Vinnytsia Massacre. “Hell” on Earth

Not many books are written, nor documentaries are made about this tragedy. For some reason, it is practically erased from history textbooks. However, it is unfair because Vinnytsia was among the first places in Ukraine to learn about the price of the Great Terror of 1937–1938. In only a year, over 10,000 innocent residents of Vinnytsia were murdered. The head of Vinnytsia State Security, Ivan Korablyov, was in charge of the conveyor line of death.

Learn more about another bloody crime of the Soviet government, which gained worldwide resonance but was forgotten in Ukrainian society, and about Korablyov’s “laboratories”, in today’s post.

In March 1938, 39-year-old Ivan Korablyov met the USSR People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs. The latter considered various candidates for the head post of Vinnytsia State Security. Ivan Korablyov, who did not even receive secondary education and was generally characterized as a mix of ambition, stupidity, and complete obedience, was perfect for this role. The loyal dog of the Bolsheviks got the job.

However, the chosen one was excessively enthusiastic about such an appointment; he was afraid of not matching his superiors’ expectations. They encouraged him, saying, ‘‘What would you have to do in Vinnytsia? Simply destroy the “nationalist divisions — that’s all there is to it’’, and Korablyov agreed.

Upon arriving in Vinnytsia, the new boss established his rules: the absence of criminal cases and arrests was unacceptable. He ordered his subordinates to cling to each case and find the “culprits” because otherwise, he would regard their actions as rebellion and protest against him. Arrests took place everywhere, every night. Falsification of criminal cases became the norm.

In the 1930s, a large fruit garden flourished on the outskirts of Vinnytsia. It was just what Korablyov needed. Out of the blue, he ordered to bring boards, bricks, lime, and cement to the garden. Soon, a tall wall with barbed wire and guard posts around emerged.

The locals thought that the Bolsheviks had started some kind of “military construction,” some sort of a secret facility. Alas, they were wrong. These were Korablyov’s “laboratories,” where suspects were mercilessly beaten and humiliated. Some information about the solving cases methods from those times is preserved: for example, the expression “to give one a newspaper to read” meant to beat a prisoner on the liver and kidneys with an oak chair leg wrapped in a newspaper.

There was a “notch,” which meant a severe beating on the head or back. They would often kick the chair out from under the arrested, to injure their spine and internal organs. The prisoners were also forced to torment each other in their cells, to the satisfaction of the Chekists.

Korablyov’s employees felt so confident and untouchable that they invented “experiments” even without the help of the “head of the laboratory.” For example, after shooting some innocent people, they did not remove their bodies but ordered the still-alive prisoners to imitate sexual acts with the dead.

The investigations lasted for weeks, while prisoners lived in inhumane conditions: more than a hundred people in cells designed for 16 people. Torture and injuries became commonplace.

Unable to withstand such abuse, the suspects confessed to crimes they did not commit. Korablyov gave orders to execute them. Executions were usually carried out immediately. The person was summoned from the cell under the pretext of being sent to exile with the hands tied, they were put on their knees and executed with a shot in the back of the head.

The head of Vinnytsia State Security was absurdly happy because of the percentage of “solved” cases. Korablyov was proud of himself, and therefore fearlessly asked his superiors to increase the quotas on repression at the expense of other regions due to the large number of “counter-revolutionary elements.” A quote found later in one of his letters perfectly describes him: “an exceptional Bolshevik.”

In November 1938, when Lavrentiy Beria became chief of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the USSR, Ivan Korablyov reacted to the change in leadership: he submitted a resignation letter and a request to punish his employees for the terrible beatings of the prisoners. The Chekists were accused of violating the sentencing algorithm. Korablyov was removed from his post.

In 1940, a criminal case was initiated regarding the mass murders of innocent Vinnytsia residents under the command of Korablyov. He attempted to commit suicide but survived.

For the organization of mass repressions, Ivan Korablyov served only part of his sentence in a correctional labor camp. He later went to the front, was captured by the Germans, and spent the rest of his life undisturbed in Russia.

During the German occupation, people started talking about the Vinnytsia tragedy. Locals testified that there are mass graves of the NKVD victims in the city. The Germans did not pay attention to it immediately, but only after the Battle of Stalingrad. In the end, they organized excavation with the participation of international scientific commissions. Thanks to them, 95 graves were excavated, in which 9,439 remains of bodies were discovered. Personal belongings and documents of the found ones were hung on trees nearby. This way, 679 victims of the NKVD crimes were identified.

Oleksandr Fedoryshen, director of the Vinnytsia History Center, says: “I think the main motivation for starting the excavations was the occupation administration’s attempt to gain the support of the local population.”

Here are the recollections of this bloody tragedy left by an eyewitness of the events, a member of the forensic medical research team Anton Dragan in his book “Let’s Remember Vinnytsia”:

…on July 16, 1943, before noon, the train stopped at Vinnytsia station. People with bags got out of the train cars and walked silently along the wide Kotsiubynsky Boulevard, along the wooden bridge over the Bug River, which was heavily guarded by soldiers, and further along Ukrainian Avenue. No one spoke, and no one looked at each other, it was clear that, in addition to the heavy bags, they had a much greater burden on their souls. Ukrainian Avenue goes on as Litynske Highway (now Khmelnytske Highway), and this is where these living human shadows directed their steps. In three locations along this highway — the so-called “Park of Culture and Recreation” on the right, an old graveyard on the left, and a remote fruit garden — they opened mass graves. From there they pull out rotting corpses of people with their hands tied behind their backs using wire and ropes, with bullet holes in the back of their heads. There are hundreds and thousands of these corpses. Every time they find new graves full of corpses. A terrible, downright intolerable stench seemingly enveloped the whole city, and after it entire Ukraine.

After the forensic examination and identification, the body was buried a second time. The victims of Stalinist repressions were usually peasants and workers aged 30–40.

However, the grief was not over. In 1944, the Soviet authorities returned and announced a special inspection of Vinnytsia residents. Several thousand locals came to the central park with their papers. The commissioner was looking for witnesses to the excavations. When found, as in 1937–1938, innocent people were shot.

Candidate of historical sciences Pavlo Kravchenko emphasizes:

Such tragedy happened in every regional center, unfortunately. We were lucky that the Germans agreed to the excavations and that these crimes were revealed. Otherwise, it would be as if this tragedy never happened.

It is worth once again emphasizing the commemoration of the victims of Soviet terror. The Vinnytsia tragedy is just one of many crimes committed by the Bolshevik government, and it should be covered not only in Ukraine but also abroad. Terror’s greatest crime is that it depreciates death.

Remember!