.Author -Adam CIRA
Of the Ukrainian nationalists arrested in Krakow, all the women, as well as most of the men, were first placed in the cells of the women's branch of the Helclow institution, and some of the men were placed in the Montelupich prison in Krakow. The group that remained under the care of the Ukrainian Relief Committee The transported nationalists numbered several dozen people; among them were two brothers of Stepan Bandera - Alexander and Vasily.
On July 20, 1942, the security police sent 70 prisoners numbered 49689-49758 from Krakow to KL Auschwitz. Among them, mostly Poles, were 24 Banderaites, who received numbers from 49721 to 49744. After undergoing quarantine in block No. 11, they were initially placed in block No. 13.
The following excerpt from the memoirs of former prisoner Jan Olshovsky (No. 6157), who worked on registering newly brought prisoners, most likely refers to these Ukrainians: “Only in one case did our clerks compiling the inventory show indifference to the fate of newly arrived prisoners. This was when filling out data relating to a group of Banderaites who were sent to the camp because they had antagonized... their Nazi masters. Then part of block No. 11 was intended for a quarantine room, and a list of this group was placed at the entrance late in the evening. Arrogant and arrogant, confident in the leniency and privileges promised to them by the SS, these prisoners behaved with open hostility towards the Polish prisoners and started a brawl, which was stopped with the use of force by the block servants who were called in.”
The first of those prisoners, called in the camp Bandera Gruppe or Bandera Bewegung ("Bandera Group", "Bandera Movement"), was registered Vasily Bandera (No. 49721), a philosophy student living in Krakow. Together with him were brought: Leontin Dyakiv (No. 49723) - a graduate of the faculties of law and theology; Dmitry Yatsiv (No. 49727) - lawyer; Roman Polutranka (No. 49737) - bank employee from Stanislav; Nikolai Koval (No. 49729) - journalist from Drohobych, Petr Mirchuk(No. 49734) - journalist; Stepan Lenkavsky(No. 49731) - author of the “Decalogue of the Ukrainian Nationalist”. Only the last two of those listed survived the Auschwitz camp.
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Vasily Bandera
Soon - on July 24 - 60 prisoners were brought from the Montelupich prison to Auschwitz. They received numbers from 51426 to 51485. These were mainly Polish political prisoners.
Another brother of Stepan Bandera, Alexander (No. 51427), Doctor of Social and Political Sciences, was transported with them; Later he died in the camp before his younger brother Vasily. His death in the Neubau construction team was indirectly facilitated by a student from Przemysl, Franciszek Podkulski (No. 5919). Acting as a vorarbeiter (work manager), he forced Alexander to do backbreaking work.
The Bandera survivors of Auschwitz claimed that they were also abused by Józef Kral (No. 17401), a construction technician by profession who performed the duties of an oberkapo at Neubau. This, however, is not confirmed in other sources; For example, we can cite the review of Stanislav Gadomsky (No. 18878): “He was a very decent person... He worked in this team for more than a year, if not for Kral, he would have given up the ghost in the camp. Thanks to Kral’s help, I somehow survived, however, Kral also helped many others, shouted a lot, but did not cause harm.”
Physical overexertion and, most likely, beatings by other Polish prisoners were the reason why Alexander Bandera was placed in hospital block No. 20. Here, on August 10, 1942, an SS doctor during an examination selected 75 prisoners, who were killed on the same day by order of the SS by injection of phenol in heart. One of those killed was Alexander Bandera.
Pyotr Mirchuk, who settled in Canada after the war, states in his memoirs that Vasily Bandera was persecuted and beaten by Polish prisoners, members of an underground group in the camp while working at Neubau. The main culprit in his death, according to Mirchuk, was also the aforementioned Franciszek Podkulski, who allegedly said, mocking Vasily: “You are Bandera, and I am a panther.”
From the message of Leon Soberaj (No. 1879) it follows that Vasily Bandera was confused with his brother Stepan, on whose orders the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland Bronislaw Peratsky was killed in 1934. This became the indirect cause of Vasily’s death: “The main organizer of the execution of the sentence to the Ukrainian, the murderer of Peratsky (alleged - A. Ts.), there was Frank Podkulski, he was helped in this by: Bolek Jusinski (Juzinski), chimney sweeps Tadek and Edek, capo “Neubau” Kazik and others, whose names I don’t remember. ...Franek Podkulski and Kazik drew up a plan for the execution of the sentence. Frank became the killer, and the others watched so that no one could see. Frank pushed the killer Bandera with an imperceptible movement, and he fell from a height... Seeing this, one of the Ukrainians reported to the political department (Politische Abteilung)... Those who took part in the execution of the sentence were called to the political department... Bolek Jusinski (Juzinski), both chimney sweeps - Tadek and Edek and others, after several days in the bunker... followed the criminal transport to Sachsenhausen. Frank and Kazik took full responsibility for the execution of the sentence and died in block No. 11.”
Vladimir Martynets (No. 49773) testified that Józef Kral threw Vasily Bandera and his wheelbarrow from a height of three meters. The latter categorically denied that he allegedly intended to mock prisoners from the “Bandera group”.
Regarding the causes of death of one of Stepan Bandera's brothers, most likely Vasily, Zygmund Gaudasinski (No. 9907) made the following statement: “In the summer of 1942, he worked in the Neubau team as an assistant clerk... After arriving in block 16, capo Edward Radomski pointed out to us a small prisoner who used the scaffold to deliver mortar to the plasterers, while declaring that he was the Ukrainian criminal Bandera, responsible for the death of many Poles. Then he noticed that warrbeiter Felix Maruta (later one of the capos of the team) treated Bandera cruelly, claiming that this was retribution for the crimes that he had committed against his family and other Poles.”
As a result of the above events, on August 5, 1942, Vasily Bandera was taken to a camp hospital, where he later died .
Jerzy Taby, who was in the camp under the name Wesolowski (No. 27273), testified that when he worked as an orderly, he witnessed the death of one of Bandera’s brothers (obviously it was Vasily. - A. Ts.), who died of diarrhea in hospital block No. 28. In his testimony, he also testified that many Ukrainians used to come to his room and ask that Vasily be well taken care of.
