Surname list of executioners of Khatyn. Ukrainian killers of Khatyn Service in Belarus

In Belarus, the state security archive on the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists and the punitive police battalions formed from them has been declassified. From January 1943 to July 1951, that is, after the Victory, there were hundreds of acts of terror, political massacres and killings of civilians. The most inhuman atrocities are on the conscience of the punishers of the 118th and 63rd police battalions formed by the Nazis in Kyiv.

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Reports Grigory Pernavsky about the book " Killers of Khatyn. 118th Ukrainian security police battalion in Belarus. 1943-1944" :

" On March 22, 1943, the first company of the 118th German Schutzmannschaft battalion, which was formed on the basis of the Bukovina kuren, which consisted of Ukrainian nationalists, burned the Belarusian village of Khatyn and killed all its inhabitants, whom they could kill.

The circumstances of this story were published long ago, on the site of Khatyn, which has never been revived, a world-famous memorial was built. But information about those who killed this village had to be met before in a fragmented form. In fact, Khatyn was not the first and not the last village for the brave lads that they killed. They hardly remembered it, singling it out only because this particular village was destroyed out of revenge for Hauptmann Welke, the champion of the Berlin Olympics, who was killed nearby. The one whom Shenderovich compared with the figure skater Lipnitskaya.
Everything is very close. And even all the strangers are very friendly in this terrible story.

Later, when they began to catch and judge them, they said that they themselves did not touch anyone personally, but, yes, I remember that it seems that I fired a machine gun somewhere in the direction of the village, but who could I hit? They blamed everything on each other, dodged, lied. But they were consistently taken out to "clean water", protected from the surviving victims, so that they would not tear them apart with their bare hands. And then, when everything became completely clear, the former ShumA were put against the wall. Unfortunately, not everyone was caught.
The 118th Battalion, like many like it, was something like a well-organized, armed and mechanized swarm of giant locusts. This flock rushed across the Belarusian land, leaving behind a bloody trail and the devastated ashes of hundreds of villages. Where she passed, life died forever. And not only in the biological sense. It seems that whole biographies, pieces of genetic memory were erased with a huge eraser. But the incredible cruelty of the killers, the purpose of which was to bring people to their knees, led to the opposite effect. Belarus has become the scene of the most fierce guerrilla war...
The history of the death of the village of Khatyn is very short. If you do not rewrite all the interrogations and testimonies of former policemen, you will get a big article. But the history of the crimes of the 118th battalion is a whole collection of documents. Prepared for publication by the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, the Central Archives of the KGB of the Republic of Belarus, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Historical Memory Foundation. This book, in fact the first story of the killers of Khatyn, is published by our publishing house.
Here's what struck me about this collection. When the partisans (there are also Soviet documents there) realized that any of their actions near the villages ended in "acts of retaliation", they decided to attack the Germans and their accomplices at the maximum distance from the settlements. Depriving themselves of the opportunity to hide from one of the peasants. Humanism is different. In 1943 there was one.

March marked the 80th anniversary of one of the most terrible tragedy of the Second World War - the burning of the village of Khatyn. In Soviet history, it is customary to say that this crime was committed by the Germans. In fact, Khatyn was destroyed by Russian and Ukrainian punishers from the Dirlewanger brigade. The operation was commanded by SS Hauptsturmführer Grigory Vasyura. The last punisher from this brigade - Katryuk - lives in Canada.

Against the backdrop of even the most notorious atrocities of the Nazis during the Second World War, the “experience” of the Oscar Dirlewanger brigade was particularly cruel. A participant in the First World War, a doctor of economic sciences in 1934 was convicted by the Nazis for pedophilia and sent to a concentration camp. In 1936, he asked from there to atone for the crime with the "blood of the Spaniards." In Spain, he received three awards, as well as three wounds.

In 1940, he comes across another crime - pedophilia, and his old friend Berger (Himmler's adviser and an old Hitlerite militant), in order to save Dirlewanger, suggested that the leadership create an SS brigade from "decayed elements."

The brigade begins to form in 1940, it is based on convicted poachers. The poacher in the eyes of Dirlewanger was an ideal member of his team - he knew the forest well, shot accurately. However, by the end of 1940, it began to replenish first with anarchists and those convicted of rape and other sexual crimes, and in 1941 with patients of psychiatric clinics, who also mostly suffered from sexual disorders (exhibitionists who publicly masturbated, etc.).

Finally, in 1943 castrated homosexuals joined the brigade.

By January 1942, he recruited 200 people, and with them he left for Belarus. His detachment was informally called the “poachers' brigade”.

(Oscar Dirlewanger)

On the spot, Dirlewanger was convinced that 200 people for full-scale operations against the partisans would not be enough for him. And he began recruiting for a brigade of Soviet collaborators. Dirlewanger preferred to take the most inveterate people - those who proved themselves to be particularly cruel behavior towards their comrades in the prisoner of war camp, who served time in the Stalinist Gulag, family members of the "disenfranchised" (priests, White Guards, etc.)

Already in September, the Dirlewanger brigade consisted of: a German company (150 people) and a German motorcycle platoon (40 people); 3 Russian companies (450 people), an artillery platoon (40 people, half Germans - half Russians). By the end of 1943, his brigade had grown to 2,000 people, of which 400 were Germans, about 1,000 were Russians, the rest were Ukrainians, Belarusians and Latgalians.

The brigade's first "baptism of fire" took place on June 16, 1942, when the village of Borki was burned to the ground. More precisely, the village was burned by his Russian company, 6 people were awarded medals for their heroic contribution to the operation.

