territory.
By the way, in 1920, the same officers were engaged in the Second Division
of the Ministry of Military Affairs of Poland, who fished active Red Army men. A scientific worker from Minsk Mikhail
Antonovich Baturitsky talks about the events, about which he told his
grandfather, Korsak Konstantin Adamovich.
"In 1920, my grandfather
participated in a campaign against Warsaw. After
the end of the war, the Nesvizh district of the Minsk region, where the
grandfather lived with his family in the village of Saskaya Lipka, went to
Poland. The
authorities announced the registration in the village of Malevo Nesvizh
district of all those who served in the Russian Army (the expression of the
grandfather). He
went to register with his brother-in-law, Poznyak Anton, who lived in the
neighboring village of Glebovshchina. In Malolev, they were
immediately arrested and interrogated. During interrogations
they asked if he had participated in the "landing under the Abbot". If
the grandfather confessed, he would be immediately shot. However,
no one betrayed him, and the case ended in a concentration camp. My
grandfather was sent to the concentration camp near Bialystok, where he stayed
until March 1921. In the camp there were 1500 people, only 200
remained alive. Grandfather was released because he was a Pole under the
passport, the others were left to die. "
In the Russian-Polish collection of documents and materials "Red
Army soldiers in the Polish captivity in 1919-1922." ,
Published in 2004 - the fact of interrogation in the Rovno criminal
investigation G. Mitchev, who was brutally beaten and tortured, demanding to
confess that he " not an old
prisoner of war, but a Red Army soldier who killed many Polish soldiers "
(p. 709).
In the years 1939-1940. officers
of the NKVD of the USSR several times questioned Polish prisoners of war.
The surviving Polish officers remembered that they
were literally tormented by endless interrogations and interrogations. Moreover, there are no references to torture when compiling
accounting records of Polish prisoners of war. It
should be borne in mind that according to the instruction, for each Polish
officer and policeman, two accounting cases were instituted, one of which was
filled by a special department of the NKVD in the camps ("Prisoners of the
undeclared war", pp. 75-77). When the
criminal case was opened for a prisoner of war, another investigative case was
opened. It is clear that this was not done out
of idle curiosity. On the basis of the
investigative work documented in the accounting file, Polish officers and
police officers were assigned to the respective camps and prisons, and
subsequently a decision was taken on their further fate. Similar sorting took place in the Polish camps.
It should be recalled that even after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the main
work carried out by Soviet, American, British, French special services with
millions of German prisoners of war was also to clarify their involvement in
the commission of war crimes, primarily to the shooting of servicemen from the
armies of the anti-Hitler coalition.
In November 2005, the London-based Daily Mail reported that in the 40s in
London on the fashionable Kensington Garden Street (6-8 Kensington Palace
Gardens London W8), in one of the houses next to the building of the current
Russian embassy, was located London District Cage. It secretly delivered the abductees from Germany (including
from the Soviet zone) high-ranking Nazi prisoners who were guilty of mass
executions of British prisoners of war. Witnesses
say that in those days here a few cars arrived each day with prisoners of war.
There were 5 interrogation chambers here. According to some reports, the interrogations are conducted
in a very tough form. To date, only part of
the documents relating to torture on Kensington Garden have been declassified.
Justice here was quick and severe. After the recognition under pressure - shooting or gallows.
The logic of the behavior of the Soviet leadership in the pre-war and
post-war years, as well as the documents of the collection "Red Army soldiers in the
Polish captivity in 1919-1922" , which testify to inhuman
treatment of the captured Red Army soldiers in the Polish camps, make it
possible with a high degree of probability to say that the execution of some Polish
officers and policemen in the spring of 1940 was associated with their involvement
in the death of Soviet prisoners of war in Polish camps.
Intolerance
Studying the documents and materials of the multipart (912 pages)
Russian-Polish collection "The Red Army Men in the Polish
Captivity in 1919-1922" and comparing them with the well-known
Russian-Polish collections about the Katyn crime, one can not help noticing
double standards in assessing the actions of the NKVD and the Polish repressive
organs. Thus, the compilers of the collection "Red
Army Men in the Polish Captivity in 1919-1822." , Professor of
the University of Toruń 3. Karpus and V. Rezmer, argue that
"There are no
documentary evidence and arguments for accusing and condemning the Polish
authorities in pursuing a purposeful policy of eliminating, by famine or
physical means, Bolshevik prisoners of war . "
Meanwhile, the testimonies in the collection can not be read without
shuddering. Here is what Wilson, secretary of the Prisoners
of War Department of the American Christian Youth Association, wrote in
November 1920 about his visits to Polish camps.
Camp Modlin.
"Apartments in
poor condition, people sleep on bare boards, without mattresses and blankets
... food is quite satisfactory . " Camp in Лоód.. "People
are lying on the floor without bedspreads, covered with their own clothes,
mostly very worn out and extremely inadequate for this time of year ... Most of
them are barefoot or in some socks."
Camp in Rembertow.
"There are 100
people in each room. They do not have blankets or blankets, and
they sleep in ordinary dress on bare boards ... prisoners need a dress and
shoes " (" Red Army men ... ", p.339-346).
I must say that the assessments of I. Wilson were quite favorable for the
Polish authorities. The American observer
was naive and fully relied on information from the camp authorities. Here's how he responded to food for prisoners of war, which
he was offered on October 7, 1920 at the concentration station in Modlin:
"It was quite
satisfactory and in content was better than that received by Russian prisoners
in Germany. The
commandant was very kind ... " (Ibid., P. 340).
One could agree with this assessment, if not for the telegram of the
commander of the fortified region Modlin Malevich. October 28, 1920, that is, three weeks after the visit of
Wilson, he informs the Supreme Command of the Polish Army that in the camp
"Hospital of 900
gastric patients (out of 3,500 prisoners), of which almost 10% of deaths ...
The main causes of the disease are the eating of prisoners by various raw cleaning
and the complete absence of shoes and clothes" (ibid., P. 355).
"Eating raw cleaning" somehow does not fit with "quite satisfactory food"!
In December 1920, the Supreme Extraordinary Commissioner for the Fight
against Epidemics, Emil Godlevsky, in a letter to the Minister of War,
Kazimierz Sosnkowski, described the situation in the prisoners' camp as
"simply inhuman and contrary not only to all hygiene requirements, but to
general culture" (ibid., P. 419) . Unfortunately, his letter remained a voice crying in the
desert.
A month earlier, the chief of the medical service of the French military
mission in Poland, Major Gauthier, noted that in the largest prisoner of war
camps in Stschalkovo, "prisoners
are dressed in rags, food is clearly not enough" (ibid., p. 361). The
situation in Strzalków actually did not change until its closure.
The inhumane attitude to the captives of the Red Army in February 1922 was
harshly expressed in his report to the People's Commissariat for Foreign
Affairs of the RSFSR by the chairman of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation EOD
Aboltin:
"Perhaps, in view
of the historical hatred of Poles for Russians or other economic and political
reasons, prisoners of war in Poland were not regarded as disarmed enemy
soldiers, but as disenfranchised slaves.
Containing prisoners
in their underwear, the Poles treated them not as people of equal race, but as
slaves. Beatings
in / prisoners were practiced at every step ... " (" Red Army soldiers ... ", p. 704).
Documents and evidence allow us to assert with a high degree of certainty
about the systematic and literal destruction of the Red Army soldiers in the Polish
camps for prisoners of war by the cold and cold . One can also formulate the conclusion that in
Poland the predetermination of the death of Russian prisoners was determined
not by the decision of the higher authorities, but by the general anti-Russian
attitude of the Polish society - the more the Bolsheviks die, the better
.
