ГУЛаг Палестины

Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian

Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, pp. 123-124)

M. Kowal

BOLSHEVIK MURDERS

I am Michael Kowal, from the town of Kaminka Strumylova in the Lviw Region

in Ukraine. During the communist occupation of Western Ukraine I personally

witnessed three arrests in my native town on June 22, 1941, those of Bohdan

Mulkevich, and Michael Mulkevich who lived on Zamok Street, and Michael

Mulkevich's blacksmith apprentice, presumably from the village of Rymaniw in

the same Region. They were suspected of disloyalty to the communist regime.

After th communist retreat from Kaminska-Strumylova they were found in the

town prison with 33 other victims, murdered in a horribly sadistic manner. All

the corpses were tied together with barbed wire and all bore signs of terrible

beatings. Some had nails driven into their skulls. None of them had been shot

to death. Their bodies, nude and badly mauled, were practically unrecognizable

to their relatives.

Bohdan Mulkevish's wife recognized her husband, but, trying to verify her

identification by his gold teeth, found them missing. All the bodies were

taken away fro interment.

That Same day 19 other bodies were discovered near the village of Todan

about 9 or 10 kilometers from Kaminka-Strumylova. They were tied to trees and

their chests were pierced with bayonets. These were all identified by

relatives and taken away for burial. (M. Kowal, Bolshevik Murders, in The

Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of

Russian Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)

Andriy Vodopyan

A RAVINE FILLED WITH THE BODIES OF CHILDREN

I was serving in the Soviet Russian Army. Our artillery unit was

retreating before the Germans in the direction of Yeletsk. On September 18,

1941, our unit came to a wide ravine situated about 14 miles from Chartsysk

station, and about 60 miles from the city of Staline. The ravine stretched

from the station of Chartsysk to the station of Snizhy. When we approached the

ravine we were taken aback by a horrible sight. The whole ravine was filled

with the bodies of children. They were lying in different positions. Most of

them were from 14 to 16 years of age. They were dressed in black, and we

recognized them as students of the F.S.U., a well-known trade and craft

school. We counted 370 bodies altogether. All of them had been killed by

machine gun fire.

This group of children was being evacuated from Staline when the Germans

neared the city. The children had marched 60 miles, and, exhausted and unable

to continue walking, asked for transportation. The officers in charge promised

to send them trucks. Instead of trucks, a detachment of the Russian political

police (NKVD) arrived, and shot the children in cold blood with machine guns.

This ravine, filled with hundreds of bodies of slain children, moved even the

soldiers, accustomed as they were to the sight of death. (Andriy Vodopyan, A

Ravine Filled With the Bodies of Children, in S. O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black

Deeds of the Kremlin: A White Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian

Communist Terror, Toronto, 1953, p. 529)

Rev. J. Chyrva was imprisoned in 1941 when the Russian Communist armies were

withdrawing from the city of Riwne. He happened to be cast into one of those

jails in which the communists, fleeing from advancing German armies, attempted

to rid themselves of as many prisoners as possible by throwing hand-grenades

into the crowded cells. When the first grenade was thrown into the cell where

Rev. J. Chyrva was kept, he was the first to fall - his foot shattered. On him

fell many mutilated bodies, covering him, thus saving his life. Later, when

people came into the cell, they found all the prisoners dead with the exception

of Rev. J. Chyrva. He is alive today, a witness of that horrible

manslaughter. (Rev. Lev Buchak, Persecution of Ukrainian Protestants under the

Soviet Rule, in S. O. Pidhainy (ed.), The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: A White

Book, Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist Terror, Toronto,

1953, p. 529)

The Bolsheviks had arrested thousands of Ukrainian patriots, and prior to their

retreat, they killed them savagely. For some reason even highly regarded

Jewish authors understate the number of Ukrainian victims of Bolshevik terror.

Gerald Reitlinger gives a figure of three to four thousand in Lviv alone.

Hilberg speaks of "the Bolsheviks deporting Ukrainians," but he does not

furnish any overall figures. But on the basis of a German document (RSHA

IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR no. 28, 20 July 1941, No-2943), which I was

unable to verify, he recounts one particularly horrible episode:

In Kremenets 100-150 Ukrainians had been killed by the Soviets.

When some of the exhumed corpses were found without skin, rumors

circulated that the Ukrainians had been thrown into kettles of

boiling water. The Ukrainian population retaliated by seizing

130 Jews and beating them to death with clubs.

He also quotes the French collaborator Dr. Frederic as saying that the

Bolsheviks killed eighteen thousand Ukrainian political prisoners in Lviv and

its outskirts alone.

Basing his remarks on an anonymous article entitled "The Ethnocide of

Ukrainians in the USSR," in the dissident journal Ukrainian Herald, Issue 7-8,

the Ukrainian-American publicist Lew Shankowsky gives the following number of