Death march NKVD documents indicate that the prison population in Minsk as of June 10, 1941, was 1,802. However, it is uncertain whether this number includes prisoners from all Minsk prisons or only those in the central prison ("Volodartsy"). Much suggests that the number of prisoners was higher when the evacuation began, as both immediately before the German invasion and after June 22, the NKVD continued mass arrests of real and alleged opponents of Soviet rule. These individuals were not recorded in the prison records. Furthermore, in the first days of the war, prisoners evacuated from border towns were sent to Minsk. On the night of June 23–24, between 115 and 300 prisoners from
Kaunas were brought there. 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). According to Polish sources, in June 1941, approximately 2,000-3,000 people were held in the cells of the "Amerikanka" prison alone. In the first days of the war, Minsk was heavily bombed by the
Luftwaffe. The "Volodarka" building also suffered damage from the air raids. According to , head of the
ZWZ Białystok Area intelligence service, who was imprisoned in Minsk at the time, but in a different prison, two German bombs fell on the central prison on June 23, killing several dozen prisoners. Jonas Petruitis, an eyewitness to the event, recalled that the raid took place on June 24, and the bombs hit the administration building, killing ten NKVD officers, including the prison's deputy warden, and partially destroying the prison office and its inmate files. Due to the prevailing chaos, both Minsk prisons experienced supply problems. Prisoners were either not given water or food, or received minimal supplies. It's likely that on the night of June 22–23, NKVD officers began murdering prisoners. Witnesses recalled that the sounds of executions were clearly audible in neighbouring cells. Janusz Prawdzic-Szlaski claimed that prisoners in the "Amerikanka" cell were killed by being forcibly poisoned. Those who resisted were shot in their cells. Among those killed at that time was a courier from the Union of Armed Struggle Headquarters, codenamed "Teresa." Executions also took place in the "Volodarka" cell, where sick prisoners, among others, were murdered. On June 23, an undetermined number of "Amerikanka's" prisoners were loaded onto railway cars and transported to
Kozhva in the
Komi Republic. At "Volodarka," juvenile criminals were released. The remaining prisoners were formed into columns of 200–300 to as many as 1,000 people and then driven east on foot along the Mogilev Road. NKVD reports indicate that the evacuation began on June 24 or on the night of June 24–25. Survivors' accounts indicate that the evacuation began on the afternoon of June 24, and continued throughout the night until dawn. One Soviet report states that the escort was provided by 170 soldiers from the 226th NKVD Convoy Regiment (). Bogdan Musiał, however, states that the escort also included soldiers of the
border troops, militia officers and prison guards. On 25 June, about 2,000 prisoners were marched on foot by troops from the 42nd NKVD Convoy 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. The first part of the march passed through the streets of the burning city. The evacuees were then ordered to abandon their luggage. Some prisoners, especially those living in Minsk, attempted to escape in the chaos. However, in most cases, they were killed by the guards' bullets. Some attempted to blend in with the crowd of refugees and fire victims. The escort then ruthlessly opened fire, killing both the escapees and civilians who got too close to the column. There were also cases of prisoners dying under the rubble of collapsing buildings. The first assembly point was a forest located approximately from the city. All prisoners taken from Minsk, as well as from prisons and detention centres in nearby towns, were sent there. According to Janusz Prawdzic-Szlaski, the number of evacuees could have reached as many as 20,000 people. The
Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation reached similar conclusions, estimating that approximately 20,000 prisoners were driven towards Mogilev, including 8,000–11,000 prisoners taken from Minsk. Among them were many Polish citizens arrested in the
interwar Poland's north-eastern territories. Among the prisoners were minors.Seeing a 12-year-old girl walking next to me, I asked her why she had been arrested. With great seriousness and surprise, she replied: "For counterrevolution and espionage"; she came from
Nyasvizh – Janusz Prawdzic-Szlaski's memoirs.Among the evacuees were also:
Lithuanians – political prisoners brought from Kaunas (numbering from 115 to 300 people),
Red Army officers and soldiers arrested by the NKVD, including
pilots, Paul Jung – a
Swiss citizen who volunteered to take part in the
Winter War on the
Finnish side, allegedly even
French and
British soldiers who, after escaping from