As a result of the investigation carried out into the death of Bandera's brother by the camp Gestapo, Franciszek Podkulski was put in the punishment cell of block No. 11, and subsequently, on January 25, 1943, he was shot at the “wall of executions.” At the same time, Felix Suligowski (No. 8635), a clerk for the Neubau construction team, who was a city employee before the war, was executed. At the same wall, the Neubau capo Wilhelm Szyma (No. 6038) and the prisoner of this team, Józef Lichtenberg (No. 988), as well as, as already mentioned, Kazimierz Kolodynski, ended their lives.
Former prisoner Ludwik Rajewski (No. 42170) claims in his report that, through the mediation of captain Włodzimierz Koliński (No. 3135), he was in contact with an underground group of military men consisting of Polish prisoners from the Neubau team, led by Kazimierz Kolodynski and Felix Suligowski. In his opinion, after the death of Vasily and Alexander Bandera, this group was discovered, and 13 of its members were shot at the “wall of executions.”
The camp Gestapo also suspected Józef Kral, who, as already mentioned, performed the functions of an oberkapo in the Neubau team, of involvement in the death of Stepan Bandera’s brothers. He was also accused of collaborating with a secret camp organization and on December 18, 1942 he was imprisoned in the punishment cell of block No. 11, from where, after a difficult investigation with torture, he was released on February 15, 1943.
On August 8, 1942, 63 prisoners were sent from Montelupich prison to KL Auschwitz, who received numbers 57317-57379. 23 members of the OUN(B) then arrived with Polish political prisoners. Like other Ukrainian nationalists who ended up in the camp, they were mostly arrested in various populated areas on the territory of the pre-war South-Eastern Kresy* of the Second Republic of Poland. Most often they were sent to Montelyupykh after pre-trial detention in other prisons, for example Ternopil or Lviv. Registration of Bandera members from this transport was carried out in block No. 19.
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* From Polish kresy - outskirts, border areas.
Status and living conditions of Banderaites in the camp
Former prisoner Kazimierz Smolen (No. 1327), who worked in the Aufnahme (“Reception”) team registering those newly brought to Auschwitz, claims that successive batches of Ukrainians from the “Bandera group” were transported from Montelupich prison in Krakow by SS Hauptscharführer Malotki, who was in the camp contacted SS man Hans Starck. By order of Malotka, Ukrainians from this group were to be kept in the Auschwitz concentration camp under reliable protection. Carrying out this order, Stark decided to place Bandera’s troops in isolated block No. 11.Nikolai Klimishin (No. 57340), brought to Auschwitz on August 8, 1942, described the first hours of his stay in the camp: “In the evening, Poles came to block No. 11 with sticks. There were more than ten of them, they started asking who was from the OUN(B). None of us responded. They asked me this three times, threatening that they would kill me on the spot if they found me. When, despite everything, none of us volunteered, they began asking for first and last names one after another. If the name and surname sounded Polish, they were sent to the block... When it was my turn, he told me my real surname and that I was Ukrainian. But when asked “where from” he said that from Zhitomir. “Where is Zhitomir?” “Near Kyiv,” he answered. “So you’re not from Polish Ukraine?” “No,” I give the answer. “Then go to the block,” one of them decided.”
List of transports along with the names of Bandera members transported to KL Auschwitz
During the transfer of other Ukrainian nationalists to the camp, Malotki learned how Bandera’s followers were met in block No. 11, and went there with Hans Stark to talk with Bandera prisoners. Klimishin, Rak and others spoke on behalf of the Ukrainians. The result of the complaints made at that time was the transfer of all Banderaites to two premises of block No. 17. The Banderaites were together and spoke to each other exclusively in their native language. They even created a Ukrainian choir.
In addition, it should be added that in hospital block No. 20 a separate ward was allocated for sick Banderaites. The fact is that the Polish prisoners suspected them of collaborating with the SS men, and the Ukrainians in the camp hospital wanted to provide medical treatment themselves. medical care to his friends, fearing the Poles.
Doctor Vladislav Feikel (No. 5647) claims that Bandera’s followers received a separate room in ward No. 4 on the first floor of the block, where they had two of their own nurses - Mikhail Shevchuk (No. 121343), Feikel’s longtime friend from study, and a young orderly Leonid Mostovich ( No. 57353). However, they did not have their own doctor.
In his earlier memoirs, Feikel wrote much more, not skimping on criticism of Bandera’s followers, pointing out that before their imprisonment in Auschwitz they faithfully served Hitler and his regime. According to Feikel, this group was grotesque and at the same time tragic: “Replacing the expected honor with a sad stay in camp conditions did not teach them anything. They were surrounded by universal hatred and contempt from almost the entire camp, because everyone saw that they were responsible for thousands of murdered innocent people. Also for these reasons, even in the hospital ward, other prisoners could not hide their hostility towards them. Despite this, we doctors tried to treat them as correctly as possible.”
The already mentioned Leon Soberai remembered that during conversations with Bandera’s followers in Auschwitz, some of these prisoners posed as ministers of the failed Ukrainian government.
In addition, according to Feikel, Bandera’s supporters emphasized that they were honorary prisoners (Ehrenha..ftlinge). They were not shot or gassed, and they were also exempt from some bullying, but that was where their privileges ended. In the main camp they were (as already mentioned) in a separate block; in the camp hospital they had a separate room located in the infectious diseases department. Thus, in the ward where the Banderaites were hospitalized, all kinds of cases of typhus, diphtheria and other diseases were concentrated, since representatives of this special group did not want to be treated with other prisoners placed in the hospital solely because of illness, without being sorted according to nationality.
“He forbade his colleagues,” Feikel writes, “from giving them medicines obtained illegally by prisoners, limiting them only to the “official” supply... Now this may seem cruel or inhumane to some, but it was a normal reaction; could not forgive them for the recent past, as well as for their then loyalty to the regime.”
Among the Banderaites brought to Auschwitz along with Nikolai Klimishin was Lev Rebet (No. 57368) - one of Stepan Bandera’s closest associates, a member of the Ukrainian government formed on the basis of the “June 30 Act” in 1941. He survived the camp, just like the one brought another member of this government came here a little earlier - Stepan Lenkavsky. After the war, Dr. Lev Rebet was one of the founders and an active figure in exile of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Abroad.
Lev Rebet
In 1942, Banderaites - except for the two named transports - were no longer brought en masse from Montelupich, but individually they were still sent from this prison to KL Auschwitz. For example, on September 30, 1942, Jaroslav Rak (No. 66676) was brought in, before the war he was convicted and sentenced for assistance provided to the murderer of Bronislaw Peracki. Only a few of them were still sent from the Montelupich prison to KL Auschwitz in 1943, and two of them were brought there on May 8, 1943 from the Prague prison.
