Technology of Terror: Murders in the Mezhyrichi Regional Departments of the NKGB—NKVD in Rivne Region in the Summer of 1941

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to investigate the causes and circumstances of the destruction of the civilian population carried out by employees of the Soviet special services of the NKGB and the NKVD in the pre-trial detention cells (KPZ) of the district units of these structures, in particular in Mezhyrichi, after the German attack on the USSR in late June — early July 1941 p.

The methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systematicity, verification, and scientificity. Biographical, problem-searching, chronological, retrospective methods, the methods of local history, as well as the prosopographical approach, were used to reproduce the biographies of the victims and executioners.

Scientific novelty. For the first time, documents on the circumstances of the crime in Mezhyrichi, which come from the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, and state archives, have been collected, analysed and verified.

Main results, prospects for further research. The physical destruction of those arrested by the NKGB bodies, who at the beginning of the German-Soviet war were held in prisons of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and pre-trial detention cells at the district departments of the NKGB and the NKVD, took place under the secret directive of the People’s Commissar of State Security of the USSR Vsevolod Merkulov No. 2445/M dated June 23, 1941 p. The murders carried out in the execution of this directive in prisons are more widely covered in the scientific and memoir literature. On the other hand, information about similar crimes committed by employees of the Soviet special services in district departments is almost unknown. In our article, based on the fi rst discovered and analyzed archival sources, the murder of those arrested by the Mezhyrichi district branch of the NKGB on June 27, 1941, is highlighted. It was found that all employees of the district departments of the NKGB and the NKVD were direct participants or witnesses (that is, involuntary accomplices) of this crime. Employees of the MGB, KGB, and National Security Service of Ukraine in the Rivne region, who stopped investigating the cases of those killed in 1947—1964 or carried out manipulations after its renewal in 1990—1991, can also be considered accomplices. It has been proven that the operatives of the Mezhyrichi district departments of the NKGB—NKVD, having received the news about the beginning of the German-Soviet war, implemented a plan to “completely clear” the area of unsavoury elements that posed a threat to the communist regime as a potential “fifth column”. Murders similar to the one in Mezhyrichi were carried out at the end of June — the beginning of July 1941, also in other district departments of the NKGB and the NKVD of the western regions of Ukraine (Vyshnyvets, Klesiv, Sarny), which may become the subject of further research.