The most vividly anti-Russian sentiments were formulated by the then deputy
minister of the interior, future Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Jozef
Beck: "As for Russia, I do not
find enough epithets to characterize the hatred that we feel towards it"
(V. Sipols. "Secrets of the diplomatic," p. 35). Beck knew well the mood in Polish society.
Known about them and born in Poland, the Commander of the Volunteer Army
Anton Ivanovich Denikin. Here
is what he writes in his memoirs about the brutal and savage press of
Polonization, which crushed the Russian lands that came to Poland under the
Treaty of Riga (1921):
"The Poles began
to eradicate all signs of Russian culture and citizenship in them, they
abolished the Russian school altogether and especially took up arms against the
Russian church. Moreover, the closure and destruction of
Orthodox churches began " (A. Denikin," The Way of a Russian Officer, "p. 14).
At that time, 114 Orthodox churches were destroyed in Poland, including the
unique in its cultural significance Warsaw Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky,
who had in his collection more than ten thousand works and objects of world
artistic value. In justifying this
barbarous act, the newspaper Golos Varshavski wrote that "by destroying the temple, we thereby
proved our superiority over Russia, our victory over it . "
B. Shteifon, Chief of Staff of the White Guard Independent Russian Army
(from the Volunteer Army of General A. Denikin), who was in Warsaw in 1920,
wrote in his memoirs:
"There is nothing
left in the Russian in Warsaw. Intolerance went so
far that the gymnasium (near the monument to Copernicus), formerly decorated in
Russian style, stood with repaired plaster and stood out like a dirty spot
against the background of other buildings. "
At the same time, while in Poznan, B. Shteifon noted:
"As far as Warsaw
was all Polish and there was nothing Russian, so all the German remained in
Poznan. The
names of streets, signs, bookstores, ads - all this was full of German names. The
Polish speech was heard only occasionally and completely drowned among the
German words that were heard everywhere . "
Strange selectivity of Polish nationalists! At the moment something similar is happening. Some political forces in Poland seek to highlight the
Soviet "occupation", representing it more terrible than the Nazi one.
Attitude to the Russians in 1920-1922. in Poland was hostile. Even
members of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation (OED) for the repatriation of
prisoners in Warsaw were systematically subjected to insults. In the telegram of the chairman of the Ruda E. Ignatov,
People's Commissar G. Chicherin on May 3, 1921 says: "The attitude ... is largely hostile and unacceptable even from the
point of view of bourgeois international relations and rules of decency"
("Red Army soldiers ...", with 552-553).
Intolerance towards all Russian, and especially Soviet (that is, the
commissar-Jewish, as it was then believed in Poland) led to the fact that, as
some Russian researchers believe, up to 40% of the Red Army men captured were
killed without access to the POW camps . Wounded people were usually thrown on the spot without
assistance, many communists, commanders and Jews were shot without trial and
during a multi-day trainload of prisoners, prisoners of war, without food or water,
died.
Just a few examples. August
24, 1920 Poles shot from the machine guns 200 prisoners (ibid., Pp. 527-528).
This fact was confirmed by the Chief of Staff of the
Fifth Army, Lieutenant-Colonel Volikovsky, in an operational report. In August 1920, in the village of Grichine, Minsk district,
after prolonged torture and humiliation, the Red Army soldiers captured were so
inhumanly shot that "some parts
of the body were completely torn off" (ibid., p. 160). As the
Red Army soldier A. Chestnov, who was taken prisoner in May 1920, after the
arrival of their group of prisoners in Sedlec, all "party comrades, among 33 people, were singled out and shot right
there" (ibid., P.599) .
A former prisoner of Polish camps Lazar Borisovich Gindin, who served until
the capture of the 160th regiment of the 18th Division of the 6th Army of the
Soviet Western Front in the position of a senior physician, says that the Poles
first of all "sought out among
the captured Jews and commissars. For the issued, bread and canned
food were promised. But the Red Army did not betray " (http: //www.krotov. info / library / k / krotov / lb).
No less trials were waiting for the prisoners in the long journey to the
camp. Natalia Kreuz-Velezinska, representative of the
Polish Red Cross Society, said in December 1920: "Tragically, the conditions of new arrivals who are transported in
unheated wagons, without adequate clothing, cold, hungry and tired ... After
such a journey, many of them are sent to the hospital , and the weaker die
" (" Red Army soldiers ... ", p. 438).
Kultrabotnik RKKA Walden (Podolsky), who passed all circles of hell of the
Polish captivity in 1919-1920, in his memoirs "In Polish captivity. Notes , published in 1931 in Nos. 5 and 6 of Novy Mir, described
the chauvinistic attitude of the Polish intelligentsia, which specifically came
to trains with prisoners of war to mock them. Undressed
by Polish soldiers to "underpants
and a shirt, barefoot," Walden
in the spring of 1919, along with other prisoners, was loaded into a train in
which they traveled for 12 days, the first 7-8 days without food . On the way, at
stops, sometimes lasting a day, " gentlemen with sticks and" ladies from society "
came to the train, who tortured the prisoners they had chosen. Walden remembers that some "... gentry boy really wanted to try on me his revolver.
Someone stopped him ...
Many of us missed our trip " ("
New World ", No. 5, 1931, page 84).
L. Gindin also recalls that with him "they took off their boots and clothes, gave them rags instead. One was summoned
for interrogation. Then they walked barefoot through the village. Poles ran up, beat prisoners,
swore. The
convoy did not interfere with them . "
The death rate of prisoners of war on the way to the camps reached 40%. On December 20, 1919, at a meeting in the High
Command of the Polish Army, Major Yanushkevich reported: "Of the transport of 700 people expelled
from Ternopil, 400" ("Red
Army soldiers ...", page 126).
Only a year later, on December 8, 1920, the Minister of Military Affairs of
Poland issued an order on the inadmissibility of transporting hungry and sick
prisoners. The basis for the order was the fact of the
transfer from Kovel to Pulawy 300 prisoners, of which 263 people arrived, 37
died and 137 after the arrival were placed in the hospital. "The captives, according to
the story of the current commander of the station, were 5 days in transit and
all the time they did not receive any food, so after their arrival in Pulawy,
as soon as they were unloaded and sent to the station, the prisoners rushed to
a dead horse and ate a raw carrion"
(ibid., P. , page 434). How many such echelons
passed without attention to the highest authorities, God alone knows.
As the orders of the leadership were carried out in Poland, the following
facts testify. November 22, 1920 at a meeting of
representatives of the departments of the headquarters and departments of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland in connection with the "catastrophic state of prisoners of war
camps" it was decided to place
15,000 shoes, 25,000 overcoats and 3,000 uniforms at the disposal of I
department of the headquarters of the Ministry of Military Affairs.
A month after this decision, and ten days after the above-mentioned order,
we read in the report of the sanitary department of the Kieletsky district of
December 17, 1920: "I report
that in recent years military transport hospitals of the local KGO have
transported patients of captive Bolsheviks without outer clothing and shoes or
in rags, not protecting from the cold, and sometimes completely naked "
(" Red Army soldiers ... ", p. 455).
Even in Russia, by exchanging prisoners, the Red Army men were still sent
in half-dressed. There have been cases
when the remaining people undressed to dress them sent to their homeland.
Red Army man Kaskov July 18, 1921 (note: in the
"safe" year 21) in the camp, Stschalkovo was sentenced to 14 days in
a punishment cell for "it did
not have pants" , which was taken away to dress the departing
to Russia , but others were not given (ibid., p. 644).