The cruelty of the Dirlewanger brigade took aback even from his superiors from the SS. So, after the end of the anti-partisan operation "Frida" (from November 4 to 10, 1942), during which more than 3,000 civilians (of which half were Jews) were killed, the Reichsfuhrer SS authorized to combat banditry expressed the opinion that the elimination of partisans was not a reason kill civilians. As a "punishment" Dirlewanger was sent on leave (from December 28, 1942 to February 20, 1943).

(Below are two photos of Ukrainian policemen):


According to German documents, from the summer of 1942 to August 1943, the Dirlewanger brigade liquidated 15,000 "bandits with weapons in their hands", the unit's own losses during this period amounted to 92 people killed, 218 wounded and 8 missing. During the same time, the brigade destroyed 123 settlements on the territory of Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk regions, and also shot and burned alive about 20 thousand civilians.

The most "famous" was the burning of the village of Khatyn. This is the history of this tragedy.

In the first days of the war, the signalman Grigory Vasyura voluntarily went over to the side of the Germans, graduated from the school of propagandists and went to work in the police of occupied Kyiv, where after some time he headed the punitive battalion. The fighters of the battalion, which distinguished itself with particular cruelty back in Babi Yar, were sent by the German command in December 1942 to Belarus to fight the partisans.

On March 22, 1943, 40 km from Minsk, partisans fired on a car in which Hauptmann Hans Wölke was driving. He was the 1936 Olympic shot put champion (and the first German Olympic champion in track and field). His death, as well as two other Germans, alarmed the occupying authorities.

Nearby was the 118th Ukrainian police battalion, which consisted of approximately equal proportions of Russians and Ukrainians. He received an order from the Germans to punish the partisans for the murder of Wölke. His chief of staff was SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Vasyura. A certain Smovsky commanded the battalion. But Smovsky, due to illness, could not participate in the operation, and Vasyura took command.

(Hans Wölcke at the 1936 Olympics)

The policemen quickly gathered for an action, but they were too lazy to go into the forest and catch the partisans, and at first they shot 27 inhabitants of the village of Kozyri indiscriminately. But this was not enough for the collaborators. They entered the village of Khatyn, herded its inhabitants into a huge barn and, lining it with straw, set it on fire.

When the door of the shed collapsed under the pressure of the distraught people, they began to shoot those who ran out. Vasyura himself, armed with a pistol and a submachine gun, took part in the execution to the best of his ability. As a result, 152 people were killed, four managed to survive (thanks to them, the whole world became aware of this tragedy).

In total, it is believed that the 118th Ukrainian police battalion took part in at least 12 such punitive actions.

After the war, Vasyura ended up in the "competent authorities". He was given 25 years (in 1952), but he served only 3 years, leaving the camp under an amnesty in 1955 (in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Victory, almost all collaborators were released under it).

Vasyura returned to his place in the Kyiv region, where he became deputy director of the state farm. Moreover, he knocked out a certificate for himself that he was convicted for being captured. This allowed him to officially become a veteran of the Second World War and, accordingly, receive commemorative medals, meet with schoolchildren, receive food packages, etc.

Vasyur was ruined by the fact that in 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the Victory, he began to demand for himself the Order of the Great Patriotic War. Then some small employee in the archives of the military registration and enlistment office discovered that Vasyura was still missing. They began to dig and dug. It was lucky that at that time another WWII veteran was discovered - a certain Meleshko, who commanded one of the companies of the 118th punitive police battalion. This Meleshko began to be interrogated in Minsk, and he handed over to Vasyur, with whom they corresponded after the war.

26 witnesses were summoned to the trial of Vasyura - punishers from his battalion. They were brought to Minsk from all over the USSR. Each of them by that time had already served his sentence for helping the Germans (the maximum term that one punisher from among these 26 served in the Stalinist camps was 8 years).

The trial of Vasyura lasted 1.5 months, only one journalist was present at the trial - from the Izvestia newspaper. As a result, he made a report about Vasyur, but the newspaper did not publish it "for political reasons."

The only gratifying thing is that Vasyura was still shot.

(Grigory Vasyura in 1986)

Before that, the trial of part of the Dirlewanger brigade took place in Minsk in 1978. The most cruel punishers were judged - Fedorenko, Golchenko, Vertelnikov, Gontar, Funk, Medvedev, Yakovlev, Lappo, Osmakov, Sulzhenko, Trofimov, Sparrow, Kolbasin, Muravyov. As mentioned above, they received insignificant terms (as an “addition” to what was awarded to them after the end of the Second World War - in fact, they were tried twice for the same crime, this explains the lenient sentence). Here is part of the speeches of these punishers in their defense:

“For 26 years after the war, I worked honestly and benefited people. I ask you to leave 1/2 of the contribution to your wife.

“During my service in the HFP, I undoubtedly killed five people. He was awarded a German medal, but I immediately threw it away.

"Citizens of the judge! I come from a working-class family, I started my career early ... I ask you to take into account repentance and save my life.

“After the arrival of the Soviet Army, I fought against the Germans, worked for 20 years. He had no comments, but on the contrary, 6 letters, was elected a member of the election commission.”

“A different Golchenko is now standing before the court, sincerely repentant, deeply aware of the gravity of the crimes I have committed, my ideas are only a great work for the good of the people.”

“Please take into account my advanced age and the medal “For Labor Valor”. I was also awarded: "member of the Komtrud brigade."

“The verdict says that I was awarded four German awards, and I had three of them ...”

“It’s not my fault, the war is to blame. If there hadn't been a war, I wouldn't have been taken prisoner and I wouldn't be sitting in the dock now.

(Please note that the collaborator Pirog was tried according to the Decree of 04/19/43, which read “On punishment for the Nazi villains guilty of murders and tortures ...”. According to her, Pirog received 20 years, but actually served only 10 years)

“But our leaders, colleagues, commanders, not a single one was imprisoned for atrocities against Soviet citizens, they were at liberty until 1968. Thanks to our Soviet investigative authorities for their sensitivity: they also did not let them escape from Soviet justice.”

