Chervyen massacre
The Chervyen massacre (Polish: Droga śmierci Mińsk-Czerwień; Lithuanian: Červenės žudynės; Belarusian: Чэрвеньская разня) was one of the NKVD prisoner massacres.[2] Over 1,000 political prisoners from Poland, Belarus and Lithuania were executed by the NKVD near Chervyen (present-day Belarus) on 25–27 June 1941, a few days after the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union began.[2]
Background
[change | change source]Before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviets were holding hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in NKVD prisons across their occupied territories in Eastern Europe.[3] The sudden invasion caused such chaos that the NKVD was ordered to kill or evacuate 140,000 prisoners from Soviet-occupied eastern Poland,[3] which ended up in two-thirds of the said prisoners being killed.[3]
Massacre
[change | change source]On June 24, 15 Lithuanians who had received death sentences before the evacuation were executed[a][2] On June 25, about 2,000 prisoners were marched on foot by troops from the 42nd NKVD brigade to Chervyen.[2] 500 prisoners were executed along the way for not walking fast enough.[2]
On June 27, while the remaining prisoners were put in Chervyen prison, the Belarusian NKVD received a telegram from Mikhail Ivanovich Nikolsky, head of the NKVD prison department in Moscow, ordering him to leave 400 prisoners in Chervyen and execute the rest.[2] Hundreds more prisoners were shot during further evacuation.[2] 200 prisoners escaped,[2] while 40 Lithuanian prisoners survived.[2]
Related pages
[change | change source]Notes
[change | change source]- ↑ Among them was Steponas Rusteika, Lithuanian Minister of the Interior in 1929–1934.[2]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ "Upamiętnienie więźniów rozstrzelanych przez NKWD" (in Polish). Gov.pl. June 14, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
- Stungurys, Stasys (1990). "Šiurpi klajonė: Červenės tragediją prisimenant". Pozicija (in Lithuanian). 48. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
- Parrish, Michael (1996). The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 48. ISBN 0-275-95113-8.
- "Politinių kalinių žudynės Červenėje" (PDF). Atmintinos datos (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras. June 17, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
- Lietuvos Respublikos Seimo kanceliarijos Parlamentarizmo istorijos ir atminimo įamžinimo skyrius. "Červenės žudynės" (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Respublikos Seimo kanceliarija. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
- 1 2 3
- Berkhoff, Karel Cornelis (2004). Harvest of Despair. p. 14. ISBN 0674020782. Retrieved 2013-12-30.
- Motyl, Alexander; Kiebuzinski, Ksenya (2017). The Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941 (PDF). Amsterdam University Press. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
ISBN: 9789048526826, 9789089648341
- Viola, Lynne (August 13, 2018). "New sources on Soviet perpetrators of mass repression: a research note". Revue Canadienne des Slavistes (Canadian Slavonic Papers). 60 (3‒4): 592‒604. doi:10.1080/00085006.2018.1497393. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
