Saturday 30 June 2012


On June 22th, 1941 Nazi troops attacked Soviet Union, so Molotov-Ribbentrop's pact was broken. And since the beginning of Second World War in September of 1939 until June of 1941 the part of the Western Ukraine (Lviv, Ternopil, Volyn, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk regions) was under Soviet occupation. Soviet power thought these regions had finally become the part of Soviet Union in 1939 and during 1939-1941 NKVS (NKVD) agents imprisoned all persons, who disliked Soviet power or/and fought against Soviet system. And when Nazi-Soviet war had begun on June 22th, 1941 NKVS agents didn't know what to do with political prisoners - too much imprisoned people were in the prisons of the Western Ukraine, too much! Then Soviet power decided just to shoot all imprisoned! And NKVS agents shot, but also killed people in the ghastly way, cutting human body's parts, bricking in the prison's wall or burying in the ground yet alive persons, throwing grenades in the prison's cells, where their victims were. Since June 22th till the middle of July in 1941 near 24 000 victims of Soviet power were killed by NKVS agents in the Western Ukraine's prisons - in Lviv, Zolochiv, Drohobych, Lutsk, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Dubno, Zhovkva, Chortkiv, Berezhany, Stryy, Kremenets, Demyaniv Laz, Sambir, Pasichna, Sudova Vyshnya, Busk, Yavoriv, Horodok, Kamyanka-Buzka...That was real "face" of the horrible Soviet dictatorship.    

P.S. These photos were made by myself in the musem "Prison on Lontskyy street" in Lviv and there is written a short description of that cruel page of Ukrainian history and the numbers of killed Ukrainians in different cities. Only in Lviv 2 464 persons were killed in the prisons by NKVS agents since June 22th till June 28th, 1941, and prison on Lontskyy street was one of such terrible places in Lviv. Nowadays there is the museum of occupational regimes of Ukraine.   

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