“However, I want to say that we are not what we were 30 years ago, and therefore the following question arises: what kind of people will you sentence - those who were 30 years ago, or those who for more than 25 years honestly worked for the benefit of all our people, who now have children and even grandchildren?!”

“The process of my re-education began long before my arrest. Therefore, I do not need such a long prison sentence.”

“Please also take into account that my wife was at the front throughout the war ...”

The last punisher of Khatyn is still alive - 91-year-old Vladimir Katryuk. He lives in Canada, near Montreal, and is engaged in beekeeping. He surrendered to the French in April 1945 (at that time he fought in the 36th SS division), did not stay long in the filtration camp, lived in France, and in 1951 left for Canada.

Here is a description of the atrocities carried out by Katryuk as part of the Dirlewanger brigade:

Private S. Myshak, who was standing in the cordon, saw how Katryuk participated in the gathering of the inhabitants of the village of Khatyn: “While in the cordon 30-50 meters from the village in its central part, I clearly heard the screams and cries of women and children. I saw well that the policemen of the 118th battalion Solop Sergey, Filippov, Katryuk were walking around the village.

Finally, all the inhabitants are gathered; Katryuk helps his comrades-in-arms push the victims into the barn, and then, together with the officers, stands in front of the barn gate. From the testimony of O. Knap: “I clearly saw how Lukovich set fire to the shed with a torch, or rather, its thatched roof. The shed caught fire. People in the barn began to scream and cry. The screams of people burning and choking from the smoke were terrible. They were impossible to hear. They were getting creepy.

I couldn't bear it, so I didn't fire a single shot at the shed. Basically, they fired at the barn from an easel machine gun standing in front of the gate and from Vasyur, Meleshko, Lakusta, Slizhuk, Ilchuk, Katryuk, Pasechnik, Kmit, Pankiv, Lukovich, Filippov machine guns.

(Vladimir Katryuk in Canada with his hives)

The Khatyn murder was not the only crime in which Katryuk participated. For example, in May 1943, the 118th battalion took part in a punitive operation in the Begoml region. In the village of Vileyka, part of the disabled residents are being destroyed. And again Katryuk takes part in this action. “Young people were immediately taken somewhere,” recalled I. Kozychenko, a serviceman of the 118th battalion. “Women with children were driven into a barn that stood separately at the end of the village, shot and burned in it ... I remember that Meleshko, Lakusta, Lukovich, Slizhuk, Katryuk escorted them to the place of massacre.”

A few days later, Kozychenko sees a similar picture in the village of Osovy: “When men, women, children began to be taken away from the headquarters, they began to shout why they were being driven away, the headman was also connected with the partisans ... They attached the headman to other arrested civilians and drove them to a separate a barn standing at the end of the village ... People were escorted to the barn by Vasyura, Meleshko, Lakusta, Slizhuk, Lukovich, Katryuk, Knap and other police officers of the first company ... I remember when people were herded into the barn, closed in it, cordoned off the barn in a semicircle and opened people fire from all types of weapons. Shoots at people and Katryuk.

(Partly cited from the book "Russian SS", D. Zhukov and I. Kovtun, publishing house Veche, 2010)

On March 22, 1943, the punishers burned the Belarusian village of Khatyn along with its inhabitants. The fire killed 149 people, including 75 children. Khatyn was not the first Belarusian village destroyed by the punishers, nor was it the last. In total, several thousand settlements were destroyed in Belarus. 186 villages have never been able to revive, because. there were simply no survivors left. But it was Khatyn that became the symbol of eternal memory and the tragedy of the entire Soviet people.

I think you probably drew on the evil epigraph at the beginning of the post? "What do crests have to do with it?" These are not my words and now I will explain why I posted it.

The fact is that during the last week, right on the eve of the anniversary of the tragedy, I received several comments from Russophobes specifically about Khatyn. Moreover, it was not I who initiated the Khatyn topic, but they themselves raised this topic. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a coincidence, but something too symbolic. Here is one of them, the most revealing.

To be honest, I was not going to write about Khatyn. In my eyes, this is already such a chewed material that, I thought, no one should have such questions. Therefore, I was somewhat surprised that there are still such people who sincerely or insincerely accuse the Russians of the Khatyn tragedy, completely ignoring the participation of Ukrainian nationalists. Well, since a person asks to "write the names" of those who "burned and shot people in Khatyn", then let's do it. True, I’m not sure that after this the “howl of a dog” will subside, it is quite possible that it will intensify. But the man asked, “What do crests have to do with it?”, Let's look into this.

First, a little chronology of that terrible day.

On the morning of March 22, 1943, near the village of Kozyri, a group of partisans fired on a car and two trucks with punishers from the 118th police battalion. Four Nazis were killed, one wounded. One of those killed was Hauptmann Hans Wölcke, an Olympic champion and Hitler's favorite.

Immediately after that, the punishers called for help - the Dirlewanger battalion, from nearby Logoisk. While the SS battalion was getting to the place, the punishers of the 118th Schutzmannschaft found and shot a group of lumberjacks of 26 people, by the way, mostly women. The wounded were killed.

Toward evening, the punishers of the 118th Schutzmannschaft and the SS Dirlewanger, following in the footsteps of the partisans in the snow, reached the village of Khatyn. They gathered all the inhabitants, including children, into a collective farm shed and set it on fire. When the gates of the barn could not withstand the pressure of the victims of the mass execution and dissolved, the punishers began to shoot the burning people from personal weapons and from heavy machine guns, previously installed in front of the gate. The thoughtfulness of the operation betrays the considerable experience of the punishers in the destruction of people. Khatyn was indeed not the first victim of the punishers.

