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The '''massacre of prisoners''' refers to a series of mass executions committed by [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[NKVD]] against prisoners in [[Poland]] and parts of the Soviet Union from which the [[Red Army]] was withdrawing after the [[Nazi Germany|German]] invasion in [[1941]] (''see [[Operation Barbarossa]]''). The overall death toll is estimated at 30,000-40,000, including more than 10,000 in Western Ukraine.<ref name="Rhodes">{{en icon}} {{cite book | author=[[Richard Rhodes]] | year = 2002 | title = Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust | publisher = Alfred A. Knopf | ___location = New York | id = ISBN 0-375-40900-9}} Despite the deportations, Barbarossa surprised the NKVD, whose jails and prisons in the invaded western territories were crowded with political prisoners. Rather than releasing their prisoners as they hurried to retreat during the first week of the war, the Soviet secret police simply killed them. NKVD prisoner executions in the first week after Barbarossa totaled some ten thousand in the western Ukraine and more than nine thousand in Vinnitsa, eastward toward Kiev; comparable numbers of prisoners were executed in eastern Poland, Byelorussia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Soviet areas had already sustained losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands from the Stalinist purges of 1937-38. “It was not only the numbers of the executed,” historian Yury Boshyk writes of the evacuation murders, “but also the manner in which they died that shocked the populace. When the families of the arrested rushed to the prisons after the Soviet evacuation, they were aghast to find bodies so badly mutilated that many could not be identified. It was evident that many of the prisoners had been tortured before death; others were killed en masse.”</ref>
By the beginning of the war most of the [[Poles|ethnically Polish]] population, [[Treatment of Polish citizens by occupiers|subject to Soviet rule for two years now]], have already [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union|been deported off the border regions]] to remote areas of the Soviet Union. Others, including a large number of Polish civilians of other nationalities (mostly [[Belarusians]] and [[Ukrainians]]), were kept in provisional prisons in the towns of the region, where they awaited deportation either to NKVD prisons in [[Moscow]] or to the [[Gulag]]. It is estimated that out of 13 million people living in the pre-war Polish areas, roughly half a million of people were arrested, more than 90% of them being males. Thus approximately every tenth adult male was imprisoned at the time of the German offensive<ref name="From_Peace">{{en icon}} {{cite book | author =[[Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt]] (corporate author) | coauthors =[[Gottfried Schramm]], [[Jan T. Gross]], [[Manfred Zeidler]] et al. | title =From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939-1941 | year =1997 | editor =Bernd Wegner | pages =47-79 | chapter = | chapterurl = | publisher =Berghahn Books | ___location = | id =ISBN 1-57181-882-0| url =http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1571818820&id=7odfDAlO64UC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&q=Lvov&vq=Lvov&dq=NKVD+1941&sig=1MZdzhkhg1tmo6fSCF19oz4KP4o }}</ref>. Many died in prisons from torture or neglect<ref name="From_Peace"/>.
Immediately after the start of the invasion, the [[NKVD]] started to execute a large number of prisoners in most of their prisons, while the remainder was to be evacuated in [[death march]]es<ref name="From_Peace"/><ref name="PWN">{{pl icon}} [[Encyklopedia PWN]], ''[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/83293_1.html ZBRODNIE SOWIECKIE W POLSCE]'''':''After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, in June of 1941, thousands of prisoners have been murdered in mass executions in prisons (among others in [[Lwów]] and [[Berezwecz]]) and during the evacuation (so-called death marches)''</ref>. Most of them were [[political prisoner]]s, imprisoned and executed without a trial. With few exceptions, the huge group of prisoners of [[Western Belarus]] and [[Western Ukraine]] was either marched eastwards, executed or both<ref name="From_Peace"/>. After the war and in recent years, the authorities of Germany, Poland, Belarus and Israel identified no less than 25 prisons whose prisoners were killed - and a much larger number of mass execution sites<ref name="From_Peace"/>. Among the notable cases of such mass execution of prisoners were:
* [[Lviv]]: between [[June 23]] and [[June 28]], the NKVD executed several thousand of inmates in a number of provisional prisons. Among the common methods of extermination were shooting the prisoners in their cells, killing them with grenades thrown into the cells or starving them to death in the cellars. It is estimated that over 4000 people were murdered that way, while the number of survivors is estimated at ca. 270<ref name="Gałkiewicz">{{pl icon}} [[Anna Gałkiewicz]] (2001) ''[http://www.ipn.gov.pl/biuletyn/7/biuletyn7_3.html Informacja o śledztwach prowadzonych w OKŚZpNP w Łodzi w sprawach o zbrodnie popełnione przez funkcjonariuszy sowieckiego aparatu terroru]''; Biuletyn [[Institute of National Remembrance|IPN]], Vol. 7 - August 2001</ref>
* [[Brzeżany]] near [[Tarnopol]]: between [[June 22]] and [[July 1]] the crew of the local NKVD prison has executed without a trial approximately 300 Polish citizens, among them a large number of Ukrainians<ref name="Gałkiewicz"/>.