German POW camps, were interned in the USSR. Witnesses recalled that a group of several hundred prisoners, all under death sentences, was kept on the sidelines. These men were shot shortly after the rest of the prisoners were led out of the forest. The remaining prisoners were herded further east, divided into columns that marched several kilometers apart. Rest breaks were short and few. Only in the final phase of the march did the NKVD officers provide some women with transport by truck. Well-fed criminal prisoners ("" or "blatniacy") set the pace, which had disastrous consequences for the remaining marchers. The summer heat was oppressive and the prisoners were only able to quench their thirst if they managed to find drinkable water at the stopping point. They were given minimal amounts of food, which usually ended up in the hands of the "blatniacy". During German air raids, prisoners were driven to the middle of the road, while the guards hid under trees or in roadside ditches. Shouting, kicks, and blows from rifle butts forced the victims to march faster. Those who, due to exhaustion, could not keep up with the column were shot or bayoneted by the guards. The same fate befell prisoners who attempted to escape or resist, reacted too slowly to commands, or even attracted the attention of the guards by talking to fellow prisoners or watching German planes. Neither women nor minors were spared. The bodies of the murdered, which the guards did not bury, quickly decomposed in the summer heat. Stronger prisoners (excluding the "blatniak") tried to help their exhausted comrades whenever possible. During the march, the NKVD continued to liquidate prisoners deemed particularly dangerous. Witnesses recalled that officers closely monitored the columns, called out individuals one by one, led them aside, and then shot them. Some victims were forced to kneel or bend over with blows from rifle butts, thus making it easier for the executioners to fire the fatal shot. The evacuation was also accompanied by mass executions: • During a stop near Chervyen, 20 prisoners were pulled from one column and shot over a gravel pit. • A column of approximately 300 prisoners was directed to a side road and stopped near an
alder grove. At the same time, a car carrying a group of NKVD officers arrived from the direction of Minsk. They ordered the escort to murder all the prisoners. Several of them overheard the conversation and warned their comrades. As a result, some of the prisoners attempted to escape, but only fourteen were successful. The rest were shot dead with machine gun fire. • Another column of approximately 200 prisoners was led to a roadside grove near Chervyen. There, the guards released the criminal prisoners and shot the rest. • Another column, consisting of an unknown number of prisoners, was also stopped near a forest near Chervyen. There, the escort ordered the prisoners to flee and then opened fire on them with machine guns. The wounded were finished off. The bodies of the murdered were crushed by truck wheels, or, according to another version, by tank tracks. Only one person is said to have survived the massacre. • Under unknown circumstances, a group of Poles wearing characteristic long coats, as remembered by witnesses, were shot. In dramatic circumstances, one of the columns, numbering 1,200 people, escaped massacre. At one point, the convoy leader received a written order to shoot the prisoners, but after reading it, he tore up the document and took his own life. The disoriented guards fled, and the prisoners, left to their own devices, scattered throughout the area.
Chervyen On June 26 or 27, after covering a distance of , the prisoners reached the town of Chervyen. Joanna Stankiewicz-Januszczak recalled that the inhabitants treated the prisoners with sympathy, trying to give them food and water, without any significant obstacles from the guards. The prisoners were gathered in the yard of the local prison; according to Janusz Prawdzic-Szlaski, only 2,000 of the nearly 20,000 prisoners who were supposed to depart from Minsk reached the prison. 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 arrivals were given a cup of water and 100–200 grams of bread each. Shortly thereafter, the NKVD officers began calling out selected prisoners by name. Two who volunteered were immediately taken to the prison bathhouse and shot. Soon, the NKVD officers began segregating prisoners by gender and by conviction or charge. Two groups of men were formed – one numbering approximately 600–700, the other approximately 400 – as well as a group of approximately 30 women. Some political prisoners, sensing the impending danger, posed as common criminals or people caught attempting to illegally cross the border, thus avoiding selection. Lithuanian witnesses also report that a large group of criminal prisoners were led out of prison and volunteered to join the
Red Army. 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. 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 the evening, the aforementioned group of 600–700 men was led out of the prison and driven southeast along the road to
Babruysk. After covering approximately 3–4 kilometers, the column reached a forest, where the escort began shooting prisoners, starting with those marching in the rear ranks. At one point, vehicles carrying armed Soviets appeared on the road, retreating eastward. Believing the situation to be an attack by German saboteurs, they opened fire on both the prisoners and their escorts. On the NKVD's orders, the entire column fell to the ground. After explaining the situation, the escorts ordered the prisoners to flee into the forest, then opened fire with machine guns and began throwing grenades at them. After the massacre was over, they piled the bodies of the dead in a pile, doused them with gasoline, and set them on fire. Only 37 prisoners survived, having managed to escape from the execution site. Among them was Janusz Prawdzic-Szlaski. After a grueling three-day walk through forests and swamps, the surviving prisoners encountered German troops. A tragic fate also befell the second group of men. They were taken to the forest near Chervyen and shot there. Only eight survived the massacre. However, a select few women survived, managing to hide in the prison's recesses and thus surviving until liberation. Soviet reports indicate that the execution of prisoners detained for "counter-revolutionary crimes" was ordered by the head of the NKVD prison administration of the Byelorussian SSR, Stepanov. In total, about 200 prisoners escaped. == Epilogue ==