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
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
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]
Chervyen Massacre Media
A plaque at the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Warsaw commemorates the victims of the NKVD prisoner massacres, including the victims of the Minsk-Chervyen "death road"
Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw. Railway sleeper with the inscription "Mińsk Ihumeń"
The NKVD headquarters and detention centre in Minsk, currently the headquarters of the Belarusian KGB
Pishchalauski Castle in Minsk, the so-called Volodarka
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Related pages
Notes
- ↑ Among them was Steponas Rusteika, Lithuanian Minister of the Interior in 1929–1934.[2]
References
- ↑ Upamiętnienie więźniów rozstrzelanych przez NKWD (in pl) (June 14, 2021)Gov.pl. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9
- Stungurys, Stasys. Šiurpi klajonė: Červenės tragediją prisimenant (in lt). Pozicija 48 (1990). Retrieved 19 August 2018.
- Parrish, Michael. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953 (1996)Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 48. ISBN 0-275-95113-8.
- Politinių kalinių žudynės Červenėje (in lt). Atmintinos datos (June 17, 2011)Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
- Lietuvos Respublikos Seimo kanceliarijos Parlamentarizmo istorijos ir atminimo įamžinimo skyrius. Červenės žudynės (in lt)Lietuvos Respublikos Seimo kanceliarija. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2
- Berkhoff, Karel Cornelis. Harvest of Despair (2004). p. 14. ISBN 0674020782. Retrieved 2013-12-30.
- Motyl, Alexander. The Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941 (in en-us) (2017)Amsterdam University Press. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
- Viola, Lynne. New sources on Soviet perpetrators of mass repression: a research note (in en-us). Revue Canadienne des Slavistes (Canadian Slavonic Papers) 60 (3‒4) (August 13, 2018). p. 592‒604. doi:10.1080/00085006.2018.1497393. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
