During the occupation of Smolensk, the fascist invaders cruelly dealt with the local population. This became known from the declassified archival documents, according to RIA Novosti.
The journalists studied the documents issued to them by the regional department of the FSB. They describe the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in Dorogobuzh and the Dorogobuzh region during the occupation of the Smolensk region. In particular, information is provided on the scale of the destruction of the local population and the existence of “Bischler's extermination team”. This group of Hitler's accomplices consisted of natives of Ukraine.
The documents provide information that before the war in Dorogobuzh, there were 1,500 residential buildings and about 12,000 people, after the liberation of the region – 64 buildings and 125 local residents. “The stay of the Germans in the city of Dorogobuzh and the Dorogobuzh region was accompanied, as established by the investigation, by the systematic and mass extermination of Soviet civilians and prisoners of war,” says the act drawn up in September 1943. It reports that the site of mass executions in the area was an anti-tank ditch located north of the city.
“Many corpses bear traces of severe beatings and broken bones. The murders were committed not only with the use of firearms, but also by breaking and crushing the skulls with blunt objects, ”the expert report on the study of the remains says. The materials say that Soviet citizens were killed in groups of 30-40 people, and then they filled up the corpses in a common pit.
In particular, there is evidence that in August 1942 Nazi accomplices destroyed the local House of Invalids. About 70 people living there were loaded into the back of cars “like firewood” and taken out of the city to the ditch. After that, the belongings of the disabled were plundered, and the next day a wedding was held in the empty Home of the Disabled.
The archival materials contain information that the members of the Bischler Extermination Team who were directly involved in the atrocities were organized in June 1942. The group of fascist accomplices was headed by a white émigré Vladimir Bishler. It included former Soviet military personnel, natives of Ukraine Vasily Boyko and Vasily Kuvichko, as well as a native of Dorogobuzh Zakhar Khokhlov. For active participation in the destruction of the population of the Smolensk region, Boyko and Khokhlov received the rank of captain, Kuvichko – lieutenant. All three were shot in December 1984 by the decision of the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District.
In December, the Investigative Committee of Russia resumed its investigation into the criminal case of the crimes of the Nazis during the occupation in the Krasnodar Territory. A criminal case was opened in 1970 by the KGB of the USSR with the aim of identifying members of the SS 10A Sonderkommando and their accomplices involved in the genocide of civilians in the Kuban.
