SEVASTOPOL, June 21. /TASS/. New archive documents exposing Nazi crimes in Crimea have been declassified on the eve of the 83rd anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Crimea and Sevastopol office of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has told the media.

The FSB office has made public "materials from its Archive Fund 100, which illustrate very vividly the Nazis’ punitive policies in Crimea," the news release reads. "Declassified archive materials complement and detail documents of the local extraordinary government inquiries, reflect the testimonies by eyewitnesses describing the atrocities of the Nazi regime of occupation and point to the perpetrators of these crimes."

Among the declassified materials there are testimonies by those who witnessed the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the occupation of Crimea and acts of genocide against the local civilian population.

"There is an account by a witness who described a mass execution of civilians, including children, in the anti-tank ditch near the village of Novosergeyevka, the Simferopol district, on Feodosia road: ‘When all children were collected, two officers wearing rubber coats, gas masks and rubber gloves, took the kids one by one, smeared their lips were with some liquid solution, and immediately threw their dead bodies aside," one of the declassified reports says.

Other witnesses described the crackdown on the village of Laki in the Bakhchisaray district and extermination of its residents by Nazi forces and their accomplices. According to the recorded testimonies the Nazis tied Elena Gavalova, sister of the commander of local underground resistance guerilla movement Pavel Berberi, to the bed in her home, doused her in kerosene and set her on fire.

"All the locals heard Yelena Gavalova screaming until the burning house collapsed," the testimony reads.

Some published extracts from a report by the Crimean branch of the NKVD security police of January 11, 1944 described how in December 1943 the Germans put civilians evacuated from the Kuban river area, prisoners, and captured wounded Soviet soldiers on ships and then sank these ships at sea. In three such incidents mentioned in the report several thousand people were killed.

According to another declassified piece of evidence, provided by a member of an underground organization, in December 1941 he saw the Nazis shoot more than 2,000 Jews in Feodosia in an anti-tank ditch near a mechanical factory. Also, he described the arrests and torture of the city's underground resistance members.

Nazi Occupation of Crimea in 1941 - 1944

During World War II Crimea became the scene of fierce battles with Nazi troops. The defense of Sevastopol lasted from November 1941 to July 1942. During the Nazi occupation of the peninsula, underground guerilla units were active there. The Red Army’s Crimean strategic offensive operation, which resulted in the liberation of the peninsula, lasted from April 8 to May 12, 1944.

According to various sources, about 1 million people were killed in Crimea during its defense and liberation. In 2022, the Supreme Court of Crimea declared the Nazi occupation of the peninsula during the Great Patriotic War as genocide. Russia’s Investigative Committee has proved cases of systematic mass extermination of civilians and prisoners of war in Crimea by the Nazi invaders and their accomplices.