Genocide. With special cynicism

March 22nd marks the anniversary of the Khatyn tragedy. Here are the facts that we must remember.

The case of Vladimir Katriuk, who served in the 118th punitive Ukrainian national battalion of the SS and whom the Supreme Court on March 18th found guilty of genocide (Article 127 of the Criminal Code) of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War, is the first of a kind in the history of sovereign Belarus

BELTA

A single plan

It is one thing when troops confront each other in a battle, and quite another when slaughterers exterminate innocent children, women, and old people. Only because they live on their land and this is at odds with the general plan of Nazi Germany. According to the plan, most Belarusians were to die, the rest were to become slaves of a higher race. 
The Katriuk case confirms that all war crimes and punitive operations were carried out on our land when Führer and his henchmen demanded that. The Nuremberg Tribunal pointed out that an attack on the Soviet Union had been considered since the autumn of 1940, and methods of the upcoming total aggression had been discussed in advance.   
The plan envisaged the destruction of the USSR as an independent state and its dismemberment, the creation of the so-called imperial commissariats and the transformation of Byelorussia and other territories into German colonies. In order to clear the way to the East. The methods of genocide included terror and taking hostages (who were often shot at the slaughterers’ discretion), murders and tortures of prisoners of war and civilians, looting and violence. Towns and villages were completely devastated — this cannot be justified by any military necessity. 

“The scale of the genocide policy by Nazi Germany and its accomplices against the population of Belarus and the Soviet peoples from the first days of the Great Patriotic War had no precedent in the world history, and this fact is undeniable,” stressed the state prosecutor on the genocide case, Deputy Prosecutor General of Belarus Aleksei Stuk at the oral hearing in court. “The occupation of the BSSR lasted 1,133 days. Each of those days, the Nazis exterminated innocent civilians and prisoners of war, having killed about three million residents of Belarus. Each of those days became a tragic and at the same time heroic page of the struggle of the Belarusian people.”  

Historians have established that in preparation for the attack on the USSR, German intelligence agencies actively co-operated with nationalist and emigrant organisations. 
Collaborationist formations, including Lithuanian, Latvian and Ukrainian units, tried especially hard. The predecessor of the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, where Katriuk served, was the Bukovina Kuren — a formation created under the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. Ukrainian historians try to present them as fighters for the national idea, heroes of the liberation movement; yet, they will forever be remembered precisely as punishers of the civilian population.
The current US and EU state policy towards Belarus and Russia is based on the ideology of fascism since the forms and methods of modern Nazis are essentially the same. They aim to divide nations and peoples again, recognising some as civilised and others as unworthy. Having thrown off their masks, they have launched a massive campaign to discredit the heroic deeds of the Soviet people, who at the cost of millions of lives freed them from the brown plague of the 20th century. 

Katriuk was charged with genocide back in 1987

In Belarus, the 118th Ukrainian national police battalion participated in punitive operations German, Daredevil, Cottbus and others. This is a well-known fact, and some of the criminals were convicted. However, thousands of slaughterers like Katriuk disappeared into the countries of the collective West, which kindly provided Nazi war criminals with shelter, openly and cynically disregarding international legal obligations as well as the verdict of the Nuremberg trials.  
Few people know that Katriuk was actually charged as long ago as 1987, long before his death in Canada in 2015. And he knew about this, which is confirmed by the documents obtained from Canada by the investigation group. The slaughterer denied all charges and claimed that his 118th police battalion of Ukrainian nationalists was just maintaining law and order in Belarus, protecting residents from partisans, and swore that he had not heard anything about punitive operations, had not shot, had not killed…    
Back then, legal tricks and subterfuges allowed the criminal to avoid extradition and punishment. 

