The Forgotten Tragedy of Korюkovka: Why the USSR Silenced the Most Brutal Nazi Repression in All of Europe.

From the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1944, German, Hungarian, and Romanian punitive squads destroyed over 670 settlements in Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of a significant portion of its civilian population. The village of Koryukivka became the largest settlement on the European continent during World War II (1939—1945) that was completely "cleared" by the occupiers. On March 1-2 and again on March 9, 1943, they shot and burned alive nearly all the residents of Koryukivka; in total, about 6,700 people perished – from infants to frail elderly, and 1,390 homes were incinerated.

According to materials from the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP), specifically from the regional department in Chernihiv led by expert Serhiy Butko, the order for the punitive operation was given by the chief of staff of the 399th main field commandant's office in the city of Konotop, Bayer Bruno Franz, a native of Kassel. The squad of occupiers (ranging from 300 to 500 men) was composed of German units and soldiers from the 105th Light Hungarian Division (Hungarians were particularly notorious for their brutality during the fight against partisans and in their treatment of the local population in present-day Chernihiv and Sumy regions). The operation was led by representatives of Sonderkommando 4a from Einsatzgruppe "C" of the SS troops, who had participated in the shootings of nearly 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar in Kyiv on September 29-30, 1941. This was a deliberate extermination of the civilian population, which the occupiers turned into a real conveyor belt...

It turned out that the tragedy of Koryukivka was practically unknown on a global or even a union-wide level. Everyone heard about the Soviet symbol of the bloody crimes of the occupiers: the Belarusian Khatyn – where 149 people were killed on March 22, 1943. On June 10, 1942, in the Czech village of Lidice, Nazis killed or later tortured 320 people in concentration camps; in the Greek town of Kalavryta and nearby villages, 677 people were killed on December 13, 1943; in the French Oradour-sur-Glane, 642 people were murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1944.

This raises the question of why the tragedy in Koryukivka never became known, even at the level of the Ukrainian SSR? The most the Soviet authorities did was erect a bronze composition nearly five meters tall in 1977 with the inscription, "The monument was built in honor of the heroic resistance of the Koryukivka residents against the German-Fascist invaders in 1943." Only in November 2023, on the 80th anniversary, was the name changed to "Monument to the Victims of the Koryukivka Tragedy." However, the residents of Koryukivka, as civilians, could not resist the armed occupiers. Again, the question arises: could the brave Red partisans have helped them?

How It Happened

The urban-type settlement (since 1923), the district center of Koryukivka, is located 100 km from the regional center – Chernihiv. Nearby are the dense Koryukivka forests, where a large partisan group (from three to five thousand fighters), commanded by Alexei Fedorov (at that time replaced by Nikolai Popudrenko), relocated from the neighboring Russian Bryansk region in February 1943.

Interestingly, during the Holodomor – from April 1932 to July 1933 – Fedorov headed the Koryukivka District Council of Trade Unions, and then, until September 1941, he was the first secretary of the Chernihiv Regional Committee of the Party for almost three years... And it was his subordinates who began gathering food supplies and conducting armed actions against the Nazis in the villages near Koryukivka at the end of February 1943. In response, the occupiers arrested the families of partisans. On February 27, 1943, Nikolai Popudrenko ordered the release of prisoners and the destruction of the garrison and police stations... The garrison was defeated, and up to 50 prisoners were freed. On March 2, Popudrenko reported on this, as it turned out, "Pyrrhic victory" in a radiogram to Moscow.

However, by that time, the occupiers had already been in Koryukivka for two days, continuing to kill local residents: people were herded into houses, which were set on fire with flamethrowers, and shot. In the local restaurant, up to 500 Koryukivka residents were killed. Almost all houses were subsequently burned, and on March 9, the occupiers completed their dark task. Throughout this time, the partisans, who were eager for battle since their outposts were only three kilometers from the town, never received orders from their command...

Serhiy Butko wrote: "Soviet and Russian official historiography and propaganda were and are focused exclusively on the victories of the USSR in World War II, its superiority among the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition, and, accordingly, on the heroization of its armed forces and law enforcement agencies, creating a myth of the nationwide support for communist power. That is why the topic of crimes against civilians was not a self-sufficient and separate direction of a humanitarian nature; it was mentioned as an auxiliary or practical means of depicting the enemy image and the necessity of its unconditional destruction. An additional stimulus for the special honoring of the memory of the victims of specific crimes against civilians for the communist leadership of the USSR was the need to conceal historical events that were dangerous for them."

In reality, the Soviet authorities long concealed or distorted the course of real events during World War II. In the horrific tragedy of Koryukivka and its peaceful residents, a significant role was played by the communist partisan movement, which acted as a completely obedient tool of the Soviet Union's policy regarding the territories of Ukrainian ethnic lands occupied by the Nazis and their allies. The Nazis, in turn, after even minor partisan operations, constantly carried out punitive actions against the civilian population, which they called "retribution."

"Both the crime of the Nazis in Koryukivka and the contemporary crimes of Russians in Bucha, Izium, and other occupied cities testify to the identical criminal nature of their organizers — the Hitlerite Nazi and Putin's neo-Nazi regimes. Mass terror against the civilian population — whether through the destruction of villages or missile strikes and killings — is used by such regimes to intimidate society and subdue it. The deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure by the Russian aggressor is as much a crime against the peaceful population as the actions of the Nazis during World War II.", – reported the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.

The memory of the tragedy in Koryukivka has not faded into oblivion thanks to the efforts of local historians from the regional historical museum and the support of the UINP. Together, the institute and the museum have published over ten books on this topic. The Battle of Kruty, which also took place in Chernihiv region, and the Koryukivka tragedy are national symbols in the defense of Ukraine.