December 12, 1920 in Russia from Poland arrived in a cold, unheated car 40
more Red Army men in a "badly
exhausted state . " Of the arriving party for a week, 5 people died
(ibid., P. 444). Almost at the same time, a
train arrived in Minsk with 36 captured Red Army men, who were also "extremely exhausted and exhausted, in
rags, and one even without any shoes. They complained about bad food
and treatment; the car was completely unsuitable for transporting people and was not even
cleaned of horse manure, which lay a layer of one - fourth
arshin ... " (ibid., p. 445).
The number of dead during transportation is not difficult to calculate,
comparing the data on the number of captured Red Army soldiers to those who
ended up in camps. From the reports of
the Third Division (Operational) of the High Command of the Polish Army, it is
clear that from February 13, 1919 to October 18, 1920, 206877 Red Army
soldiers were captured. The data of the
Russian historian G.F. Matveyeva testify to
the fact that in the Polish captivity there were about 157,000 Red Army soldiers (ibid., p. 11). The difference of 50 thousand prisoners between the data of
the Polish Third Division and G. Matveev is the number of captured Red Army
soldiers who were "lost" during transportation to the camps. It should be borne in mind that 5 thousand captured Red
Army soldiers in June 1920 were repulsed by the First Cavalry Army and about 12
thousand Ukrainian prisoners were released to their homes by decision of the
Polish authorities. Nevertheless, the fate of
more than 30 thousand captured Red Army soldiers remains unclear, and,
probably, they should be considered dead.
No less severe were the conditions of detention in the camps. Here is a typical situation in the camp of
Stschalkovo: "On October 19,
1920, the barracks for the captured Communists were so crowded that, entering
it, in the middle of the fog, it was generally difficult to consider anything
at all. The prisoners were so bored that they could not lie, but were compelled
to stand leaning against each other " (ibid.,
p. 350).
Sorting in camps was carried out on political and national grounds:
Bolsheviks, Russian nationals, Poles, Ukrainians, captured Lithuanians,
Estonians, Finns, Latvians, etc. "The
captured Russians (after the separation of the Bolshevik element) were divided
into three groups": officers and ordinary Russian prisoners,
captured Cossacks. The captive Jews also
had to be " separated,
placed separately and isolated" (ibid.,
pp. 281-282). In especially difficult
conditions turned out to be Russian prisoners and Jews.
It is characteristic that the attitude towards the White Guards interned in
the Polish camps was also extremely cruel. On this in a letter of December 21, 1920, the chief of the
Polish state, Józef Pilsudski, wrote an uncompromising fighter against
Bolshevism, Boris Savinkov. He drew attention "to the plight of the officers and
volunteers of the armies of the generals Bulak-Bulakhovich and Peremykin who
are in concentration camps ..." (ibid.,
p. 458).
Life for 3
cigarettes
In the camp of Stschalkovo in the summer of 1919, the assistant to the camp
chief , Lieutenant Malinovsky,
walked around the camp accompanied by several corporals, who had bundles of
wire in their hands . Often Malinovsky ordered the prisoner to lie
down in a ditch, and the corporals began to beat. "If the man groaned or
begged for mercy, Malinovsky took out his revolver and shot ... If the sentries
shot the prisoners, Malinovsky gave 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks as a
reward ... It was repeatedly observed ... the group led by Malinovsky climbed
up machine-gun towers and from there I shot at defenseless people " (" Red Army soldiers ... ", p. 655).
In 1960, the USSR published a book of former prisoners Auschwitz Ota Kraus
№ 73046 from Prague and Erich Kulka № 73043 from Vsetin "Factory of Death .
" The atrocities and conditions of life in the
camp of Stschalkovo are very similar to Auschwitz.
For abuse of office in September 1919 Lieutenant Malinovsky was arrested,
but there is no information on the degree of his punishment. The main reason for Malinovsky's arrest was
probably that he severely punished a group of Latvians who voluntarily
surrendered to the Polish captivity: "It
started with the appointment of 50 blows with a barbed wire rod, and they were
told that Latvians, like" Jewish hirelings, live from the camp will not
come out. More than ten prisoners died of blood poisoning. Then, within three days, the
prisoners were left without food and were forbidden to go out on the water for
fear of death " (ibid., p. 146).
Information about these atrocities against the
pro-Polish prisoners seeped into the newspapers, and the authorities had to
take action.
After the arrest of Malinovsky, the chief of the 1st Department of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland, Yu. Rybak, reported on October 12,
1919, to the Central Commissariat of the Supreme Command of the EaP about the
situation in the camp of Strzalkowo. He
reports:
"As for today's
situation in Strzalków, his best illustration is the report of the inspectorate
on the verification of this camp, held on September 24, 1919:" The camp is
exemplary in all respects ... thanks to the energy and extraordinary care for
the camp of its chief, Captain Wagner. The food of the
prisoners is good ... the prisoners are washed very often, because Captain
Wagner, the camp commander, equipped additional baths " (ibid., P. 86).
However, just two weeks after such praise, Captain Wagner was put on trial. The new chief of the camp, Colonel Kevnarsky,
who began his duties in November 1919, evaluated the condition of the camp as "very neglected" (ibid., p. 110). Obviously,
the reports of the Polish Inspectorate and other officials were not objective.
It can not be said that the Polish authorities did not try to improve the
situation at all. For example, in April
1920, special inspection commissions were set up in the armies of the Polish
Army to check the condition of establishments for prisoners of war. On December 6, 1920, the Polish Minister of War, K.
Sosnkovsky, issued an order on measures to radically improve the situation of
prisoners of war. It was prescribed to
implement measures to improve the food of the prisoners and the sanitary
conditions of the camps. The heads of the
sanitary, economic and construction departments are invited to appoint special
bodies that will study the actual situation in the camps and immediately eliminate
the shortcomings noted.
However, this "formidable" order was not actually executed. Moreover, the mass of examples shows that the
"Bolshevik prisoners" were not generally perceived by the Polish
authorities as PEOPLE .
This attitude of the Polish authorities is confirmed by the following
facts. Before the liberation from the captivity,
"hygienic bathing" for the prisoners was arranged in such a way that
many of them died after this. For three years
in the camp in Stschalkovo could not (or did not want to) decide the issue of
sending prisoners of war natural needs at night.
There were no toilets in the barracks, and the camp administration, on pain
of execution, forbade them to leave the barracks after 6 pm. Therefore, the captives "were forced to send natural needs to
the bowlers, which then have to eat" ("The Red Army Men ...", p. 696). This was well known to the administration and Polish
inspectors. In the end, the matter ended with
the fact that "on the night of
December 19, 1921, when the prisoners went out to the lavatory, it is not known
by whose orders the fire from the rifles was opened in the barracks, and K.
Kalita, asleep on the plank, was wounded" (ibid, 698). In the evening of the next day, the camp was again followed
by the shooting of barracks, as a result of which six prisoners were wounded,
and Sidorov, a prisoner of war, was killed.
Already mentioned by us, L. Gindin recalls Colonel Boleslav Antoshevich,
head of the concentration camp of prisoners and internees in Rembert, who
ordered the guards to "treat
the Bolsheviks as if they were dogs . "
The Polish side has quite succeeded in creating a system of punishments and
humiliations that humiliate the human dignity of prisoners of war and
internees. It has long been known that a naked man feels
his own defectiveness. It is no accident that
the secret services of many countries interrogate the suspects undressed.
In the Polish camps, and this has already been noted,
the captured Red Army men were often stripped and wiped off throughout the
three years of captivity. The protocol of the
11th meeting of the Joint Commission for Repatriation of July 28, 1921 noted: "Captured
barefoot, stripped and razooti often naked" (ibid., p. 646).