* [[Grodno]]: on [[June 22]] the NKVD executed several dozen people in the local prison. The mass execution of the remaining 1700 prisoners was ended when the approach of the German army prompted the evacuation of the NKVD crew<ref name="Gałkiewicz"/>
* [[Hlybokaye|Berezwecz]] near [[Vitebsk]]<ref name="PWN"/>: on [[June 24]] the NKVD executed approximately 800 prisoners, most of them Polish citizens. Several thousands more perished during a [[death march]] to Taklinovo near [[Ulla]]<ref name="Berezwecz">{{pl icon}} Encyklopedia PWN, ''[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/7010_1.html BEREZWECZ]''</ref>.
* [[Oryol]]: In Sepetember over 150 political prisoners (among them [[Christian Rakovsky]], [[Maria Spiridonova]] and [[Olga Kameneva]]) were executed in Medvedevsky Forest near Oryol.
* [[Vilnius]]: after the German aggression the NKVD murdered a large number of prisoners of the infamous [[Lukiškės]] prison<ref name="Paszkowski">{{pl icon}} [[Bolesław Paszkowski]] (2005): ''[http://www.moto.gda.pl/strona.htm?id=454 Golgota Wschodu]''</ref>
* Cherven near [[Minsk]]: in late June the NKVD started an evacuation of all prisons in Minsk. Between [[June 24]] and [[June 27]] several thousand people were killed in Cherven and during the death marches<ref name="Januszczak">{{pl icon}} [[Joanna Januszczak]] ''[http://www.wspolnota-polska.org.pl/index.php?id=b99_9_2 Żalbiny w Czerwieni k. Mińska]'' in: ''Wspólnota Polska'' monthly</ref>
* [[Vinnitsa]]: more than 9,000 executed<ref name="Rhodes"/>.
* [[Lutsk]]: hundreds executed,
* Rainiai near [[Telšiai]], [[Lithuania]]: Up to 79 political prisoners killed in what is called the [[Rainiai massacre]] on [[June 24]] and the following day
* [[Tartu]], [[Estonia]]: Almost 250 detainees shot in the Gray House courtyard and Tartu prison on July 9, 1941 [http://www.expatexchange.com/lib.cfm?articleID=2265&start=1732&page=1].
* [[Vileyka]]: several dozen people, mostly political prisoners, sick and wounded, were executed prior to the departure of the Soviet guards on [[June 24]]<ref name="Siedlecki">{{pl icon}} {{cite book | author = [[Julian Siedlecki]] | others = [[Edward Raczyński]]
| title = Losy Polaków w ZSRR w latach 1939-1986 | year = 1990 | edition = 3 | publisher = Gryf Publications | ___location = London
| pages = 59}} as cited in: {{cite journal | author = Tadeusz Krahel | year = | month = | title = Zginęli w końcu czerwca 1941 roku | journal = Czas Miłosierdzia | volume = | issue = | url = http://www.bialystok.opoka.org.pl/czas/arch1/art/kaplani.htm
| accessdate = 2006-06-02 }}</ref>
* [[Sambor]]: 570 killed<ref name="Kowalik">{{pl icon}} {{cite journal | author =Helena Kowalik | year =2004 | month =November | title =Jaki znak twój? | journal =Przegląd | volume =47/2004 | issue =2004-11-15 | pages = | id = }}</ref>
==Notes and references==
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==See also==
* [[List of massacres]]
* [[Katyn massacre]]
* [[Kurapaty]]
* [[War crimes]]
[[Category:Massacres]]
[[Category:History of Poland (1939–1945)]]
[[Category:History of Ukraine]]
[[Category:NKVD]]
[[Category:Soviet executions]]
[[Category:Soviet World War II crimes]]
[[Category:Polish-Soviet relations]]
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet occupation]]
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