Nikolai Klimishin enjoyed the greatest authority among Bandera prisoners, and they called him headman. He mentioned this during one of his conversations with Ludwik Raevsky, when he claimed that he knew about the existence of an underground organization in the camp and wanted to convey to it the basic postulates of the Bandera group, so that the most weakened of them would be given work “under the roof.” Klimishin also demanded that a Ukrainian doctor, Bandera member Vasily Strontsitsky, be hired in block No. 11. This was approved by the Polish prisoners: Jozef Cyrankiewicz (No. 62933), Stanislaw Klodzinski (No. 20019) and Adam Kurilovich (No. 18487).
It should be noted that in the first months of their stay in Auschwitz, relations between Polish prisoners and Banderaites were extremely tense. The situation became especially tense when one day a drunken SS orderly, Josef Kler, entered a separate hospital ward in block No. 20, probably by mistake. He was going to select several sick Ukrainian nationalists to kill by injection of phenol into the heart, but he failed. But Bandera’s followers mistakenly believed that this was a provocation prepared by Polish prisoners, and began to complain and report them to the camp Gestapo.
Vladislav Feikel, realizing that the situation was becoming very dangerous, decided to try to change the relationship. To do this, he went to block No. 17, where Bandera’s supporters lived, and said that he wanted to discuss the affairs of their patients. Bandera’s members replied that they would not talk to the Pole about this topic. “At that moment,” recalls Feikel, “he came to my aid. Lucky case. A tall, dark-haired prisoner jumped out of the third-tier bed, came up to me and greeted me warmly. At first I didn’t recognize him, but soon I remembered: this is Mikhail Shevchuk, my old university friend from Lvov. Shevchuk interrupted the unpleasant and tense discussion and told me that he would visit me in the evening.”
He kept his word, and that same evening he came to the promised meeting with several other Banderaites. The latter pledged to be loyal to the Poles and asked for further assistance for their patients.
Feikel accepted their offer, hoping that in this way the danger could be averted. He appointed a reliable Polish doctor, Tadeusz Szymanski, to take care of their patients, and also continued to guarantee work in the hospital as nurses for Bandera’s Shevchuk and Mostovich. From that moment on, the relationship changed.
“It even got to the point,” recalls Feikel, “that Bandera’s men, until the end of my stay in the camp, warned me about some unfavorable plans of the Gestapo in relation to the hospital. (It must be recognized that Shevchuk and Mostovich, after the evacuation of the Auschwitz camp, helped a group of Poles located in the camp in Ebensee.) ".
On the third of October 1943 from prison on the street. Loncki in Lvov, 239 women (numbers 64085-64323) and 730 men (numbers 154392-155121) were brought to Auschwitz, who were placed in Brzezinka. Among the prisoners of this transport there were about 50 Ukrainian nationalists. Thanks to the efforts of Nikolai Klimishin in the camp Gestapo, whose employee was SS Unterscharführer Klaus Dylewski, who before the war studied in Gdansk with Ukrainian students, future members of the OUN, they were all transferred from Brzezinka to the main camp in Auschwitz and housed in block No. 17, which many of them It undoubtedly saved their lives.
Stepan Petelitsky (No. 154922) also arrived with this transport, arrested by the Germans for nationalist activities and sent to prison in Zolochiv, from where he was transported to the Lviv prison on Lontsky. He was later transferred to Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee, where he was released on May 6, 1945.
The next large transport - 55 women (numbers 66315-66369) and 230 men (numbers 159046-159275) - arrived from this prison to Auschwitz on October 28 of the same year.
Along with the Polish political prisoners, 132 Ukrainian nationalists (including 122 men and 10 women), mostly Ukrainian students, arrived in these transports. In the mentioned Lvov transports, in addition to members of the OUN(B), there were also members of the UPA, which since the spring of 1943 formed the armed wing of the OUN(B). Unlike the Polish prisoners, most of these people in the camp also survived. It can be assumed that the reason for the above-mentioned arrests among OUN-UPA members brought to the Auschwitz concentration camp from Lvov was the transfer of OUN-UPA actions from Volyn to Eastern Galicia - this caused mass repressions of the Germans against the Ukrainians.
The Banderaites, stationed in block No. 17 in the fall of 1942, occupied two rooms and were under the auspices of the political department or the camp Gestapo, working in various good teams “under the roof”, which gave them a chance of survival. They worked, for example, in warehouses for prisoner clothing or things received “for safekeeping” from prisoners brought to the camp, in the camp hospital, bakery, slaughterhouse, as well as in kitchens (for prisoners and for SS men).
Three Bandera members were included in the Aufnahme team, where Kazimierz Smolen worked: Nikolai Klimishin, Zenon Vinnitsky and Boris Witoshinsky. Polish prisoners interpreted this obvious fact of the selection of Ukrainians from the “Bandera group” as certain type infiltration by the political department of the teams to which they were assigned.
As it turned out later, these fears were premature and the suspicions were unfounded, which Kazimierz Smolen confirms in his message: “I have not heard that any of the Ukrainians from our team reported to the political department. And they had such an opportunity, since the mentioned SS Hauptscharführer Malotki appeared in Auschwitz from time to time, talked with the Ukrainians and was interested in the conditions of their stay in the camp, therefore, if they wanted, they could tell him their comments.”
Among the Banderaites imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp, one could notice not only anti-Polish, but also anti-German sentiments.
Czeslaw Arkuszynski (No. 131603), working in the camp hospital, describes the following case: “Another patient who, before waking up from anesthesia, spoke out against the Germans, but also against the Poles, was a Ukrainian nationalist named Czajkowski. He made whole speeches about a free Ukraine. From what he said, it followed that he was a very intelligent and educated person.”
It is worth noting that positive feedback Kazimierz Smolen about the already mentioned three Bandera members working with him in Aufnahme: “Speaking about our Ukrainian teammates, it must be added that they collaborated with us - the Poles - in compiling an illegal list of transports with prisoners. This list was secretly sent from the Auschwitz concentration camp and was preserved. If the SS men from the political department found out about this activity of ours, its participants were threatened with death. In the mentioned list of transports you can recognize, among others, the hand of Klimishin.”