The survivors wanted to die from what they saw

The investigation by the Prosecutor General’s Office allowed to establish the scale of Katriuk’s crimes. Here are just a few episodes.
From the testimony of Antonina Smolenskaya, who told about the punitive operations in the spring of 1943 in Vileika, “Germans drove us all from the end of the village to one place and sorted there. Those who were to be burnt were sent to one barn, those to be sent to labour slavery in Germany — to another barn, and those to let go — to the vegetable garden.” She was released. The men who were to be burnt were first tortured, fascists carved stars on their bodies. It is also known from the testimony that the criminals were wearing Nazi uniforms and speaking Russian and Ukrainian. 
“On March 22nd, 1943, as part of the 118th battalion in the area of the Pleshchenitsy – Logoisk highway near the village of Guba, he killed at least 30 people by shooting and tried to take the lives of at least 12 more people who were engaged in wood cutting along the specified highway.”  
In Khatyn, on March 22nd, 1943, the accused took the lives of 149 people, including at least 77 children, as part of the 118th battalion, together with the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. 
A lot has been said about this unthinkable tragedy. The Khatyn massacre survivor, Iosif Kaminsky, recalled in his testimony how people were being burnt alive in the barn, how the dead and wounded were falling upon him, how the burning roof collapsed, and how he got out from under the bodies of his fellow countrymen and crawled to the door. He found his son, still alive but almost cut in half by machine-gun fire, who before dying managed to ask if his mum was alive… 
According to the testimonies of Vasiura, Meleshko, Kurka and other Nazi collaborators, the squad under Katriuk’s command took an active part in those atrocities. He drove people into the barn, stood in a cordon, set fire to them and shot them dead. They say, he displayed particular cruelty. 
The children and grandchildren of those who know and who personally experienced horrible things spoke in court. Thanks to the archives, both victims and punishers speak, as well as court verdicts... It hurts as they speak. Our people, like cattle, were slaughtered. The Nazis burnt people alive, mutilated their bodies, and hid the traces of their crimes deep underground. Yet, as our people say, even the dead can talk. And we must remember and not let others forget.
No matter how hard the West and the semi-official time-servers of ‘Nezalezhnaya’ [Ukraine’s nickname for 'independent'] try to present people like Katriuk as fighters for the national idea, they will forever remain slaughterers and traitors in the world history.

Wreath from Aleksandr Lukashenko laid at Khatyn State Memorial Complex

On March 22nd, during a commemorative ceremony at the Khatyn State Memorial Complex, a wreath from Belarus’ President Aleksandr Lukashenko has been laid at the Eternal Flame. Senior officials, heads of state bodies, labour teams, and the public have taken part in the ceremony.

FOR REFERENCE

Vladimir Katriuk was an accomplice of Nazi criminals. Having the USSR citizenship, he carried out a number of punitive operations, as part of the 118th Ukrainian SS battalion, in the Belarusian villages of Khatyn, Chmelevichi, Selishche, Zarechye, Koteli, Guba, Rassokhi, Malye Nestanovichi, Dalkovichi, Kozyri, Vileika, Osovy and Luchinsky Bor near the village of Kamenskaya Sloboda… As part of an armed battalion, he killed at least 393 people, including 125 children, attempted to kill at least 21 more people, robbed and burned their homes, forced the population into labour slavery in Germany. There was collected irrefutable evidence on 12 criminal episodes of the accused, whose guilt was confirmed by the interrogation protocols of his crime partners, surviving villagers, archival documents, including German ones, and more.
When commanding the squad of the first platoon of the first company of the battalion at the rank of sergeant, the accused voluntarily implemented criminal orders and was involved in the most brutal acts of violence against the civilian population. He conducted punitive operations jointly and in co-ordination with Hryhoriy Vasiura, Chief of staff of the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, Commander of the first platoon of the first company Vasyl Meleshko (convicted by the verdict of the Military Tribunal of the Belarusian Military District of December 26th, 1976 and May 22nd, 1975 under Part 1 of Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the BSSR), Squad leader Lakusta, low-ranking policemen of the same battalion Kurka, Knap, Lozinsky and Sakhno (convicted by the verdict of the judicial board for criminal cases of the Grodno Regional Court on March 15th, 1974 under Part 1 of Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the BSSR).    

By Lyudmila Gladkaya