Gully of Petrushino (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: ''Петрушинская балка'' or ''Балка смерти'' from

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

: ''Todesschlucht'') is a site on the outskirts of

Taganrog Taganrog ( rus, Таганрог, p=təɡɐnˈrok) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of the Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: History of Taganrog Th ...

, Russia, at which 7,000 Soviet civilians, mostly Jews, were massacred between 1941 and 1943 by the German army, with the assistance of non-German divisions, during their occupation of Taganrog.

Background

On October 17, 1941, the armored divisions

SS Division Wiking The 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking (german: 5. SS-Panzerdivision Wiking) or SS Division Wiking was an infantry and later an armoured division among the thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions of Nazi Germany. It was recruited from foreign volunteers ...

and

1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, (german: 1. SS-Panzerdivision "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler") began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding ...

of 1st Panzer Group arrived on the outskirts of Taganrog and several panzers made breakthrough to the seaport and opened fire at gunboats "Krenkel" and "Rostov-Don" and the last transport ship evacuating women and children. The city was left by 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 October 22, 1941. Petrushina kosa (XIX-XX)

Petrushino is a thin sand spit on the

Gulf of Taganrog Taganrog Bay (, uk, Таганрозька затока) is the northeastern arm of the Sea of Azov. It also may be perceived as a flooded estuary of the Don River (Russia), Don River. Geography The bay serves as a natural boundary between the ...

, Azov Sea on the Southwestern outskirts of

. The Gully of Petrushino is a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

situated near

Beriev Aircraft Company The PJSC Beriev Aircraft Company (russian: Таганрогский авиационный научно-технический комплекс им. Г. М. Бериева, , Beriev Taganrog Aviation Scientific Technical Complex), formerly Beriev ...

, which was formed in the early 20th century after extractions of clay for a no longer existing brickworks.

Massacres

The SS

Einsatzgruppe (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imple ...

Sonderkommando 10a performed systematic

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

of Taganrog citizens from the first days of occupation. The large groups of citizens (old men, women, communists, young communists, gypsies, Jews, and anyone suspected in aiding the Taganrog resistance movement) were taken from Vladimirskaya Plaza in

to Petrushino village (near

Beriev The PJSC Beriev Aircraft Company (russian: Таганрогский авиационный научно-технический комплекс им. Г. М. Бериева, , Beriev Taganrog Aviation Scientific Technical Complex), formerly Beriev ...

) and shot in the Gully of Petrushino (''Todesschlucht''). The massacres in Taganrog started with the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

of the

Jewish question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national ...

. On October 22, 1941 the Ortskommandant issued an order for all Jewish people to wear a Star of David sign and to register at the Ortskommandantur. It was followed by ''Appeal to the Jewish Population of Taganrog'' signed by the Ortskommandant Alberti. The "appeal" was calling all Jews to assemble on October 29, 1941 at 8:00AM on Vladimirskaya Plaza in Taganrog from where they were supposed to be taken to a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

. Alberti explained this measure as necessary due to alleged rise of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

among local population, and that the German police and

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

would better manage the question if the Jewish population were separated into a certain district of the city:

In order to implement this measure, the Jews of both sexes and of all ages, including the persons born of marriages between Jews and not-Jews must be present on Wednesday, October 29, 1941 at 8 o'clock in the morning at Vladimirskaya Ploshad of Taganrog. All Jews must have documents and hand in the keys to currently occupied houses and flats. A pasteboard tag with full names and full address must be attached to the keys by a wire or a lace. We highly recommend the Jews to take with them all valuables and cash...(excerpt)

On October 29, 1941 all Jews of Taganrog (around 2,500 people) were gathered on Vladimirskaya Plaza, promptly registered at the building of the school no.27 in front of Vladimirskaya Plaza and taken by trucks to the Gully of Petrushino near Beriev Aircraft Factory, where they were shot to death by

Schutzmannschaft The ''Schutzmannschaft'' or Auxiliary Police ( "protective, or guard units"; plural: ''Schutzmannschaften'', abbreviated as ''Schuma'') was the collaborationist auxiliary police of native policemen serving in those areas of the Soviet Union and ...

collaborationists under control of

Otto Ohlendorf Otto Ohlendorf (; 4 February 1907 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. An economist by education, he was head of the (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germ ...

's Einsatzgruppe D. Of all the Jewish children who lived in Taganrog in 1941 only a 14-year-old boy Volodya Kobrin (russian: Кобрин, Владимир Моисеевич) managed to escape the certain death, thanks to the help of various people in Taganrog and especially Anna Mikhailovna Pokrovskaya, who was awarded the title of the

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

by the Professor Alisa Shenar, Ambassador of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in Russia on July 19, 1996. On August 21, 1943, one week prior to Taganrog's liberation by Red Army, 80 citizens (workers, women and young people) were shot to death on the seashore of

, on the Spit of Petrushino. Estimates of the total number killed at both Gully of Petrushino and in the city of

during the Nazi occupation vary. According to the information of the State Archive, some 7,000 Taganrogers (1,500 of them children of various age) were shot to death in the Gully of Petrushino. However, most modern sources estimate the number to be at least 10,000 and more.

Investigation

After the liberation of

, on September 1, 1943 the mass grave of citizens murdered in the Gully of Petrushino was publicly examined. The Secretary of the Taganrog City Communist Party committee Alexander Zobov held a speech before the gathered citizens. The medical commission permitted the exhumation of 31 dead bodies from the upper level. After the war, Otto Ohlendorf was prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen trial and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1951.

Remembrance

In August 1945 a modest obelisk was placed on the common grave in the Gully of Death. The work on the project of a large memorial complex was started in 1965. In May–July 1967 the project of a memorial complex designed by architects from

Rostov on Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...

was displayed for public at the Taganrog's house of culture. Although the project was favorably received, it was not implemented. The next design was suggested by the architect Vladimir Pavlovich Grachev, which was partially realized in 1973 for the 40th anniversary of

's liberation by the

. The stela is 18 meters high, the hand from the index finger to the foundation - 4 meters. The first name of the composition was "Victims"(''Жертвы''), but after several discussions it was changed into "Fighters"(''Борцы''). On 30 August 1997, a memorial commemorating the Jewish men, women and children from Taganrog who were shot to death in the ravine by German SS Einsatzgruppen units in October 1941 was dedicated on initiative of the Jewish community of Taganrog. Every year the day of Taganrog's liberation, on August 30 delegations of Taganrog local government officials and workers, war veterans, survivors of the Nazi occupation, school students, clergy visit the complex, where commemorative events are held. File:Fighters Monument Petrushino.jpg, Monument "Fighters" File:View Petrushino Memorial.jpg, View of the memorial File:Memorial stone Gully of Petrushino.jpg, Memorial stone (reads: "around 10000 people of various nationalities and religious beliefs were shot to death here during fascist occupation") File:Memorial plaque to Jewish population Gully of Death.jpg, Memorial plaque to Jewish population in the Gully of Death File:Memorial stone Unknown Sailor Petrushino.jpg, Memorial stone to an unknown sailor

In fiction

The events at the Gully of Death (Gully of Petrushino) are described in the novel ''Heroes of Taganrog'' by Soviet writer Genrikh Borisovich Gofman.Генрих Гофман, "Герои Таганрога", 1966
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External links and references