In camps and prisons, prisoners of war were forced to clean the latrines,
and if they refused, they were beaten. Valden,
after the captivity, was also forced to clean the toilet with his hands, after
that, not allowing them to wash their hands, they forced to eat food (Novyi
mir, No. 5, 1931, p.83).
Or such a fact. In most Polish POW
camps, mattresses, seniors, pillows and blankets were missing. Prisoners of war slept on bare boards or on the floor.
It is clear that the young state had limited
opportunities, but the prisoners could be provided with straw. For this, only desire was needed.
In the protocol of the 11th meeting of the Joint Commission for
Repatriation of July 28, 1921, a general assessment was made of the situation
in which the captured Red Army soldiers were in the Polish camps until leaving
for Russia:
"The RUD
(Russian-Ukrainian delegation) has never been able to allow prisoners to be
treated so inhumanly and with such cruelty ... The RED does not recall the
nightmare and horror of beatings, mutilations and total physical extermination
that was being carried out against Russian POWs by Red Army men, especially the
Communists, in the early days and months of captivity " (ibid., p. 642)
Such a situation resulted from the fact that the Polish authorities actually
tolerated violations committed by the camp administrations. The same protocol noted:
"... The Polish
delegation has repeatedly stated to us that it is taking measures to eliminate
these shameful phenomena ... But, unfortunately, the whole further course of
our work did not justify our hopes" (ibid., P. 642).
The plenipotentiary of the RSFSR in its certificate of August 10, 1921
writes:
"At the same
time, the Poles did not tell us any result of the investigations that they
promised about the specific facts we indicated, not one verdict, not one case
of trial" (ibid., P. 651).
All this testifies to the clearly thought-out line of conduct of the Warsaw
authorities, which could not but affect the situation in the Polish camps for
prisoners of war.
Let us return in 1919. The Chief of the Sanitary Department of the Ministry
of Military Affairs of Poland, Lieutenant-Lieutenant Zdzislaw Gordynsky, in his
memorandum, quotes a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Kazhimiz Habicht dated
November 24, 1919, about the situation in the Bialystok prison camp, which
says:
"I visited the
camp of the prisoners in Bialystok and now, under the first impression, dared
to address to the general as the chief doctor of the Polish troops, describing
the terrible picture that appears before every arriving in the camp ...
Again the same
criminal disregard for their duties of all organs operating in the camp brought
a shame on our name, the Polish army, just as it was in Brest-Litovsk ... In
the camp, at every step dirt and untidiness that can not be described ... In
front of the doors of the barracks are a pile of human feces, which trample and
spread throughout the camp in thousands of feet. The
patients are so weakened that they can not reach the passages, on the other
hand, the latrines in such a state that it is impossible to approach the seats,
because the floor is covered in several layers with human feces.
The barracks are full,
among the "healthy" are full of sick people. In
my opinion, among those 1400 prisoners healthy simply do not. Covered
with rags, they huddle together, warming mutually ... The absence of blankets
leads to the fact that the patients lie, hiding themselves in paper senics
" (" Red Army soldiers ... ", pp. 106-107).
In Poland there were people who were not intoxicated by the nationalist [2][3] and
political dope who, just like Gordynsky and Habicht, tried to change the
situation in the prisoner-of-war camps for the better. However, they were in a clear minority. Therefore, the situation of prisoners of war in the camps
for three years changed very little. The
situation, which Lieutenant-Colonel K. Habicht saw in November 1919 in the camp
of Bialystok, is often found in documents of a later period.
K. Habicht in his letter mentioned Brest-Litovsk. The fact is that for a month and a half Prior to that, the Commissioners of the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Dr Chateaune, Mr. V. Gloureur and the
military doctor of the French military mission, Dr Camus, visited four
prisoner-of-war camps located in Brest-Litovsk.
Here are some impressions of ICRC delegates:
"The dull
appearance of this camp (Bug-Shuppe), consisting of the huts that have
collapsed for the most part, leaves a miserable impression. From
the guard rooms, as well as from the former stables in which prisoners of war
are housed, a sickening smell emanates. Captives
... at night, sheltering from the first cold, are packed in close groups of 300
people ... on the boards, without mattresses and blankets.
Many young people
under the age of 20, striking with their pallor, extreme thinness and glint of
eyes, are much more difficult to suffer hunger than their older comrades " (ibid., P. 88).
The data on deaths of prisoners in the Red Camp, given in the report of
ICRC delegates, are striking:
"Two of the
strongest epidemics devastated this camp in August and September (1919) - dysentery and typhus ... The death record
was set in early August, when 180 (one hundred and eighty) people died one day
from dysentery" (ibid, 91).
According to "official statistics", in which the inspectors
doubted, out of 4,165 prisoners of war 1242 (29.8%) had dysentery, 616 (14.7%)
had typhus, 1117 (26.8%) had recurrent typhus, and 1192 28.6%) were suffering from
malnutrition (ibid.,
p. 91).
Of these, 675 people died of dysentery, or 54.3% of the cases, 125 persons
from typhus, or 20.3% of cases, from recurrent typhoid - 40 people, or 3.6%, from
exhaustion - 284 people, or 23.8% of those deemed to be depleted . In total for the month from September 7 to October
7, 1919, 1124 people died in the camps of Brest-Litovsk , or
27% of the total number of prisoners (ibid., P. 91).
A scandal broke out in the results of checking the camps in Brest-Litovsk. However, as further developments showed, the
Polish authorities did not draw any particular conclusions from it. A year after the scandalous events, in July 1920, Captain
Ignacy Uzzdansky, head of the hospital for prisoners No. 2 in Brest-Litovsk,
informs the authorities that "the
situation of the epidemic hospital No. 2 is contrary to all principles, not
only of hygiene and medicine, but and just humanity " (ibid., p. 240). I.
Uzzdansky honored the Hippocratic oath and could not agree that prisoners of
war, patients of his hospital, were left without any help. But, unfortunately, he did not determine the situation in
the camps.
A year after the visit of the ICRC commissioners, in the autumn of 1920,
the commandant of the Brest-Litovsk camp, the arriving prisoner of war, said: "You Bolsheviks wanted to take our lands
from us, well, I will give you land. I have no right to kill you, but
I will feed you so that you will die of it yourself " (ibid., P.
175). Documents of the collection "Red
Army soldiers in the Polish captivity in 1919-1922." testify that the chiefs of the majority of Polish camps for
the captured Red Army men shared this position.
In fact, the situation in the Polish prison camp in Bialystok did not
change a year after his visit by Lieutenant-Colonel K. Habicht. Former political prisoner AP Matskevich told
about the situation in which the captured Red Army soldiers were there in the
autumn of 1920:
"A crowd of
naked, ragged and absolutely hungry people surrounded us in the barracks,
asking whether any of us who had arrived had bread. A
little later it turned out that food in the camps is given such that no one the
healthiest person will be able to survive more or less a long time. "
In the camp "many died from beatings. One
Red Army man (I do not remember his last name), a corporal in a barrack beat a
stick so violently that he could not get up and stand on his feet. The
second, someone Zhilintsky, received 120 twigs ... " (" Red Army soldiers ... ", p.175).
As K. Korsak said, in the Bialystok camp on the eve of liberation in March
1921
"The released people
arranged sanitation: they were stripped in one barrack, naked in the snow, they
drove into another barrack, where they poured ice water, and in the snow they
drove back to dress."
