Zalishchyky 4-5 July 1941 tragedy: Sadistic execution by the NKVD of Ukraine political prisoners by burning alive in the cattle wagons.
On July 4 and 5 1941 the NKVD officers sadistically dozed all 14 cattle wagons of the train in Zalishchyky, Ukraine, with petrol and set alight, burning alive all the political prisoners inside. Later, the burnt cattle wagons, were thrown into the Dnestr river. Each cattle wagon contained 50-70 persons making the total number around 980 burnt alive Ukrainians. This is not a one-off ethnic cleansing conducted by the NKVD. The reason this is not widely discussed in the West lies in the fact the UK and USA sided with Stalin, and later helped to rewrite the history.
During Stalin’s miscalculation of when the Soviet Union operation “GROM” for conquering Europe has to start and being pre-emptively countered by Hitler with operation “Barbarossa” began the question of liquidation of political prisoners in occupied states the Soviet Union took forcefully over in 1939-1940.
In Ukraine in the period of 1939-1940 the NKVD arrested 72768 people who they deemed to the politically radical and threat to the Soviet mindset. The prisoners were put into prisons which only could accommodate 30753 persons, making them into most overcrowded prisons on the Earth.
On June 23, 1941, a mere less than 12 hours, after Hitler pre-emptively countered Stalin’s operation “GROM”, the deputy of Security of the Soviet Union Vsevolod Merkulov issued decree № 2445 / М where he demanded the prisoners to be sorted into ones who will be deported and imprisoned to the Gulag death camps and into those who will be executed on spot. The decree started a mass execution of innocently detained Ukraine citizens who were left to rot in their prison cells.
The train which contained the Ukrainians destined to be deported by the NKVD to the Gulag death camps got stuck on July 4, 1941 at Zalishchyky where the railway bridge over the Dnestr river was destroyed. In effort to not to let the Ukrainians to escape the NKVD officers resorted to their old know sadistic execution burning burning people alive. The whole operation took over 24h period where the all 14 cattle wagons with up to 980 Ukrainians inside were first dozed with gasoline, let them burn to the ground and later thrown into the river, which exceptionally steep river banks didn’t let anyone to escape if they manage somehow to survive inside the blazing cattle wagon.
Sources:
2. https://twitter.com/History_Ukraine/status/1411432323233558532
3. https://twitter.com/Skrepo_history/status/1411650620273143812