Spies from a group of Banderaites
Block No. 17
Former prisoner Hermann Langbein (No. 60335) claims that the SS took advantage of the irreconcilable hostility between Bandera and the Poles by recruiting spies from this Ukrainian group.
One of them was Bogdan Komarnitsky (No. 3637), who formally did not belong to the Bandera group, but was completely under their influence in the camp. Before establishing contacts with Bandera, he was a prisoner on duty in the punishment team and in the correctional team in block No. 11, where he mocked others and boasted about the number of killed prisoners. Later he worked as a clerk in the camp office registering newly arrived prisoners, first in the main camp in Auschwitz, then in Brzezinka, where he saved the life of the Jewish woman Eliza Springer, directing her during registration to the group of those who were left alive, and not to those doomed to death in gas chambers. In January 1945, he was transported to Mauthausen. After the war, former prisoner Michal Kula (No. 2718) testified: “During transportation, he was always accompanied by the SS Obersturmführer transport commandant, and only thanks to this did he reach Mauthausen alive. There they “recommended” him to local prisoners, who actually beat him, but he survived and was transferred by the SS to a team in Melku.”
According to Langbein, Boris Kravchenko (No. 105441), brought to Auschwitz on March 4, 1943 from Flossenburg, was also a dangerous spy. Langbein, citing the post-war testimony of Rapportführer Wilhelm Clausen, claims that Kravchenko belonged to the Bandera group, although it is unknown whether he was Ukrainian. While serving as a doctor in the punishment cell of block No. 11, he reported when prison staff helped prisoners there. Kravchenko was later transferred to the Furstengrube subcamp in Wesol, from where he was again going to be transported on September 18, 1944 to Leitmeritz (Flossenburg subcamp). Then the lagerführer of the subcamp in Wesol, named Schmidt, warned Polish prisoners about Kravchenko’s informing activities, who were supposedly going to lynch him.
Transports to the Mauthausen concentration camp and the overall balance of losses
Most of the Bandera prisoners there survived their stay in the Auschwitz concentration camp, who, thanks to the patronage of the camp Gestapo, later worked in privileged prison teams. In addition, they received large quantities of food parcels from the Red Cross. Also, some of them were later released from the Auschwitz concentration camp, for example, Yaroslav Rak gained freedom on December 18, 1944, and Nikolai Klimishin, Stepan Lenkavsky and Lev Rebet were released the next day - December 19.Despite this, Bandera also suffered losses, especially in the first months of their imprisonment in the Auschwitz concentration camp. For example, out of 48 Ukrainian nationalists brought from the Montelyupich prison on July 22 and August 8, 1942, 16 people died here.
Also, more than ten Banderaites died in Ebensee (where they ended up from Mauthausen after their evacuation there from Auschwitz in January 1945) from the terrible famine that raged in this camp in the spring of 1945. As Polish prisoner Jan Dziopek (No. 5636) recalls: “Back then, hundreds of prisoners were dying of hunger every day. The crematorium did not have time to burn bodies, so heaps of corpses lay under open air» .
Of the nearly two hundred Bandera prisoners in Auschwitz, and after the evacuation in Mauthausen and Ebensee, a total of more than thirty died.
Instead of an afterword
This is the true picture of Bandera’s stay in the Auschwitz concentration camp. There were few of them, which contrasts both with the number of other categories of prisoners, and with the statements currently disseminated by pro-Bandera propagandists about the mass and “active struggle” of the OUN on the anti-Nazi front. On the face special treatment to them from the camp authorities - they were not gassed, not shot at the “wall of executions”, not hanged in front of the line, not destroyed as hostages. They were in a privileged position there, occupied a separate block, received “thieves” positions and food parcels. Yes, some of them died in concentration camps, but the ratio of deaths to the total number of Bandera prisoners is also several times lower compared to other categories of prisoners. At the same time, let’s be frank, their death was caused exclusively by “natural camp” reasons: after all, Auschwitz was a death camp.
As for the brothers of Stepan Bandera, the Nazis, in fact, had nothing to do with the death of Vasily - he died at the hands of imprisoned Poles who took revenge on him for the “exploits” of his brother Stepan. It would seem that the Nazi administration could well turn a blind eye to this - but no: a thorough investigation is carried out, the culprits are identified and executed, and the Polish underground organization is being repressed along the way... And here, again, a special attitude is manifested... And Alexander suffered a difficult prison sentence life was arranged by the prisoners themselves.
Also interesting is the fact that some Ukrainian nationalists were released from Auschwitz in 1944. Sometimes, especially at the initial stage, prisoners were released from the camp “for educational purposes.” However, while Ukrainian nationalists were released, for Soviet prisoners of war, Jews, and Poles there was only one “exit” - through the crematorium pipe.
List of sources here: Repost:
Events in Ukraine aroused interest in the genesis of local nationalism. To understand it, it is best to turn to the experience of the “Banderaites” in the Gulag in the years 1946-1955 - an environment in which there is a “tear” best shows the structure of communities. In the camps, the Ukrainians showed themselves to be a cruel and fanatical force, - unlike other communities in the Gulag - capable of action.
Archivist and historian Vladimir Kozlov wrote about what the Ukrainian nationalist communities in the Gulag were like (“Social Sciences and Modernity”, 2004, No. 6, pp. 122-136 - “Society in Captivity: Conflict Self-Organization of the Camp Community and the Crisis of Management Gulag (late 1920s - early 1950s)."
“In the broth of the “bitch war” and criminal terror of the late 1940s - early 1950s, there was a rapid process of social structuring and self-organization of prisoners. In terms of frequency of mention in documents, after “thieves” and “bitches” came ethnic (ethnopolitical) groups and organizations. Western Ukrainians (Ukrainian nationalists, Westernizers), “Chechens” (“Caucasians”, “Muslims”) were in the lead; Lithuanians were somewhat inferior to them; some groups consisted entirely or partially of former Vlasovites.
In the “bitch war”, the “Caucasians” stood out, causing clashes with Russian prisoners in Chernogorskstroy in January 1952, during work in the pit of the Kuibyshev hydroelectric power station (Kuneevsky ITL) in March 1952, etc. Ukrainians became a particularly active and influential group of political prisoners nationalists.