Member of the Commission of the League of Nations Professor Madsen, who
visited the camp in Wadowice at the end of November 1920, characterized him as
one of the "most terrible
things he saw in life" (ibid.,
p. 421). It seems necessary to elaborate on
this camp. First of all, we quote the report
of Colonel Mechislav Polkovsky, head of the internment camp No. 2 in Wadowice,
written about the same time that Professor Madsen visited the camp on November
25, 1920.
The report of Polkovsky begins pathetically:
"... for the captive,
the camp is the maternity account ... the head physician is notified of the
arrival of the transport, which checks the health of this transport, and then
exposes the vehicle to bathing and disinfection ... Each prisoner receives, if
possible, a cushion, a pillow under the head and blanket for shelter ... The
prisoners from each barracks are washed at least twice a week ... The
examination of the prisoners takes place in a separate building consisting of
the office, the doctor's office, the observation room and the infirmary ...
Attitudes toward
captives are strict as much as necessary to maintain discipline ... The beating
of prisoners is strictly forbidden, and there is none at all, just as there are
no complaints of wrong attitudes toward the prisoners by the rank-and-file
Polish Army " (ibid., P. 391) .
The degree of objectivity of this report is evidenced not only by the
statement of prof. Madsen, but also the
memories of the former prisoner of the camp in Wadovice Valden (Podolsky),
already mentioned by us. The senior doctor of
the camp in Wadowice Bergman, whom Polkovsky spoke of so flatteringly, Valden
describes as a "two-legged
beast . "
He went out to receive patients with a whip and a
dog. "Only
the whipped and wounded patients were examined" (Novyi mir, No. 5, 1931, p.88). Walden further notes: "The camp is still hungry, exhausting work, inhuman cruelty, often
reaching the direct killings of our prisoners for the fun of a drunken
officer" (The New World, No.
6, 1931, p. 82).
Here it is necessary to interrupt. In
the 70s of the last century I happened to communicate with one of the old
residents who lived in the Vilnius region, as he said, "at the Polish hour" . Pan
Tadeusz, as he introduced himself, spoke of the terrible massacre of Red Army
men in Polish camps. He said that Polish
officers worked on them with saber blows, and also told about the case when the
officers ripped open the Red Army man's belly, stitched a cat there and made
bets, who would rather die: a man or a cat. At
the official level, at the time, such facts were hushed up. Poland then was considered a loyal ally of the USSR.
Concerning the case with the Red Army and the cat may have someone told Pan
Tadeusz testimony representative of the Polish administration in the occupied
territory Kossakovsky M., who was an eyewitness to this terrible barbarism.
This incident was later described in the book of Meltyuhova "Soviet-Polish
war. Military-political confrontation 1918-1939 gg. " (P. 25).
And in the article P. Pokrovsky "Frost and saber" (
"Parliamentary newspaper", April 2000) it has been named the surname
of one of the participants in this crime - Grobitsky, Chief of Staff, General
A. Liszt.
But back to the memories of Walden. It describes how to distribute a camp
in Wadowice help of the Red Cross and charities. It is emphasized in the Polish
preface to the collection of the Red Army as a goodwill gesture of the Polish
side. Walden also claims that the aid essentially immediately "alloyed" the
head of the market camp. But the paper reporting that such assistance was in
the camp were preserved.
It is significant that the visit of the US representative to the camp to
determine how American aid was distributed and where "warm fluffy blankets from the last party that entered the camp"
ended in vain. Walden, being an interpreter in the dialogue
between the American and the camp chief, unsuccessfully tried to explain to the
American that "the rugs had
long been fused by the colonel into the market . " The American pretended not to understand.
After Wadowice Walden was sent to the internment camp No. 1 in Dombe, from
where he was taken to Russia. Before
leaving the homeland, the prisoners were "drunk", as in Bialystok.
Walden writes about this: "Mocking hygienic bathing cost the lives of not one captive ...
After the bath we were separated by a fierce cordon from the rest of the mass
of prisoners. Several people were shot for trying to pass the note to the departing
" (The New World, No. 6, 1931, p.
91). It should be noted that the prisoners
were leaving for exchange in Soviet Russia. Those
who sent the note were supposed to travel to their homeland later, but remained
in the Polish land forever. No one took into
account these shootings and they were not investigated.
A similar case is given in the collection "Red Army soldiers in the
Polish captivity in 1919-1922." July 19, 1921 in the camp in Stschalkovo members of the RED
witnessed an unjustified execution of prisoners of war. On that day, another party of prisoners was sent to Russia,
who began throwing mugs and bowlers through the fence to the remaining
comrades. It attracted prisoners to the fence,
in which the guard opened fire on the orders of the non-commissioned officer.
Red Army soldier Sidorov was killed, six wounded
("Red Army soldiers ...", pp. 645, 650). Nothing has been reported about the investigation of this
criminal fact.
It is interesting to compare views on the situation in internment camp No.
1 in Dombe near Krakow by the representative of the Russian Red Cross Society
(RROK) and the head of the camp Stanislav Tarabanovich.
Here is what the ROCC representative saw in the camp on 10-11 September
1920:
"Most of them
without shoes are barefoot ... There are almost no beds and bed ... No straw,
no hay at all. Sleep
on the ground or boards. Very few blankets. Received
from the American Red Cross, they say, are selected. Soap
does not receive at all. They go to the bath
approximately every 2 months. No linen, clothes; cold,
hunger, mud ... The administration did not find it possible to show me the
passages, despite my repeated demands.
There are books. But
they are not given. Some people buy newspapers, but many can not
afford it. Complained
that the officers are beatings, if they complain, then they again beat the
complaint " (ibid., P. 348).
And here is how the head of S. Tarabanovic, in the report of November 16,
1920, presented the state of the internment camp No. 1 in Domba:
"... all
prisoners and internees in camp 4096 ... the entire camp is swept daily and
sprinkled with lime ... all internees and prisoners are bathed once a week and
at the same time their things are disinfected ... Sleep on bunks or on bunks ..
The camp toilets are emptied of feces by barrel-boats ... Two-thirds of the
internees and prisoners have seniors, blankets and greatcoats, and everything -
clothes, linen and shoes " (" Red Army soldiers ... ", pp. 272-373).
The impression is that Tarabanovich informs the authorities about some
other camp.
The internment of Witold Maretsky, who returned to Russia from the camp in
Dombe, testifies to the situation in this camp by the spring of 1921. He said that in April 1921, workers' detachments
began to replenish in the camp. The prisoners
refused to go to these detachments, because they created such intolerable
conditions of work and life that "some
of these workers' detachments melted to one - fourth of
their first composition. Thus, working detachment No. 25 consisting of 250
men. by the
middle of April there were only 60 people; in another - No. 20 - out of 300
people there were 90, and some small detachments that worked with the
surrounding landowners, melted completely " ("Red Army men ...", page 577). That is, mortality in working teams at a time when,
according to Polish professors, there was a radical improvement in the
situation of prisoners in the camps, it amounted to 70 and 76% .
The situation was aggravated in the spring of 1921, when it was necessary
to replenish the workers' detachments, and the Red Army refused to join them. Then, "those
who refused to go to work began to be killed (on fear of others), doing this in
front of all prisoners and internees (especially tried in this direction"
plutonowy Soltys ", gendarmes (surnames unknown), Lieutenant Remer);
all this was done in the
presence of Dr. Captain Surovets " (ibid.,
p. 578). Colonel Tarabanovich knew about the
incident.
In April 1921, probably, in connection with the above-described incident,
he was released from his duties. Instead,
Colonel Sandetsky was appointed the camp commander.