I am not so stupid and illiterate as to deny the participation of Russian collaborators in the Khatyn tragedy. They were there. But we are answering the question “What do crests have to do with it?”. And Svidomo patriots, apparently, tend to automatically record all former Red Army soldiers who have become traitors as Russians. Let's see the materials available. And first, a report about the partisan attack on the 118th Schutzmannschaft.

What do we see? "3 Ukr.geffalen, 1 Ukr. Verwundet. I give a translation of the report.

District Commissar of the SS and Police of Borisov
Borisov, 5/4/1943
To the district chief of the gendarmerie, Mr. Lieutenant Christel
Pleschenitsy

The following brief message was sent to me from the general commissar in Minsk: on March 22, 1943, near Guba - 2260 - 14 km north of Logoysk, the patrol of the security police was attacked by bandits. 1 Hauptmann and 3 Ukrainians were killed, 1 Ukrainian was wounded. During the pursuit, the gang was stopped. Enemy losses - 30 killed. The gangster village of Khatyn = 2260 = (12 km southeast of Pleschenitsy) was destroyed along with 90 inhabitants.
For a report to Mr. Gen. Commissioner, I require a detailed report on said attack. Please provide me with this report as soon as possible.

BUSHMAN
Standartenführer SA

Well, what do the Ukrainians have to do with it?

The person whose comment I quoted at the very beginning of the article asks very much for the names of those who "burned and shot." Let's respect the desire of an inquisitive Russophobe and name all the identified culprits of the Khatyn tragedy. They remained in court materials, sentences and protocols of interrogation of the accused in the Khatyn case of the 60-80s of the last century.

For example, the materials of the trial of one of the main accused Vasyura G.N., who commanded the 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion during the destruction of Khatyn.

Kozynchenko, Knap, Lozinsky, Myshak... These are all the names of those who burned the inhabitants of Khatyn. Even more names of accomplices of this crime can be found in the protocols of interrogations of other punishers of the 118th Schutzmannschaft.

These screenshots are just a sample. I will not give all the protocols of interrogations in this case, but will simply lay out a complete list of the names of the participants from the 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion, which can be found there.

List of punishers of the 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion who participated in the destruction of Khatyn

Smovsky Konstantin - major, battalion commander
Kerner Erich - major, battalion commander
German - Lieutenant
Vasyura Grigory - Chief of Staff
Vinnitsa - commander of the first company
Naryadko - commander of the third company
Meleshko - deputy commander of the first company
Grigory Lakusta - platoon commander
Ilchuk Zhora - platoon commander
Pasechnik - Platoon Leader
Franchuk - platoon commander
Gnatenko - platoon leader
Slautenko Mikhail - platoon leader
Katryuk Vladimir - squad leader. He died in 2015 in Canada, avoiding trial.
Kmit - squad leader
Pankiv - squad leader
Slizhuk Ivan - foreman
Lukovic - translator
Filippov Vasily - messenger, clerk
Abdullaev
Antonenko
Bilyk
Vasilenko
Vlasenko Andrey
Vavrin Pavel
Wus
Gursky Nikolai - machine gunner
Goretsky
Dedovsky
Jeba
Dumych
Dyakun Mikhail
Efimenko
Hare Vasily - machine gunner
Zvir Nikolay
Ivankiv Ivan
Ivashchenko - machine gunner
Ilchuk Mountain
Kushnir
Kalenchuk Nikolay and his brother
Kachan
trigger - rifle
Knap Ostap - machine gunner
Kotov
Kremlev Pavel
Kozynchenko I. - machine gunner
Leshchenko Vasily
Lozinsky Ivan - rifle
Myshak S.P.
Embankment
Nyklya Dmitry
Polyakov Pavel - machine gunner
Petrichuk I.D.
Polevskiy
Pogoretsky
Pochapsky
Savko
Savchenko
Sakhno S. - rifle
Semenyuk
Solop Sergey
Spivak G.V.
Violin
Storozhuk
Strokach Ivan - machine gunner
Subbotin Georgy
Temechko Mikhail
Titorenko Grigory
Topchy T.P. - machine gunner
Shveiko
Shulga
Shumeiko
Shcherban Semyon - machine gunner
Khachaturian
Kharchenko
Fucking

Those who wish can themselves double-check the names of the punishers according to the collection of materials "Khatyn. Tragedy and memory. Documents and materials”, NARB publishing house, Minsk, 2009.
I hope you understand that this is a list of only those criminals whose names became known as a result of the investigation. Alas, some of the criminals who left their bloody trail in Khatyn remain unknown. It goes without saying that the degree of guilt of these criminals is different. Someone stood in a cordon, someone burned houses, someone burned people, and someone led it all. But all together they are the executioners of Khatyn. And let me remind you once again that Khatyn herself was only one victim from a long list of their crimes.

As you can see, Russian surnames do occur, but they make up a clear minority compared to Ukrainian surnames. Yes, it could not be otherwise, given the fact that the 118th Schutzmannschaft Battalion was formed in 1942 in Kyiv from Soviet prisoners of war, volunteers and OUN members from Bukovinsky Kuren.

According to the Swedish-American scholar Per Anders Rudling, a specialist in the history of Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalism, the executioners of Babi Yar entered the 115th and 118th Schutzmannschafts.

Canadian historian of Belarusian origin Natalia Petrouchkevitch (apparently a Belarusian nationalist) devoted an entire dissertation to Schutzmannschaft-118.

In it, the 118th police battalion is specifically designated as Ukrainian.

By the way, no less than 71 units of such Ukrainian noise battalions were created. The rest of the Nazi-oriented also tried.

Well, someone else asks, what do the Ukrainians have to do with it?