Unlike the “enemies of the people” of the 1930s. they were free from a complex of guilt before the “native Soviet state”, did not limit themselves to the framework of camp legality, had specific skills for living underground, did not hesitate to kill, and most importantly, could technically resist thieves’ groups, since among them there were people convicted of political banditry.
The activities of Ukrainian nationalists actually took the operatives by surprise. The certificate from the management of Peschany ITL noted that “The OUN underground in the western regions of Ukraine establishes contact with the families of Ukrainian nationalists, bandits and gang collaborators evicted to remote areas Soviet Union, through secret writing and encrypted correspondence sent via mail, as well as by sending special couriers and messengers to places of special settlement.” Through couriers and agents among special Ukrainian settlers, foreign centers of the OUN and Bandera were able to contact the camp underground and even coordinate the activities of underground groups and organizations.
The operational department of the Sandy ITL believed that “as liaison officers of the OUN-Bandera underground between camp departments and with the will, some of the employees of economic agencies who communicate with prisoners at work (drivers, technical supervision and others), and in some cases a declassed element, especially women, serve "
These actions in a number of cases paralyzed the operational security apparatus. Old agents did not show up for appearances, eyewitnesses to murders refused to testify, and sometimes simply did not appear for interrogations, preferring disciplinary punishment death at the hands of nationalists. “Westerners” usually refused to be recruited, or “recruited agents, as operatives complained, became double-dealers“And they themselves committed murders of agents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security. The role of militants was played by OUN prisoners sentenced to 20-25 years in prison, since they were not afraid to receive additional deadlines punishments.
Relations between Ukrainian nationalists and other national groups developed in different ways. When a group of Western Ukrainians fought for power and resources in Kamyshlag in 1952, they faced the united resistance of the “Chechens” and “suks”. The “Westerners” tried to split their opponents, trying to bring the Chechens under their influence.
There are known conflicts between Western Ukrainians and Baltic groups. But at the end of 1952, for example, in the Far Camp, a Lithuanian group acted on the instructions of former Banderaites and coordinated with them the murder of an Estonian prisoner from the camp service. At the end of 1951, signs of a possible consolidation of Western Ukrainians and the Baltic states were noted in Rechlag.
Sometimes attempts to bloodlessly divide spheres of influence and come to an amicable agreement ended in vain, and the struggle for power led to clashes and murders. In October 1951, two warring groups arrived at the River Camp from the Sand Camp - Western Ukrainians, convicted of OUN activities and participation in UPA gangs, and “Chechens” (which was joined by prisoners of Asian and Caucasian nationality, who had been offended by the “Bandera” prisoners) ). Both groups sought to place their people in administrative and economic positions in the camp.
It soon became clear that both sides recognized only one form of compromise - unconditional concessions from the competitor. The resulting conflict resulted in a bloody clash. The leader of the Chechen group and his bodyguard were killed. The “Chechens,” fulfilling the leader’s dying wish, “to have 20 corpses of Bandera’s men lying next to my corpse,” committed a series of retaliatory murders.
The position and behavior of Ukrainian nationalist groups in the camps showed a combination of two mobilizing factors - “hatred of Soviet power” and hatred “of Russian nationality in general.” The latter could be accompanied by the fact that the “Westerners” tried to sacrifice Russians (Mineral Camp, March 1952), and in the image of the enemy they combined “Russians, security officers and secret information.”
Hostility towards the Russians could unite usually hostile ethnic groups. For example, in the summer of 1952, in the Sandy camp, the emergence of “a group of prisoners of Caucasian and Eastern nationalities supporting close connection with Banderaites who are hostile to Russians.”
Operatives of the Mineral ITL noted that the spearhead of the struggle of the former OUN members, who made up up to 60% of the camp’s population, was directed only against privileged “prisoners of Russian and other nationalities used at work as camp administration.”
In turn, Russian prisoners noted that the Ukrainians still figure out who to kill; what's their terror is directed against informers. Ukrainian nationalists carried out the “rubylovka” in such a way as to avert suspicions of indiscriminate anti-Russian terror. In March 1952, it was reported from the Mineral Camp that the murders of prisoners were accompanied by “the spread of false rumors and all kinds of inscriptions” aimed at creating a general opinion of them as “scoundrels and close to the camp administration.” Only after such preparation was the murder of the intended victim carried out.
The relations between groups of prisoners in the Gulag were in a certain sense similar to the relations between unfriendly powers. Nationalism did not interfere with mutually beneficial compromises. Absolute ethnic boundaries did not exist in principle, and mutual intersections and alliances could well arise not only on ethnic, anti-Russian, but also on political, anti-Soviet grounds.
When in special camp No. 5 (Beregovaya) at the end of 1951 a group was discovered that was preparing a group armed escape, its leader turned out to be a Russian, convicted of treason to the Motherland during the war for 25 years, and among his accomplices was a member of the underground organization of Ukrainian nationalists who were preparing armed uprising in the event of a US attack on the USSR.
In the Steppe camp there was a group consisting of Belarusian-Ukrainian nationalists, who were joined by a group of prisoners from among the eastern Ukrainians and Russians.
In the spring of 1952, attempts to coordinate the actions of Russian and Ukrainian political prisoners were noted in Dubrovlag. An authoritative prisoner (Russian), sentenced to 10 years in labor camp, tried to negotiate with the “Westerners” on the creation special group for “systematic communication outside the camp about the situation of prisoners” in order to “help citizens of other countries recognize our “wolf” and prevent them from being deceived.”
By the early 1950s, Ukrainian nationalists “restored order” to the Gulag, establishing themselves in the camps as a privileged elite. But they were not satisfied with this, and began preparing uprisings.
The expectation of a “bright holiday of liberation from outside” (from the United States) was accompanied by widespread insurgent sentiment. Practical conclusions from the international situation were primarily drawn by Ukrainian and (to a lesser extent, judging by operational reports) Lithuanian nationalists.
In 1951-1952, among the Ukrainian convicts there was a lot of talk about bloody revenge on the communists. The most active and determined part of the prisoners not only relied on the Americans to “come and free us from the camps,” but also called for “to raise an uprising in the first days of the war in order to free ourselves from the camp.” “In the Vorkuta area,” they said, “it is enough to send one landing force, but here in the camp we must be ready and at any moment to send an avalanche of prisoners and convicts against the Bolsheviks and wipe them off the face of the earth.”.