On July 3, 1921, two months after the appointment of the new chief of the
camp, the authorized OEDs wrote about the results of the survey: "Prisoners of war are almost all dressed
in rags, many do not have any linen or part of it, some have nothing but linen,
do not have shoes or have shoes completely tattered " (ibid.,
p. 605).
The authorized RED also noted that Lieutenant Remer, taking advantage of
the fact that the new camp commander, Sandetsky, was not interested in "the life of the camp and its
inhabitants" , became "the actual host of the camp" (ibid., p. 606). With
this attitude of the highest Polish authorities to the actual criminals, which
was Remer, no wonder that the situation in the prisoners' camps did not change
for the better.
A whip and a
bullet. Hunger
and cold
The Provisional Instruction for Concentration Camps of POWs of April 21,
1920, stresses: "With captives,
especially those who are to be released, one should do as best as possible
..." (ibid., P. 195).
It should be recalled that on June 21, 1920, paragraph 20 of the
instruction of the Ministry of Military Affairs of Poland for camps,
distribution stations and workers' detachments of prisoners was
strictly forbidden by flogging (ibid., P. 224).
Contrary to the instructions, the punishment by the burglars became a
system for most of the Polish prisoners-of-war camps. Walden writes: "Long
bars always lay ready ... I saw two soldiers caught in a neighboring village.
They were going to
escape ... Suspicionists were often transferred to a special barrack-the
penalty barrack of a penal camp; from there almost no one left ... " (The New World, No. 5, 1931, p.86, 88). Let us also recall the case of the beating of captive
Latvians by a rod of barbed wire in the camp of Strzalków, punishments by
birches in Białystok.
In June 1921, the captured Red Army men from the 133rd Workers' Team
(Lublin Gubernia, Demblin) applied to the Russian Ord. with a request to
protect them from constant beatings and bullying. Corporal punishment in the team was a system: for
complaints could be obtained "from
15 to 25 rods. For escape or even suspicion to run, they are being beaten by rods from 25
to 35 " (ibid., P. 598).
The beating of prisoners with rifle butts, sticks and other objects was a
widespread phenomenon and was not fixed. This is stated in dozens of documents of the collection.
In a note of the embassy of the RSFSR of January 5,
1922, it was noted: "Beating of
prisoners of war is a constant phenomenon, and it is not possible to register
all these cases" (ibid., P. 698).
The widespread phenomenon in the Polish captivity was executions without
trial and effect. Above it was told
about executions of prisoners in the camp in Dombe and other camps. The prisoners could have been shot for nothing. Thus, the captured Red Army soldier M. Sherstnev from the
Bialystok camp on September 12, 1920, was shot only because he dared to protest
the wife of the lieutenant Kalchinsky in a conversation with the officer's
kitchen, who on this basis ordered him to be shot ("Red Army soldiers
...", p. 599).
In 1919, in Stshalkovo, prisoners, without any reason, as already
mentioned, were shot by Lieutenant Malinovsky, assistant to the camp commander,
and posters (sentries). And
in the 1920-1921 gg. The sentries and officers
continued to shoot in the prisoners. All of
them felt their impunity. So, the Polish
general, who spoke Russian well, "asked
the former royal officers when Rakitin responded ... he shot him with a
revolver. The regimental commander, the communist Luzin remained alive only thanks
to the fact that the general's revolver had no more cartridges in the drum
" (Krasnoarmeytsy ..., p. 528).
The cases of these executions were also "not understood" and
were not fixed (ibid., P. 529).
It should be noted extreme anti-Semitism in the Polish army and camps. During the seizure of the Jews, Jews were shot
first, along with the Red Army commanders. Thus,
the Red Army soldier Valuyev, who fled from the Polish captivity, reported that
on August 18, 1920, during the capture of Novominsky, the command staff and
Jews were separated from the prisoners. "One commissar, a Jew was beaten and
immediately shot" (ibid., p. 426).
Former prisoner of war I. Tumarkin testifies that when the capture of his
military unit was captured August 17, 1920 under Brest-Litovsk, the Poles "began cutting the Jews"
(ibid., P. 573). Tumarkin escaped by
posing as a Russian.
In August 1920, near the station Mihanovičy, the captain-captain,
Dombrowski, executed the execution of the captured Red Army men. Their death was saved by the drive of a well-dressed Jew named Khurgin from
Samokhvalovichy, and although the unfortunate assured that he was not a
commissar ... he was stripped naked and immediately shot and thrown, saying
that the Jew is not worthy of burial on Polish soil " ( Ibid.,
pp. 160-161).
Walden (Podolsky) recalls that he was tried several times to be shot as a
Jew. He was saved by the fact that he managed to
impersonate himself as a Tatar. L. Gindin also
escaped only because a glass shard managed to shave off his beard at night, and
"Katz's doctor was beaten half
to death for Jewish appearance .
"
A special conversation deserves the issue of feeding prisoners of war. Death from exhaustion was a common occurrence in
Polish camps. As if foreseeing the disputes
that had arisen after 80 years, Walden, already mentioned, wrote:
"I hear protests
of the indignant Polish patriot who quotes official reports indicating that
there were so many grams of fats, carbohydrates, etc., for each captive, etc.
That's why, apparently, Polish officers so eagerly went to administrative
positions in concentration camps" (The New World, No. 5, 1931, page 88).
The head of the distribution center in Pulawy, Major Khlebovsky, complained
to the High Emergency Commissioner on epidemics E. Godlevsky at the end of
October 1920 that "the
unbearable prisoners for the purpose of spreading disturbances and enzymes in
Poland" constantly
eat potato peelings from the "dung
heap that is in the camp" , and
it will have to be surrounded by barbed wire (ibid., p. 420). In the camp, the beating of prisoners was widely practiced,
flogging and withdrawal in the winter to work naked
(ibid., p. 548).
Let us recall the situation in the Modlin camp, where the commander of the
fortified district Malevich cabled in October 1920 to the authorities that the
prisoners of war ate "various
raw cleaning" and they "completely lacked shoes and clothes" (ibid., P.
355).
However, the inspection of the High Command of the Polish Army, having
checked on November 1, 1920 the sanitary condition of the concentration station
in Modlin, recognized the "food
of the prisoners satisfactory" (ibid., P. 360). Yes, Major Khlebovsky was right: with "
satisfactory"
feeding "unbearable
prisoners" eat all sorts of
nastiness, including cleaning "in
order to spread riots and enzymes in Poland" ! How then do not agree with Professor 3. Karpus that the
Polish authorities have done much to improve the conditions of detention and
food of captured Red Army men!
On the starving Red Army men wrote in a report of October 16, 1920 the
chief of the Main sorting station of the sick and wounded Polskie Army S.
Gelevich. Referring to the report of the head of the
movement of the station Vilenskaya, S. Gelevich informed the Sanitary
Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland that prisoners of 15
cars sent from Bialystok to Starshalkovo "seem very exhausted and hungry, as they break out of the cars and
search for garbage leftovers and eagerly eat potato peelings that are found on
the paths " (" Red Army men ... ", p. 354).
Especially it should be said about the camp premises, in which the
prisoners were held. The poorest Polish
peasant did not allow his cattle to be in the winter in the rooms, in the roofs
of which the sky was visible, the arm penetrated freely into the holes in the
walls. Therefore, the explanations that the
young Polish state did not have material opportunities, at least for patching
holes, are simply not serious.
In October 1920 representatives of the Russian Red Cross Society (RROK)
observed the camp in Stschalkovo:
"Clothes and
shoes are very scarce, most go barefoot ... There are a lot of very heavy
frostbites (legs) in the camp, which often ends in prisoners with amputations
... There are no beds - they sleep on straw ... Most of the buildings are
dugouts with roofed roofs , an earthen floor ... Many barracks are overcrowded
...