Here it would be possible to finish the article, but I promised to write all the known names of the executioners of Khatyn. And the Ukrainian Shum-118, although it was the main participant in the crime, was not the only one. The second executioner was the infamous SS Dirlewanger Battalion (SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger), which became the 36th SS division at the end of the war.

Many believe that there were solid Germans there, but by 1943 this was not the case. Already in the autumn of 1942, three so-called "Russian" companies were created from Soviet prisoners of war in the Dirlewanger battalion. Two companies of Dirlewanger, a German company and one Russian company (or platoon), left to help the 118th Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft. The names of some punishers from the "Russian" company can be seen in the same court materials on the Khatyn case.

List of punishers of the SS Dirlewanger battalion who participated in the destruction of Khatyn

Melnichenko Ivan - company commander
Bagriy
Bakuta
Gudkov Petr
Graborovsky Petr
Goltvyanik Ivan
Godinov
Doloko
Zaiwi
Evchik
Ivanov
Kireenko
Kovalenko
Makeev
Maydanyuk
Maidanov M.V.
Mironenkov - machine gunner
Mokhnach
Nepok
Nepop
Petrenko Ivan
Pugachev I.S.
Primak
Rozhkov
Radkovsky A.E.
Romanenko
Sakhno
Surkov
Sadon Andrew
centurion
Slobodyanyuk
Stopchenko A.S. - machine gunner
Slynko
Tereshchenko
Tereshchuk Petr
Tupiga I.E.
Umanets Peter
Shapovalov Nikolai (Shapoval?) - squad leader
Shinkevich
Tsygankov (Gypsy)
hlan
Yurchenko Alexey
Yalynsky

The worst thing about the interrogation protocols of Dirlewanger's executioners is that they hardly remember Khatyn, because for them it was just another village out of 179 that they burned.

I am also posting a photocopy of the list of Melnichenko's unit. It belongs to a different time and is of poor quality, but familiar names are visible.

Well? I think I satisfied the curiosity of Svidomo and liberal Russophobes. This is similar to the answer to their question “what do crests have to do with it”? Are the names of those who “burned and shot” Khatyn enough for you? Will the dog howl subside?

Although more than sure that the howl will continue with renewed vigor. Svidomo Russophobes will throw lists of units of Russian collaborators, in their opinion, of origin. Therefore, I immediately want to answer - Ukrainians, we have long decided who are heroes for us, and who are traitors, criminals and scum. The lists of our scum that you present to us will not change the fact that our scum fought side by side with your heroes. With your scum heroes.

You have chosen who you honor. Instead of millions of Ukrainians who, together with Russians and other peoples of the USSR, fought for our common homeland, you chose those who opposed them. Well, it's up to you. Just don't forget to add the Schutzmannschaft-118 and the SS Dirlewanger Battalion to your list of heroes. They will organically look on a par with the OUN, UPA, Nachtigal, Roland, SS Galicia, Shukhevych's punitive 201-Schutzmanshaft and Abwehrkommando-202.

Although what am I talking about? Ukraine has not forgotten about them. The patriots are still fighting under the banner of Dirlewanger's executioners.

Familiar emblems, huh?

Perhaps my article will seem to someone inciting hatred between peoples, but it is not so. I have by no means forgotten those 6 million Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army against Hitler and his henchmen, and my gratitude to them is no less than to the Russian Red Army soldiers. But what Ukraine is turning into now is not what our heroes fought for. And Russophobes who blame everything exclusively on Russians should shut up and try to study history outside of Svidomo and liberal propaganda, so as not to once again get into a puddle with their Russophobic myths.

In May 2015, the executioner of Khatyn, Vladimir Katryuk, died in Canada. Russia and Jewish organizations in Canada unsuccessfully sought his extradition, but the Canadian government did not extradite the killer of children and women. The Congress of Ukrainians in Canada (UCC) is very sorry about the passing of Katriuk.

"Mr. Katryuk passed away after years of baseless harassment, including media harassment," Orest Rudzik told The Globe and Mail. For many years, Mr. Rudzik served as a lawyer for Mr. Katryuk.
“I am glad that he rests in peace, because he was sick for a long time”

It is very touching that Canadian Ukrainians care so much about their heroes. Katryuk is their hero. After all, he defended Ukraine when he shot at women and children engulfed in flames.

The note was purely working: I read a brochure by the famous Svidomo historian Volodymyr Kosyk, I discovered something amazing - it turns out that Kosyk denies with perseverance worthy of a better use that the 118th Ukrainian police battalion participated in the destruction of Khatyn. I quote:

"The 115th and 118th battalions were created by the Germans in Kiev in May 1942, replenished in November 1942, have been in Belarus since July 1943. And the tragedy of the burned Belarusian village of Khatyn occurred on March 22, 1943. Why is this the tragedy is attributed to the Ukrainians of the 118th battalion?

Kosyk repeats this statement several times and finally writes about the "false" Khatyn "crimes of the 118th battalion."

Since the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, with the support of our foundation, back in early 2009 published a fundamental collection of documents "Khatyn: Tragedy and Memory", I thought that Kosyk's lies would be understandable to everyone and limited myself to placing in a note a copy of the commander's report published in the collection 118 th police battalion of Major Kerner, from which it was clearly seen that the 118th battalion in March 1943, contrary to Kosyk's statements, was in Belarus and, moreover, in the area of ​​​​the village of Khatyn.

However, I underestimated the ability of network svidomites; they still claim that Kosyk is right and even accuse me of lying. Well, let's analyze the problem in as much detail as possible.