In the Dubravny camp, Ukrainian nationalists also distributed “anti-Soviet provocative rumors about the imminence of war between the Anglo-American bloc and the Soviet Union.” Handwritten leaflets of anti-Soviet rebel content appeared with calls for an armed uprising of prisoners”, joining in combat groups “for armed action and self-liberation, to fight together with the Americans against Soviet power.”
But the “big war” was postponed. Among the radical part of the Western Ukrainian underground one could hear: “We ourselves must lead the struggle and, uniting with free people and prisoners of other camps, raise an uprising.”
In the spring of 1952, insurgent sentiments and actions were noted in the Kamyshov camp, where former members of the OUN, UPA and Bandera were actively preparing to organize mass unrest in the camp, attack the guards and liberate them from the camp. For this purpose, the Western Ukrainian underground had a sufficiently branched structure. A headquarters was created, which included a “security service”, a “technical service”, combat groups and groups of perpetrators of terrorist acts, political education and material support.
The “Bezpeki Service” was connected with barracks elders and orderlies, conducted systematic surveillance of prisoners, identified among them secret employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security with the aim of killing them. Prisoners visiting the camp administration or summoned for interrogation and identification were intimidated, terrorized and tortured by the OUN. The headquarters, through free workers, managed to establish illegal connections with exiled Western Ukrainians living in a number of cities in the Kemerovo region.
Similar information was received in June 1952 from Peschany ITL. There is an underground Bandera group, led by prisoners who had “ great experience for the leadership of Ukrainian nationalists in the wild,” also created a leadership center and agitation, intelligence and supply groups.
Members of the organization, who took the oath and unquestioningly observed discipline, were oriented not only at identifying and destroying the agents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security, organizing armed escapes with disarming the guards, establishing contacts with the nationalist underground on the territory of the USSR and beyond the cordon. The strategic task was to tear the camp population away from the influence of the administration, ideologically and tactically prepare it for a “rebel uprising at an opportunity.”
New strategic goals, stemming from the hope of drawing the USSR into the third world war, were accompanied by changes in the tactics of prisoners. The underground group, which arrived in Kamyshevlag in the late autumn of 1951 with a convoy of penal prisoners from Peschany ITL, not only immediately began normal fight for power and preparation of the “cutting”, but also became the initiator of one of the first demonstrative and politically charged protests of the “Westerners”. The riots, which began “with mass singing of nationalist songs,” resulted in organized resistance of the entire barracks to the supervision service - preventing the placement of three prisoners in the isolation ward who were found with knives.
“Powerful, influential, very heterogeneous, usually hostile communities, groups and factions grew up in the camps. They mastered the technique of controlling and manipulating the behavior of the “positive contingent”. If we don't establish firm order, we will lose power.", - Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kruglov summed up his speech in 1952 at a closed meeting.
But “restoring order” no longer helped - throughout the Gulag in 1952-53 there was a wave of uprisings of prisoners, led mainly by Western Ukrainians, Lithuanians, as well as Russian collaborators (Vlasovites, policemen, etc.). With the death of Stalin, the authorities realized that the only way to stop the uprising was to declare an amnesty for prisoners, which was done by Beria in March 1953. And in 1955, the collaborators who fought with German weapons in their hands against the Soviet regime were also amnestied. Soviet power in in this case actually surrendered to the threat of total terror from this group of prisoners.
The Ukrainian Banderaites were cleared out mainly by the Soviet counterintelligence SMERSH. According to official statistics, in Western Ukraine by 1953, over 150 thousand OUN members were killed, and more than 100 thousand were arrested.
As Red Army veterans said, they dealt with captured Banderaites in accordance with their moods. Those with strong ideas, who were thoroughly brainwashed, were sent to the rear, the special services worked with them; most of of them later ended up in the Gulag. Those who were lured into forest detachments by deception or driven by threats and who did not participate in atrocities were not particularly touched
According to the recollections of one of the SMERSH employees, the OUN members had a clear system for organizing detachments. For example, in the special purpose department, personnel for the OUN (UPA) were cultivated: observers, messengers and intelligence officers, as well as junior medical staff. The department included the so-called “hundreds of brave girls” - doctors. The SMershevites did not take them prisoners on principle; they were shot on the spot, since these “sisters of mercy” were real sadists: while developing practical skills in providing medical care to the wounded, they trained on captured Red Army soldiers, breaking their arms and legs in order to learn how to apply splints, or slashing them with knives , studying field surgery and wound suturing techniques.
Vlasovites were hated fiercely
Therefore, they did not want to give up, guessing what awaited them in captivity. The most eloquent evidence of the treatment of captured ROA soldiers is the stories of veterans of the Great Patriotic War. As one soldier recalled, they hated the Vlasovites, without understanding why they went over to serve the Nazis - whether the traitors were driven by ideological considerations or banal selfish interests. A WWII veteran witnessed the following scene: a tank driver, seeing a column of captured Vlasovites, started up his “thirty-four” and began to crush them until he was stopped. Then this avenger was tried by a tribunal.
Often captured Vlasovites were thoroughly beaten before being sent to SMERSH. And it happened that captured ROA soldiers were shot simply for “tactical” reasons. According to the recollections of another WWII veteran, during the liberation of Pillau (near Kaliningrad, now the city of Baltiysk), our troops ran into a Vlasov unit of about 500 people. Pressed to the sea, they surrendered. The battalion commander had to decide what to do with them. Ours were advancing, and messing around with so many prisoners, exceeding the number of the battalion itself, would mean disrupting the operation. The battalion commander left the platoon at his disposal and ordered the battalion to move on. Having separated about 20 Vlasovites, the platoon shot all the rest. The surviving twenty then dragged the corpses into the sea at gunpoint.
One of the war veterans had to escort over 40 Vlasov Kalmyks as part of a group of 7 guards. Along the way, the guards realized that the Kalmyks were negotiating their escape in their own language. The guards had their weapons ready. The Kalmyks, realizing that their intentions had been discovered, rushed in all directions. As a result, 18 prisoners were killed by PPSh, and the rest of the fugitives were collected.
As the leader of the detachment recalled, the guards were then interrogated for a long time by special officers, but it helped that it was the Vlasovites who were prisoners. If the Germans had been in their place, then most likely the guards would not have escaped the tribunal.