Everyone's clothes are
old, ... she makes an impression of rags. Because
of a lack of food, prisoners who are engaged in cleaning potatoes, stealthily
eat it raw " (ibid., Pp.
349-350).
In a note of the Russian Federation on December 29, 1921, concerning the
conditions of detention of prisoners in the camp in Stschalkovo, it was noted
that
"The sanitary
condition of the camp is extremely unsatisfactory ... there is almost no water
... sometimes not enough for cooking. There is absolutely no
heating ... There is almost no medical care due to the lack of medicines.
The treatment of
prisoners by the camp administration is cruel. Arrests
at every step. Conditions
of arrest are impossible. Every day, the
arrested are driven out into the street and instead of going for walks they are
running, ordering them to fall into the mud ... If the prisoner refuses to fall
down, or falls down, can not get up, exhausted, beat him with blows from his buttstools
or force him to carry interned Petlyuraites on his back " (ibid, pp. 695-696).
In the minutes of the 11th meeting of the Joint Commission of July 28,
1921, a description of the punishment cell in Stschalkovo is given. The Karzer was a "Small, less than two cubic
fathoms, the closets, which were immediately planted from 10 to 17 people, and
often arrested undressed naked and give hot food two days later"
(ibid., p. 644).
We will not describe the premises for prisoners in other camps, they are
similar. Nevertheless, let us consider the situation in
one of the most notorious camps of prisoners-camp No. 7 in Tucholi.
Tuchol is a rotten
root
The Polish POW camp in Tucholi deserves a separate discussion. He is one of the main arguments in the dispute
over the number of Red Army prisoners who died in Polish captivity. Polish professor 3. Karpus in the foreword to the
collection "Red Army men in the Polish captivity in 1919-1922."
states:
"The question
that causes the greatest disagreement today is the number of dead Bolshevik
prisoners in the camp in Tucholi. Many publications
state that 22,000 Red Army soldiers died in this camp, and therefore this camp
is called the death camp everywhere ... Based on the surviving sources, it can
be confidently asserted that in the year Tukholi died, in the vast majority of
infectious diseases, 1950 Bolshevik prisoners of war " (ibid., Pp. 26-27).
Active defender position of prof. 3.
Karpus proved himself Jacob Krotov, who published on November 28, 2000 in the
newspaper Moskovskie Novosti article "Compensation is not in question"
, in which, referring to the letters of his grandfather, the former
prisoner of the camp in Tuchola, Lazar Gindin, declares that the camp in
Tucholi "was not a resort, but
not a" death camp " . For
many people interested in Polish camps for prisoners of war, L. Gindin's
letters are a serious argument.
Yakov Krotov, however, kept silent that in addition to his grandfather's
letters, there were his memories dictated by the film. In them, L. Gindin spoke of the captivity without regard to
the camp censorship. While in letters he had
to "paint" reality.
Lazar Borisovich Gindin was captured in Polish captivity on August 21,
1920, and until his escape from captivity in December 1921, he regularly wrote
letters to his wife. Lazar Gindin's
letters are a hymn of man's love for his family and friends, it is a hymn of
human fortitude and dignity. The key to
understanding his letters are the phrases addressed to his beloved wife: "Take care of yourself, dove, do not
overwork. You have a weak heart. Do not worry about me, I will be whole " (letter of May 18, 1921). "Olechka! My child! Take care of yourself and the
girls. Remember
that you are dearer to me than anything ... " (letter of November 24, 1920). As a real man, Lazar Borisovich in every letter home
struggled to encourage his family, tried at the same time not to worry the
people dear to him, so very sparingly told about his misadventures in the
Polish camps. His credo: "... do not worry, I will be whole!"
. An example worthy of imitation.
If L. Gindin's letters from the front, for obvious reasons, only slightly
embellished reality, then his letters from captivity, for the same reasons,
could not at all reveal the real state of affairs in the Polish camps. In a number of materials published in the
collection "Red Army Men in the Polish Captivity in 1919-1922." ,
it is noted that the attempts of the captured Red
Army soldiers to complain about the inhuman conditions of their detention in
the camps, as a rule, had very serious consequences for the complainants.
This was undoubtedly known to Gindin. And that, he says in his memoirs, when he talks about the
visit of a friend of the Soviet camp office in Warsaw: "Open to complain no one dared to guards
not vented anger after the departure of the representative" .
However, this episode is overlooked by J. Krotov.
The attentive reader will notice how sharply changed the tone of the
letters AL Gindin after falling into captivity. In his letters from the front,
he detailed and colorfully described his impressions and observations. The
letters from the camps, he tries in every way to avoid it. Only fleeting
phrases testify to the cruel trials which his experience in Poland as a
prisoner of war.
March 23, 1921 Gindin writes from Osovets: "The food is good. Only finally stopped. All it is worn out. "
About how things were actually written in April 1921 in a letter
to Olga Gindin freed from the captivity of Jacob Gellershtrem neighbor Gindin
in the camp: "... I was also in
captivity ... in appearance lost all human dignity , indescribable humiliation,
and only by accident - I was born in Estonia - was released, saved. " What
sort of horrible circumstances and inhuman conditions of captivity caused
terrible desperation in his words Gellershtrema "was saved only by chance ..."Written in a letter to
his wife still remains in captivity friend! But also brave and restrained
Gindin in his letters to his wife, too, sometimes slipping terrible confession:
"I think that his arrival will
give still a little rest at home, but I'm quite an invalid ..." (letter
dated 18 May 1921).
Two months later, to appease his wife, L. Gindin openly flaunts in a letter
dated July 23, 1921 He writes about "sport
fish" (not fishing!), And finally said: "You see how little I can tell you about
my life. I live on all ready, and not worry about anything ... "
. In February and early May 1921 L. Gindin also claimed that supposedly all
around well, the worst thing behind, and suddenly on August 5 the same year, in
a letter from Bialystok he suddenly pulled out again: "My dear! The hardest thing is left
behind, and if I survived until now, you'll probably see ... ".This
raises the question - so how do you actually lived prisoner? People of the
older generation, from my own experience knowing that a military censorship,
better than we could answer this question, because the fine could read
"between the lines" hidden meaning of the letters of their loved
ones. They did not have to explain why this person first cheerfully reports
that around him "all good"
, and later gently alluding to the fact that it is not entirely sure that he
even be able to survive, and expressed surprise as he those conditions "survived till now" .
L. Gindin was a man forced. And here is what he wrote about Tuchola
observers from the side. Moreover, I stress this, not Russian, and Polish. A
representative of the Polish Red Cross Society Natalia Kreutz-Velezhinskaya in
December 1920, testified: "Just
now Tuchola 5373 prisoners. Camp in Tuchola -. This so-called. dugout, which
includes the steps going down. Located on both sides of the bunk on which the
prisoners slept. No Senik, straw, blankets. No heat due to irregular supply of
fuel ... The lack of linen, clothes in all departments (
"The soldiers ...", pp. 437, 438).
Polish Lieutenant-General Roemer in its report of 16 December 1920 on the
results of inspection of the camp prisoners in Tuchola said: "Placing prisoners is not quite
appropriate. Prisoners weakened demand support, housed in very poor huts "
(ibid, p. 454).
But it looked like Tucholsky hospital:
"Hospital buildings are huge barracks, most
of the iron, such as hangars. All the buildings are dilapidated and damaged,
the walls of the hole through which you can stick your hand ... Cold is usually
terrible. They say that during the night of frost walls are covered with ice.