Characteristics of the source base

To begin with, my acquaintance with the history of the 118th Ukrainian police battalion is by no means limited to the documents published in the collection Khatyn. Tragedy and Memory. Writing a book on the 118th battalion is in my working plans (albeit distant ones), and therefore I have at my disposal a number of unpublished documents from the Belarusian archives on the mentioned collaborationist formation. These three types of documents are:

1) German documents (SS and police);

2) documents of Soviet partisans (intelligence reports and combat reports);

3) protocols of post-war interrogations of servicemen of the 118th battalion.

Taken together, these documents allow the most objective coverage of the history of the 118th Ukrainian police battalion. Based on these documents, we will answer the following two questions:

1) did the 118th battalion really appear in Belarus only in July 1943, as Kosyk claims?

2) did the 118th battalion really not participate in the destruction of Khatyn, as Kosyk claims?

Of course, all the data that I will give below is redundant; The documents published in the collection "Khatyn: Tragedy and Memory" make it possible to answer both questions even without this. Well, a lot, not a lot.

When did the 118th battalion appear in Belarus?

In order to understand when the 118th battalion appeared in Belarus, let's turn to German documents. From the report I have already cited by the commander of the 118th battalion, Major Kerner, we know that at the end of March 1943, the 118th battalion was in the Logoisk-Pleschenits area. This document is not the only one. The earliest German document known to me that mentions the presence of the 118th battalion in Belarus is dated January 7, 1943. These are reports from the head of the SS and police of the Borisov district (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 17 - 18, original in German, F. 1440. Inv. 3. D. 964. L. 62 - 63, translated into Russian):

On January 6, 1943, 20 gendarmes, 40 police officers and 115 employees of the 118th battalion launched a punitive expedition to the village. Chinelevichi... The losses of the bandits have not been established. There are no losses on our side.

Two weeks later, the head of the gendarmerie post in Pleschenitsy, Schneider, mentions the 118th battalion in his report (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 86, original in German; F. 1440. Op. 3. D 1025. L. 204 - 205, translated into Russian):

On January 19, 1943, by order of the SS and police of the Borisov district, 15 gendarmes, 20 policemen and 45 soldiers of the 118th Ukrainian battalion carried out an action against the bandits in the village. Selishche and Mokrad.

The 118th battalion is also mentioned in the February reports of the head of the gendarmerie post in Pleschenitsy - for example, on February 1, 1943, Schneider writes (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 38, original in German; F. 1440. Inventory 3. D. 1025. L. 184 - 185, translated into Russian):

[The commander of the Begoml police squad] Shorov was wounded and reported to the police in Pleschenitsy, from where Lieutenant of the Gendarmerie Gurstel with 60 policemen and soldiers of the 118th Ukrainian battalion immediately left for reinforcements. With the arrival of reinforcements, the persecution of the bandits was organized.

The 118th battalion is also mentioned in the monthly operational reports of the SS and the police of the Borisov district. Here is a report for February 1943 (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 49 - 54, original in German; F. 1440. Op. 3. D. 964. L. 67 - 70 , translation into Russian):

The bandit situation continued to escalate in the reporting month... Since the arrival of the 118th Ukrainian police battalion, the bandits have not attacked Pleschenitsy themselves.

From the operational report for March 1943 (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 43 - 48, original in German; F. 1440. Op. 3. D. 964. L. 77 - 84, translation into Russian):

The interaction with the 118th Ukrainian battalion, the VNOS service, as well as the Sonderfuehrers, is good.

From the operational report for April 1943 (NARB. F. 391. Op. 2. D. 15. L. 63 - 68, original in German; F. 1440. Op. 3. D. 964. L. 85 - 90, translation into Russian):

On April 5, 1943, 20 gendarmes, 80 police officers and 100 Ukrainian soldiers from the 118th Ukrainian battalion carried out an action against the village. Mal. Nestanavichi. 7 suspicious persons were shot while trying to escape.

Well, and one more document, this time from the headquarters of the Higher Head of the SS and Police of Russia "Center" and Belarus called "Review of forces as of May 1, 1943." (NARB. F. 1440. Op. 3. D. 917. L. 254 - 260, translated into Russian):

On the territory of the commander of the SS and the police of Belarus ... The 118th police battalion, the place of deployment - Pleschenitsy, subordination - to the commander of the security police in Belarus.

By the way, these are far from all German documents, which precisely localize the location of the 118th Ukrainian police battalion in the Pleshchenitsy area in January - June 1943. We conclude: contrary to the persistent lies of V. Kosyk, the 118th Ukrainian police battalion appeared in Belarus and, specifically, in Pleschenitsy no later than the beginning of January 1943 and did not relocate anywhere from this area.

Did the 118th Battalion really take part in the destruction of Khatyn?

Now let's move on to the second question: did the 118th Ukrainian police battalion really take part in the destruction of Khatyn? Actually, Kosyk's only argument in favor of the fact that he did not participate was the assertion that the 118th battalion was not in Belarus at all. However, as we see from the above documents, this argument is completely false and in fact in March 1943 the 118th battalion:

1) stationed in Pleschenitsy near Khatyn;

2) actively participated in punitive operations.

The participation of the 118th battalion in the destruction of Khatyn is evidenced by German documents published in the collection "Khatyn. Tragedy and Memory". Here, for example, is an accompanying note to the letter of the Gebietskommissar Borisov, which the head of the gendarmerie of the Borisov district sends to the commander of the 118th battalion ("Khatyn", p. 21):

I am sending you for information and an answer on the merits of the request, since the mentioned promotion was carried out by you .

That is, the head of the gendarmerie, to whom the 118th battalion is subordinate, knows very well: Khatyn is the work of the 118th battalion.

I won’t cite Kerner’s report a second time, I’ll only note that the phrase “larger forces, including parts of the Dirlewanger SS battalion, were sent to pursue the escaping enemy,” does not mean at all that the units of the 118th battalion were not part of these " larger forces"; on the contrary, there are a number of post-war testimonies of the battalion servicemen about this, which are published in our collection.

