SIMFEROPOL, April 22. /TASS/. Archival documents revealing the brutalities committed by Nazi invaders have been declassified in Crimea ahead of the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. These documents provide shocking insights into the criminal activities of the secret field police - the Geheimfeld Polizei - at a railway station on the peninsula. The Crimea and Sevastopol office of the Federal Security Service (FSB) issued a statement confirming the release of these records.
"The declassified documents complete the picture of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis. They contain vital information gathered by Soviet security authorities about the criminal actions of the secret field police at the Sem Kolodezei (Seven Water Wells) railway station in Crimea," the statement reads.
The documents offer disturbing evidence that in February 1944, death squads captured approximately one hundred Soviet women, children, and elderly residents hiding in quarries. These victims were transported to a concentration camp at the Sem Kolodezei station. After several days of interrogation and torture, they were taken to a mound behind the village and executed by gunfire.
An account from a Riga resident, Leopold Landsman, describes witnessing the brutality: "I saw one of the executioners, called Zimmer, crush a child alive with his feet, and take another by the legs and smash his head against the wheels of a truck."
Further, in late February 1944, a young man was brought to the punitive police office at Sem Kolodezei after being arrested for concealing a red banner. He was subjected to brutal interrogation - beaten with a rubber-coated cable, his arms twisted, and kicked and stomped on. His legs were then bound above the knees with the banner and the young man set ablaze. The young man lost consciousness but refused to provide information about his underground comrades when he regained awareness.
In March 1944, the secret field police detained Galina Peremishchenko, a local resident suspected of connections to resistance movements. After failing to extract a confession, the Nazis executed her in a forest behind the village.
The case files also contain detailed accounts of the torture inflicted upon underground fighters from the villages of Marfovka and Mariental - now known respectively as Marfovka and Gornostaevka in the Leninsky district. For ethical reasons, specific details are omitted, but the testimonies describe the Nazis’ brutal methods, moral degradation, and marauding behaviors.
The release of these documents serves as a stark reminder of the horrors inflicted during that dark chapter of history, preserving the memory of those who suffered and fought during the Nazi occupation.