Patients lie on beds of terrible ... Everything on dirty mattresses without
bedding, only 1 / 4 has some blankets, covered all the
dirty rags or blankets made of paper " (ibid, p. 376).
In 1921, the situation in the Tuchola, as in other Polish camps for
prisoners of the Red Army, has changed slightly. Approval of Professor Z.
Karpus that: "... in Tuchola
year died, in the vast majority of infectious diseases 1950 Bolshevik prisoners
of war" and that supposedly there is no evidence
supporting the information about the high mortality rate of prisoners in the
camp Tucholsky, uncertain and contrary to documents.
In particular, statistics Tucholsky camp infirmary: "Since the opening of the hospital in
February 1921, before 11 May of the same year were epidemic diseases in the
camp 6491, nonepidemic 12294, 23785 all diseases ... Over the same time period
in 2561 recorded a death camp case for three months, killing at least 25% of
the total number of prisoners detained in the camp " (ibid,
p. 671).
It turns out that only less than three months of spring 1921 in Tuchola
died on 550 people more than the total number of people that Professor
3. Karpus agrees to accept the dead in Tucholsky camp for a whole year! The
book "The Red Army prisoners in Poland of 1919-1922."
There are other evidence on which to draw conclusions about the real mortality
rate in the camp. This is extremely important, since it is known that in 1919 -
1920 years. Polish authorities were not actually reliable accounting of the
dead in the Red Army prisoners.
In a letter to the chairman of the throttle AA Ioffe, Chairman of the
Polish delegation Ya Dombovskomu on January 9, 1921 reported:
"It has been
estimated it turns out that if we take the mortality rate among the prisoners
in the camp in Tuchola for the month of October last year, during 5-6 months in
this camp must die out all of its population. These figures are confirmed by
official Polish military doctors " (ibid, p. 467).
The information given in the book. "The soldiers in Polish captivity
in 1919-1922 years", allow a certain degree of accuracy to calculate the
mortality data in Tuchola of 171 days - 420 days of the camp's existence. It
should be emphasized that the data given are the minimum estimate
of the number of fatalities.
It turns out 6312 died less than six months, the prisoners, which is
more than three times higher than the mortality figure for the 14 months
offered by the same Z. Karpus.
The most competent deaths confirmed by the 22,000 prisoners of the Red Army
in the camp Tuchola contained in a letter to the head of the Polish Military
Intelligence (II Department of the General Staff of the VI High Command)
Lieutenant Colonel Ignacy Matuszewski, from February 1, 1922, the office of the
minister of war Poland (ibid . 701).
I. Matuszewski statement about the death of 22 thousand prisoners of war is
widely known since 1965 and has a number of years is the subject of fierce
criticism. It is alleged that information about the huge mortality in Tuchola
I. Matuszewski learned from the press and, in spite of the fact that this
information was not confirmed, included in the text of its response to the
Minister of War.
What can you say about this? First of all, the letter I. Matuszewski is the
official response to the order of Minister of War in Poland number
65/22 January 12, 1922
Head II Division of the General Staff of the Polish Army I. Matuszewski in
1920-1923 gg. was the most informed person in Poland on the real state of
affairs in the camps of prisoners of war and internees. As the chief of
military intelligence, that he was the Polish government official, who on a
post had to have a full array of information on all camps, including a closed -
on extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war, on the massacres of prisoners
of war at the initiative of the staff of the camp administration and cases of
mass prisoners of death. Collection, processing and analysis of such
information directly included in the duties of his subordinates.
Recall that the II Division officers, that is subordinate I. Matuszewski,
led by the arrival of prisoners of war in the camp, provided their political
"sorting", as well as monitor the political situation in the camps.
The real situation in the camp in Tuchola I. Matuszewski just was
obliged to know in virtue of their office.
Therefore, there can be no doubt that long before writing his letter of
February 1, 1922 I. Matuszewski an exhaustive, documented and repeatedly
rechecked the confirmed information about the death of 22 thousand Red Army
prisoners in the Tuchola camp.
To officially put the highest Polish leadership aware of the mass death of
prisoners in the camp Tucholsky matured in I. Matuszewski due to the fact that
it is no longer a secret for Polish and foreign public. In such circumstances,
further concealing the true information from his superiors in trouble already
only for himself I. Matuszewski and all its agencies.
Once again, we emphasize particularly - a statement that information about
the death of 22 thousand prisoners in the camp Tucholsky I. Matuszewski learned
from the press, it is absurd from the beginning. It should be borne in mind
that in any country the head of such a specific departments, as a military
intelligence official reports superiors information, even fraught with serious
consequences, only if it is absolutely sure of the reliability of the source of
information. In case of doubt or information not be reported or is reported
with reference to the source and explanatory comments on the degree of
reliability of the information.
We can assume that one of the consequences of the scandal erupted when was
the decision of the Polish head of the destruction of the archival documents of
the camp in Tuchola Poland with compromising information concerning the huge
mortality of prisoners of war. For example, many people have seen the official
statistics on mortality in Tuchola for the month of October 1920, but in the
archives of such statistics are not available. And not only this. On certain
reflections suggests the fact that even in the book "The soldiers in Polish
captivity in 1919-1922 gg." Documents the camp in Tuchola
represented significantly less than the camp in Strzalkowo.
It follows from the foregoing that the mortality data Tucholsky camp, which
operates prof. Z. Karpus clearly underestimated. Unfounded disregard such an
important witness as I. Matuszewski, is unacceptable and biased research
characterizes the Polish professor.
To summarize, it is appropriate to refer to the testimony of Walden
(Podolsky)
"... hardly be
mistaken to say that each returned to owls. Russia accounts for two buried in
Poland ... Before me is infinitely stretches a chain of broken, mutilated,
emaciated human figures. How many times have I leveled with fellow sufferers in
the scraps of this great chain - on different verification and rounds, and in
the tone of the usual "pay off - the first, second, third" heard
"dead, dead, alive, dead, dead, alive ... " (" New world ", number 6, 1931, p. 82).
We will not try to bring the overall figure of the Red Army, died in Polish
captivity. This requires a more thorough study of the whole complex preserved
documents and eyewitness accounts. The main thing in another. Proposed today as
Polish and some Russian historians figures who died in Polish captivity Red insufficiently
correct and clearly underestimated . It is clear that the problem of
destruction of the Red Army in the Polish captivity investigated deeply enough
and is waiting for further studies.
Recognizing the importance and relevance of the Russian-Polish collection
of documents and materials "The soldiers in Polish captivity in
1919-1922 gg." , It is necessary to consider it as the
beginning of a lot of work to identify all the circumstances of the death of
Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity and, accordingly, to clarify the number
of dead. It takes another great effort to reveal the truth about the events of
1919-1922.
However, today, based on the above evidence, we can conclude that the
circumstances of the death of the mass of the Red Army in the Polish captivity
could be regarded as evidence of deliberate extermination . I remind you that similar actions in
Nuremberg qualified as war crimes. Murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war,
with a clear national focus, allows us to pose the question of genocide against
Russian prisoners of war and Jews. Undoubtedly, this was one of the reasons due
to which part of the Polish prisoners of war, which had a relation to
repression prisoners of war, in the spring of 1940 was shot.
The question arises why the Polish side denies Russian is on than itself,
investigating the Katyn crime, insisting the last twenty years? The desire of
the Polish side to find the perpetrators of the massacre of Polish prisoners of
war a matter of respect. Why did the Russian side has no right to conduct
similar work? Must be condemned (at least morally) guilty not only of the Katyn
crime, but also the genocide of Russian prisoners of war in Polish captivity in
1919-1922.
July 2006
