Chervyen massacre (; ) was one of the

NKVD prisoner massacres The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions of political prisoners carried out by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, across Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, a ...

. More than 1,000 political prisoners from Lithuania,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

were executed by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

near Chervyen (present-day

) on 25–27 June 1941.

Background

At the outbreak of the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

on 22 June 1941,

and

NKGB The People's Commissariat for State Security (russian: Народный комиссариат государственной безопасности) or NKGB, was the name of the Soviet secret police, intelligence and counter-intelligence fo ...

hastily organized evacuation of numerous political prisoners into the interior of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. In many instances, instead of evacuating, NKVD carried out mass executions. Some of the evacuated prisoners, including about a hundred Lithuanians from Kaunas Prison, were gathered at the Pishchalauski Castle in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

which already housed a number of Polish prisoners, members of the

Union of Armed Struggle Związek Walki Zbrojnej ( abbreviation: ''ZWZ''; Union of Armed Struggle;Thus rendered in Norman Davies, ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'', vol. II, p. 464. also translated as ''Union for Armed Struggle'', ''Association of Armed Strug ...

Massacre

On 24 June, 15 Lithuanians who had received death sentences before the evacuation were executed (among them was , Lithuanian Minister of the Interior in 1929–1934). On 25 June, about 2,000 prisoners were marched on foot by troops from the 42nd NKVD brigade to Chervyen. Along the way, about 500 prisoners were executed for failing to keep up. A Soviet report claimed that 209 prisoners were shot due to confusion and a German air attack. On 26 June, the remaining prisoners were placed in the Chervyen prison. A few criminal prisoners were released when they volunteered for the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

. On 27 June, Belarusian NKVD received a telegram from , head of the NKVD prison department in Moscow, ordering to leave 400 prisoners in Chervyen and execute the rest. Since prisoner files were destroyed by German bombardment in Minsk, the guards made their selection of 400–750 prisoners almost randomly. On the night from 26 to 27 June, the selected prisoners were marched from Chervyen towards

Babruysk Babruysk, Babrujsk or Bobruisk ( be, Бабруйск , Łacinka: , rus, Бобруйск, Bobrujsk, bɐˈbruɪ̯s̪k, yi, באָברויסק ) is a city in the Mogilev Region of eastern Belarus on the Berezina River. , its population was 209 ...

. Initially, the NKVD soldiers shot those prisoners that lagged behind. Then, by a forest about from Chervyen, NKVD organized the mass execution. Of Lithuanian prisoners, about 40 survived. In total, about 200 prisoners escaped.

Commemoration

The first commemoration of the massacre occurred in July 1990 when Lithuanian activists erected a

wayside shrine A wayside shrine is a religious image, usually in some sort of small shelter, placed by a road or pathway, sometimes in a settlement or at a crossroads, but often in the middle of an empty stretch of country road, or at the top of a hill or mo ...

and Belarusians a memorial cross.

Memoirs by survivors

Lithuanian memoirs

* * * (originally published in 1942, second edition in 1944, republished in 1952 and 2003; Italian translation published in 1948 and 1968) * (originally published in 1957 in magazine ''

Karys ''Karys'' (literary: ''soldier'') is a Lithuanian-language military magazine published since 1919. It is a magazine about the Lithuanian Army and is geared towards the soldiers and the general public. During the interwar period (1919–1940) it was ...

'')

Polish memoir

References

{{coord, 53, 41, 16, N, 28, 28, 20, E, display=title, region:BY_type:landmark Massacres in 1941 Massacres committed by the Soviet Union Massacres in Belarus Mass murder in 1941 1941 in Belarus June 1941 events World War II massacres NKVD operations Soviet World War II crimes