So - units of the 118th Ukrainian police battalion participated in the destruction of Khatyn, the existing documentary base testifies to this quite clearly.

conclusions

And the conclusions, in fact, are simple: do not believe Svidomo Ukrainian "historians" like V. Kosyk.

And it's primitive.

Surname list of executioners of Khatyn

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On March 22, 1943, the Belarusian village of Khatyn was burned down. Its inhabitants in the amount of 149 people were killed. The personnel of the 118th police battalion from the 201st security division and the personnel of the SS battalion Dirlewanger participated in this action.
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List of punishers of the 118th battalion who participated in the destruction of Khatyn
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Smovsky Konstantin - major, battalion commander
Kerner Erich - major, battalion commander
German - Lieutenant
Vasyura Grigory - Chief of Staff
Vinnitsky - commander of the first company
Naryadko - commander of the third company
Meleshko - deputy commander of the first company
Grigory Lakusta - platoon commander
Ilchuk Zhora - platoon commander
Pasechnik - Platoon Leader
Franchuk - Platoon Leader
Gnatenko - platoon leader
Slautenko Mikhail - platoon commander
Katryuk Vladimir - squad leader.
Kmit - squad leader
Pankiv - squad leader
Slizhuk Ivan - foreman
Lukovic - translator
Filippov Vasily - messenger, clerk
Abdullaev
Antonenko
Bilyk
Vasilenko
Vlasenko Andrey
Vavrin Pavel
Wus
Gursky Nikolai - machine gunner
Goretsky
Dedovsky
Jeba
Dumych
Dyakun Mikhail
Efimenko
Hare Vasily - machine gunner
Zvir Nikolay
Ivankiv Ivan
Ivashchenko - machine gunner
Ilchuk Mountain
Kushnir
Kalenchuk Nikolay and his brother
Kachan
Kurka - shooter
Knap Ostap - machine gunner
Kotov
Kremlev Pavel
Kozynchenko I. - machine gunner
Leshchenko Vasily
Lozinsky Ivan - shooter
Myshak S.P.
Embankment
Nyklya Dmitry
Polyakov Pavel - machine gunner
Petrichuk I.D.
Polevskiy
Pogoretsky
Pochapsky
Savko
Savchenko
Sakhno S. - shooter
Semenyuk
Solop Sergey
Spivak G.V.
Violin
Storozhuk
Strokach Ivan - machine gunner
Subbotin Georgy
Temechko Mikhail
Titorenko Grigory
Topchiy T.P. - machine gunner
Shveiko
Shulga
Shumeiko
Shcherban Semyon - machine gunner
Khachaturian
Kharchenko
Fucking
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List of punishers of the SS Dirlewanger battalion who participated in the destruction of Khatyn
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Melnichenko Ivan - company commander
Bagriy
Bakuta
Gudkov Petr
Graborovsky Petr
Goltvyanik Ivan
Godinov
Doloko
Zaiwi
Evchik
Ivanov
Kireenko
Kovalenko
Makeev
Maydanyuk
Maidanov M.V.
Mironenkov - machine gunner
Mokhnach
Nepok
Nepop
Petrenko Ivan
Pugachev I.S.
Primak
Rozhkov
Radkovsky A.E.
Romanenko
Sakhno
Surkov
Sadon Andrew
centurion
Slobodyanyuk
Stopchenko A.S. - machine gunner
Slynko
Tereshchenko
Tereshchuk Petr
Tupiga I.E.
Umanets Peter
Shapovalov Nikolai (Shapoval?) - squad leader
Shinkevich
Tsygankov (Gypsy)
hlan
Yurchenko Alexey
Yalynsky

Memory. 75 years ago 22.03. 1943 Bandera burned the Belarusian village of Khatyn

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Then 149 residents of Khatyn were burned alive or shot. The 118th police battalion formed in Kyiv from Bandera and the separate SS battalion Dirlenwanger participated in the punitive operation.
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On March 21, 1943, partisans from the partisan brigade of V. Voronyansky spent the night in Khatyn. On the morning of March 22, they left towards Pleschenitsy. At the same time, a car drove out of Pleschenitsy towards them in the direction of Logoisk, accompanied by two trucks with soldiers of the 118th battalion from the 201st German security division.

The chief commander of the 1st company, police captain Hans Wölke, was driving in the car, heading to the airfield in Minsk. Along the way, the column came across women from the village of Kozyri who were working in logging; when asked about the presence of partisans nearby, the women replied that they had not seen anyone. The column moved on and without passing 300 m, fell into a partisan ambush. In the skirmish, the punishers lost three people, including Hans Wolke. Platoon commander of the 1st company, Vasily Meleshko, suspected the women of complicity with the partisans, called for reinforcements from the SS Dirlenwanger battalion, and returned to the place where the women were cutting wood. On his orders, 26 women were shot, and the rest were sent to Pleschenitsy.

The Germans were furious at the death of Hans Wölcke, who in 1936 became the Olympic champion in the shot put and was personally acquainted with Hitler. They began to comb the forest in search of partisans, and in the afternoon of March 22, 1943, they surrounded the village of Khatyn. The villagers did not know anything about the morning incident, in response to which the principle of general collective punishment was applied.

By order of the Germans, the police drove the entire population of Khatyn into a collective farm barn and locked it up. Those who tried to escape were killed on the spot. Among the inhabitants of the village there were large families: for example, in the family of Joseph and Anna Baranovsky there were nine children, in the family of Alexander and Alexandra Novitsky - seven. They also locked Anton Kunkevich from the village of Yurkovichi and Kristina Slonskaya from the village of Kameno, who happened to be in Khatyn at that time. They surrounded the shed with straw, doused it with gasoline, and the police interpreter Lukovich set it on fire.