I found a wonderful anecdote about the Banderaites in the Gulag in the memoirs of Daniel Al, 1952 and later years, Norilsk. A group of Banderaites arrived, everyone is terribly afraid of them. Well, what Al writes about the atrocities of Ukrainians in freedom is aside, these are rumors. In the camp, he describes how they dealt with “undesirables” - but does not explain on what basis people turned out to be “undesirable.” This is well known from other Norilsk memoirs - they dealt with informers. And a funny episode - the beginning of 1953, a rumor spread through the camp that Bandera’s followers would slaughter Jews because they were Jewish murderers. Four Jews gathered and prayed in fear, suddenly the leader of Bandera’s followers appears and says:
- Jewish citizens! A rumor has spread among you that Bandera’s people are going to kill you because of today’s message. So here it is. If the report that the Jews were preparing to poison the Soviet leaders, and had already killed some of them, was true, then from that day onwards eternal friendship would begin between the Jewish and Ukrainian peoples. But since the Jews are not capable of this and all this is just another MGB phony, everything remains the same.
I think this is an ordinary prisoner’s tale. No one trembled or gathered, no one uttered monologues. Maybe some Ukrainian laughed and a curly tree grew. So a rumor could have been spread - a classic hepeush trick to pit prisoners against each other. But the joke is very sweet!
And here are Nathan Eidelman's memories of his father:
“In the concentration camp, on the very first day (account of a friend-eyewitness), my father walked past a group of Banderaites:
- They brought in another furry one!
The father grabbed the heavy drum and rushed forward. Friends held me back, pulled me away, and explained that I was in danger of certain death. The next morning a messenger from the Ukrainians: “Who is this? Where?" Having learned that he was from Volyn, they asked how he felt about Taras Shevchenko? The father answered by heart, in Russian and Ukrainian. Bandera’s men were surprised, they sent us food, and then they came to talk more than once..."
Among the “atrocities” is the memoir of the famous Russianist Osipov:
“In this zone, I encountered the rabid Russophobia of Western Ukrainians, who constantly vilified the damned “Muscovites.” Pleasing them, a German brigadier (from those who lived in the Odessa region) liked to scold me: “I know why the Lithuanians are in prison. I also know why the Ukrainians are imprisoned. But I don’t understand why Russian Osipov is imprisoned. The Russians are in power in the USSR, but how did he get here?" It must be said that Bandera's followers (and those who pleased them) were like millstones, like a grinding wheel for those young Russian guys who came to the camp as careless "internationalists." Adherents Taras Shevchenko was quickly released from the Rusak self-criticism and infantile stupidity instilled by Soviet propaganda"
Bandera's followers were guilty of Russophobia! What bastards these Ukrainians are - they don’t like Russians!
Memoir of Ivan Sharapov - Dubrovlage, 1959:
“Several times I was put in a high-security barracks (BUR). Once I was in a brigade of Banderaites. There are 35 of them, the foreman is Pitsan. These are very cultured people and kind! There were quarrels in other brigades. In such cases they said: why are you scared? Don’t you have fists? This never happened in the OUN (Bandera) brigade.”
Memories in verse, Vladimir Gridin:
"Well, Babylon!
But one layer came close together -
Holding each other and fighting evil
From outsiders: work skills
Ukrainians became famous. Always
Opposite they sit down sedately
In the evenings at a common table. Where
Has their agility gone? "God damn it!" -
They grumble, crossing themselves at the common food,
And they take out clean spoons.
And the rest are waiting with respect,
For now, you can settle in there.
- 126 -
Then the boys have a quiet time:
"Kobzar" is read together. They write letters -
There, in the Carpathians. And only rarely do we
They will ask for help. Even with reproach
To themselves and shock they look like
"Moskal" (let's say I) writes freely
In the letters of their native language
"Papir" is a petition for the highest authorities...
And before going to bed, not feeling stuffy
Tents, and under the stars of strangers,
The girlish charms that they have forgotten,
For a long absence, about the towel,
Which my mother used to embroider.
And you can feel it: right before their eyes
Melancholy shines in unprecedented separation.
But in the morning it’s like a horse’s hoof! —
So all the Banderaites are eager to get to work,
And I always admire them... Here
Everyone should also live amicably, wisely, and quickly!
Yes, I should take it from the Ukrainian lads -
Even if too independent, even if proud -
To the ground (literally!)
righteous love
Instead of hanging around lazy hordes...
But for a long time there is an argument at the tent -
And I want to interrupt the whole conversation:
“I would like to restore order, even take a broom...”
Only after getting out of the tent into the barracks,
I lost everyone in the Babylonian mass,
Where there was everything - from tenderness to fights.
And there the Lviv residents could not break!”
I think this is enough about the Banderaites to understand that Zinaida Aleksandrovna Mirkina was completely in vain to start the rumor that the Banderaites in the camps were distinguished by their brutal attitude towards their comrades in misfortune. And the reference to her late husband is just a bunch of words.
In the 1950s, the “political” defeated the “thieves” in Soviet concentration camps. Next up is victory over the “titushki”, pseudo-self-defense and “camp administration”?
History repeats itself. In 1918, near Kruty, noble young men spoke out against Muravyov’s armed violence. There were several hundred of them. . At the end of the 1940s, imprisoned in Soviet concentration camps, passionate Ukrainian “lads from the forest” began the fight against armed barefoot and succeeded.
There were tens of thousands of Banderaites in the huge “small zone”. In 2013, Maidan protesters wearing bright scarves with yellow and blue ribbons protested against armed “titushki” in black sweatpants. There are about a million bright ones.
However, victory is still ahead. For the “large zone” is actually a sixth of the Earth. Bosota, whose forces maintain total “order” here - “titushki”, “defenders of separatism”, “political Orthodox” and other rather small but proactive groups, is led by the “administration”. Neutralizing it is a great challenge and test for today’s heroes, whose support is the experience of their predecessors.
"Order" from the "thieves"
Some people believe that with the collapse of the Union, principles public life and the administration in these territories ceased to be Soviet. Is it so? Let's remember the basics of this device. For the Bolshevik authorities, controlled criminals were considered “socially close”, and “political” thinkers were considered mortal enemies.
Moreover, the country was led by criminals who, to justify their robberies, day after day convinced the masses that those who want to break out from under their “parental” power are bandits, zoological sadists who seek to “kill civilians” solely for personal reasons. pleasure, or - on instructions from the West. And they need to be isolated and destroyed - because in reality they “get in the way of living beautifully.”
