[Regnum] The Kursk Regional Court, during a meeting on February 8, recognized the crimes of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices in the region in the period from 1941 to 1943 as genocide of the peoples of the USSR. This was reported by the joint press service of the region's judicial system.
The court found that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis committed crimes in the region against at least 237,667 Soviet civilians and captured Red Army soldiers. The court considered the case from December 4, 2023, examining historical materials and questioning witnesses, including eyewitnesses to crimes during the occupation years and representatives of the scientific community.
The regional governor Roman Starovoyt also participated in the meeting. He said that his grandmother Ekaterina Fedorovna Konovalova was taken to forced labor in Germany.
“After numerous attempts to escape, she was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. There she met her grandfather Alexander Nikolaevich Starovoyt, who at that time was also there as a concentration camp prisoner,” said the head of the region.
As Regnum reported, in September 2023, the Kaluga Regional Court recognized the crimes of the Nazi invaders in the region during the Great Patriotic War as genocide. The investigation showed that at least 326 thousand civilians and prisoners of war suffered from the Nazis in the region.
On January 27, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the complete lifting of the siege of Leningrad, called the siege of the city during the war genocide. He emphasized that the invaders acted cynically and cold-bloodedly, dooming Leningraders to starvation. The President also noted that Nazism was defeated in 1945, but not eliminated, and has now become a tool in a number of European countries.
Related from regnum.ru
FSB declassifies archives about the Nazi massacre of members of the Young Guard
The FSB has published archival documents telling about the brutal execution by the Nazis of members of the Soviet underground anti-fascist organization “Young Guard” in the winter of 1943.
The FSB declassified archives about the Nazi execution of members of the Young Guard in Krasnodon
On the website, the service published, among other things, copies of interrogation protocols of participants in the execution of Oleg Koshevoy, Lyubov Shevtsova and other “Young Guards”.
Thus, the former head of the German district gendarmerie, Captain Ernst Emil Renatus, confirmed to the investigation his involvement in the massacre of members of the Young Guard. He stated that members of the Komsomol organization were arrested, tortured, and then shot on his orders.
During interrogation, German gendarmes Otto Drewitz and Erich Schröder also admitted to participating in the execution of members of the Young Guard.
“In February 1943, two days before fleeing Rovenka to the west, I took part in the execution of eight Soviet patriots, including Lyubov Shevtsova,” Schroeder said.
The Red Army liberated Krasnodon from the Nazi invaders on February 14, 1943. Immediately after the liberation, the Soviet state security authorities began searching for Nazi criminals and their accomplices involved in committing crimes against civilians.
In August 1943, a closed trial was held in the city of a group of Nazi collaborators who took part in the murders of civilians, including the massacre of members of the Young Guard. In the dock were the traitors and executioners of members of the organization: local police investigator Mikhail Kuleshov, secret informant Vasily Gromov and his stepson Gennady Pocheptsov.
The military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad region sentenced all three to capital punishment - execution. The sentence was publicly carried out on August 19 of the same year.
On April 7, 1947, in the city of Bautzen, the head of the Rovenkovo district gendarmerie, Ernst Emil Renatus, was detained and transferred to Moscow. By the end of the summer of 1947, three more of his former subordinates were found - Jacob Schultz, Otto Drewitz and Erich Schröder. The investigation was conducted by employees of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security.
On October 29, 1949, by resolution of a special meeting at the USSR Ministry of State Security, Drewitz, Renatus, Schroeder and Schultz were given 25-year sentences in the camp for atrocities and violence against the civilian population committed on the territory of the USSR.
As Regnum reported, on January 19, the Russian FSB directorate for the Arkhangelsk region declassified the archival file against a participant in Nazi punitive operations, a native of the Kherson region, Edgard Zeel. He and his accomplices spent them during the Great Patriotic War in the Kamenets-Podolsk region of Ukraine. According to documents, in January 1944, policeman Seel, together with an SS detachment, took part in a punitive operation against Soviet partisans and civilians in the village of Konevka.
On October 4, the FSB declassified an archive about the collaboration of the Poles with the Germans in the Stalag-1A concentration camp. According to the documents, the Poles in the Nazi concentration camp earned the right from the Germans to occupy the best places. They were appointed to manage areas - the dining room, bathhouse, warehouse. By currying favor, the Poles received good positions.