The wooden shed quickly caught fire. Under the pressure of dozens of human bodies, they could not stand it and the doors collapsed. In burning clothes, terrified, suffocating, people rushed to run; but those who escaped from the flames were shot. The fire killed 149 villagers, including 75 children under 16 years old. Two girls managed to escape then - Maria Fedorovich and Yulia Klimovich, who miraculously managed to get out of the burning barn and crawl to the forest, where they were picked up by the inhabitants of the village of Khvorosteni of the Kamensky village council (later this village was burned down by the invaders, and both girls died). The village of Khatyn itself was completely destroyed.

Of the children who were in the barn, seven-year-old Viktor Zhelobkovich and twelve-year-old Anton Baranovsky survived. Vitya hid under the body of his mother, who covered her son with herself; the child, wounded in the arm, lay under the mother's body until the executioners left the village. Anton Baranovsky was wounded in the leg by a bullet, and the SS took him for dead. Burnt, wounded children were picked up by residents of neighboring villages. After the war, the children were brought up in an orphanage. Three more - Volodya Yaskevich, his sister Sonya and Sasha Zhelobkovich - also managed to escape from the Nazis.

Of the adult residents of the village, only the 56-year-old village blacksmith Iosif Iosifovich Kaminsky (born 1887–1973) survived. Burnt and wounded, he regained consciousness only late at night, when the punishers left the village. He had to endure another heavy blow: among the bodies of his fellow villagers, he found his son Adam. The boy was mortally wounded in the stomach and received severe burns. He died in his father's arms. Iosif Kaminsky with his son Adam served as the prototypes of the famous monument in the memorial complex.

One of the surviving residents of Khatyn - Anton Baranovsky - was 12 years old on March 22, 1943. He never hid the truth about the events in Khatyn, spoke openly about it, knew the names of many policemen who burned people. In December 1969 - 5 months after the opening of the memorial complex - Anton Baranovsky died under unclear circumstances.

A version of the events with a number of differences was published in 2012 by the Ukrainian historian Ivan Dereiko in the monograph “The formation of the German army and the police at the District Committee “Ukraine” (1941–1944)”. He writes that the 118th police battalion, after being attacked by a detachment of partisans, attacked the village, where instead of retreating into the forest, for some unknown reason, the partisans decided to gain a foothold. As a result of the assault on the village, 30 partisans and a number of civilians were allegedly killed, and about 20 more people were captured.

Perpetrators of the crime from the 118th police battalion:
Battalion commanders:
- Konstantin Smovsky, a former colonel in the army of Petliura's "Ukrainian People's Republic", who later served as a major in the Polish army under Pilsudski (a very interesting biographical note about the "hero" in the Ukrainian Wikipedia - not a word about Khatyn),
- Major Ivan Shudrya;
Platoon Leaders:
- Lieutenant Meleshko,
- Lieutenant Pasichnyk;
battalion chief of staff: - Grigory Vasyura (since December 1942);
line-up:
machine gunner I. Kozynchenko, Privates G. Spivak, S. Sakhno, O. Knap, T. Topchiy, I. Petrichuk, Vladimir Katryuk, Lakusta, Lukovich, Shcherban, Varlamov, Khrenov, Egorov, Subbotin, Iskanderov, Khachaturian.

In Soviet times, the fact of the participation of Ukrainian Bandera in the crime in Khatyn was not made public, since the First Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Communist Party of Belarus V. Scherbitsky and N. Slyunkov appealed to the Central Committee of the Party with a request not to disclose information about the participation of Ukrainians and Russians in the brutal killing civilians in the village...

The commander of the 118th battalion, K. Smovsky, after the war was an active figure in emigrant organizations, was not held accountable, died in Minneapolis, USA.

Platoon commander of the 118th battalion Vasily Meleshko was sentenced to death; the sentence was carried out in 1975.

G. Vasyura, after serving in Belarus, continued to serve in the 76th infantry regiment. At the end of the war, Vasyura managed to cover his tracks in the filtration camp. Only in 1952, for cooperation with the invaders during the war, the tribunal of the Kyiv military district sentenced him to 25 years in prison. At that time, nothing was known about his punitive activities. On September 17, 1955, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Decree "On the amnesty of Soviet citizens who collaborated with the invaders during the war of 1941-1945", and Vasyura was released. He returned to his place in the Cherkasy region.

The KGB officers later found and re-arrested the criminal. By that time, he worked as deputy director of one of the state farms in the Kiev region, in April 1984 he was awarded the medal "Veteran of Labor", every year the pioneers congratulated him on May 9. He loved to speak to the pioneers in the guise of a war veteran, a front-line signalman, and was even called an honorary cadet of the Kyiv Higher Military Engineering Twice Red Banner School of Communications named after M. I. Kalinin - the one he graduated before the war.

In November-December 1986, Grigory Vasyura was tried in Minsk. During the trial (case No. 104, 14 volumes), it was established that he was personally guilty of the death of peaceful women, the elderly, and children. By the decision of the military tribunal of the Belarusian military district, Grigory Vasyura was found guilty and sentenced to death.

In the 1970s, Stepan Sakhno was exposed, having settled in Kuibyshev after the war and posing as a front-line soldier. At the trial, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

As of 2015, the only surviving known punisher from the 118th battalion was Vladimir Katryuk, who has lived in Canada since 1951. In 1999, Canada stripped him of his citizenship after evidence incriminating him for war crimes came to light, but in November 2010, a court restored his Canadian citizenship. In May 2015, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against Vladimir Katryuk under Article 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Genocide”), but Canada refused to extradite Katryuk to Russia. In the same month, Katryuk died in Canada.