The “small zone”, that is, system a, was a kind of model called among political prisoners “ large area" In this “large zone”, through demonstrative trials and propaganda in the media incited huge masses of the population against “enemy” individuals, groups and peoples. Meanwhile, outright criminals, scientific developments, ideas and works of art"enemies". And in the “small zone,” domestic criminals who felt themselves patriots were taught to consider political prisoners “fascists.”
Of course, they were allowed to take infrequent parcels from the “subhumans”, force them to work in their place, mock and maim them. “This was a conscious policy of the Gulag to create a pretext for brutal reprisals against political prisoners,” recalls political prisoner and witness of the Kengir uprising Ruth Tamarina. According to the recollections of political prisoners, the “thieves,” encouraged by impunity, became downright sadists. The concentration camp authorities quite skillfully used such a contingent to maintain “order.”
Criminal "leaven"
“I was always amazed by the stories of former political prisoners of the Gulag about how a group of 5-10 thousand people, mostly convicted “for nothing,” comes to the camp. These were ordinary people who were accustomed to obeying someone, following someone’s orders.
A group of 15-30 criminals is brought to the same camp. And after a week or two, a regime of criminals is established at the camp,” says the candidate philosophical sciences, Associate Professor of the Carpathian National University. Vasily Stefanika Galina Dichkovskaya, daughter of the famous figure of the liberation movement Orest Dichkovsky. - This is a terrible ratio: 15 criminals control five thousand submissive people.
But when the Banderaites began to arrive en masse, and there were also 15-50 of them per camp, the criminals were faced with the fact that the Banderaites also wanted to introduce their own rules. Bandera’s followers were joined by former Soviet soldiers who, after 1945, ended up in the zone either for being captured or for “praising foreign technology.” And also the “forest brothers” - Lithuanians and Muslims, of whom there were very few.
People quickly organized themselves and already in 1947 established their power in the camps. And then the criminals fell under the power of the political ones. Sometimes they asked to be transferred to another place. Soon the camp authorities began to separate camps for political and “domestic workers.” By the way, the criminals were pacified, as the killers put it, “militarily,” using simple instruments of forced labor.
“The camp was life, home, a normal mode of existence for criminals. Whereas for the majority of “devils”, “frayers”, later - “men”, that is ordinary people“, the camp was an anomalous environment in which they did not live, but survived,” political scientist Andrei Kruglashov writes about this situation in his blog. “So they clung to life as best they could.” They were very afraid of death.” He notes that the secret of the ability to resist is solidarity, collective security. That solidarity and unity were brought by Ukrainian will-lovers.
Bandera science
“Such a young guy, strong, thieves take advantage of such people, tattoos, sixes.” And the other says: “Don’t be afraid, Bandera’s people have power there: the organization, the security service. They will take him under their wing,” Grigory Gerchak (participant in the liberation movement, now a famous artist) accidentally overheard professors-political prisoners talking about himself at the transit point.
However, Bandera’s science turned out to be harsh. One day in the dining room a “thieves” sat in Gregory’s place. He didn’t want to quarrel, took his rations and stepped aside. The UPA soldiers saw this. One of them, “godfather Slyva” from Volyn, comes up: “Grigory, how did you allow you to be treated like this... you’re political, ours.
We won’t talk to you then.” I had to clench my fists and go to the thieves. He hit Gregory, and from the floor he used a technique that he had learned in the forest. The lout rolled, and his “colleagues” took out knives! “And our people are already here, fighting,” recalls Gerchak. - Like Chechens. Even if you cut them, they won’t yield.”
The Jewish writer and former Soviet political prisoner Anatoly Radygin wrote in his memoirs that two categories stood out among the camp crowd - criminals (stooped, with a sullen look) and former soldiers and commanders of the UPA, OUN members and non-party Ukrainian patriots. “When suddenly a smart and neat man, calm and taciturn, shaven, in a clean shirt and polished shoes, in carefully pressed prison clothes, appeared among the rummaging masses, one could almost unmistakably guess his nationality, party affiliation and the banner under which he fought,” - noted Radygin.
Death was planned for them
However, at one time Bandera’s followers were not ordered to undergo “correction” in “labor camps,” but to be completely exterminated. In the camps they didn’t kill “just like that,” but they provoked them to perform and “punished” them. In September 1952, 1,200 protesters were transported to Norilsk.
Before the convoy arrived at the local Gorlag, the camp administration distributed knives to the local criminals and assured them that “Bandera’s thugs are coming and will destroy everyone here.” It was assumed that political prisoners would become angry and there would be something to “punish” them for. However, the provocation failed.
At the end of March 1953, the new, post-Stalin government announced an amnesty for petty criminals. And political prisoners began to be shot in broad daylight. Feeling a mortal threat, Bandera's supporters rebelled. “It was enough just to remember, to realize that we are strong, we put our chests under machine guns when we opposed the organized KGB pack in the western regions of Ukraine,” said one of the leaders of the Norilsk uprising, Danila Shumuk.
“How can we tolerate being mocked here like this by those who served in the Gestapo, and now the NKVD?” They went on strike. As one of the leaders of the uprising, Yevgeny Gritsyak, recalls, he convinced those who feared for their lives: “That’s why we rebelled, to stop the executions.”
However, people were still afraid of the camp authorities and began to little by little take up their pneumatic permafrost hammers. Then Gritsyak cut off the power supply to the hammers at the compressor station. But the bells in the barracks continued to announce the start of work, and many prisoners, out of habit, ran out to this sound. Gritsyak instructed one of the “political” to neutralize the system of signal electrical wires. “So spontaneous indignation turned into an organized protest,” writes Mr. Evgeniy in his book of memoirs.
Resistance for life
Although the Norilsk and similar uprisings in the Gulag were suppressed, their result was obvious. Up to 70 percent of political prisoners were released. “As a result of the confrontation, 156 people died in the camp. And over the years of its existence, more than 20 thousand of those brought to Norilsk died only after being sentenced to hard labor,” says Stepan Semenyuk, a participant in the uprising. “We made up our minds and won – politically and morally.”
Now the post-Soviet space continues to be a “large zone”, with millions of people unfairly sentenced to “imprisonment” in it. At one time, petty thefts, denunciations, the mortal fear of not being “where the polar bears are,” tacit consent to intervention in other states, and even participation in this armed intervention, tied all the inhabitants of the USSR with strong bloody bonds.
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