On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Simferopol, the FSB declassified archives on Nazi repressions in Crimea

CrimeaPRESS reports:

The FSB Directorate for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol declassified archives about repressions by the Nazi occupiers on the peninsula, including the murders of pregnant women, children and the elderly. Documents declassified to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Simferopol.

Declassified archival materials complement and detail the documents of the republican and city emergency state commissions known to historians, reflect the testimony of eyewitnesses to the atrocities of the Nazi occupation regime and point to the perpetrators of these crimes. The presented documents cover in detail the composition and activities of the SD (security service) and GFG (field gendarmerie) units operating in Simferopolsays the FSB regional department in a statement.

As the department clarified, punitive Nazi authorities throughout the peninsula carried out operations to search for and destroy partisans, underground fighters, patriots and all people who did not accept the enemy occupation. Thus, the commandant of Simferopol Georg Grimmel told counterintelligence officers about the murders of pregnant women, old people, children and the mentally ill.

One woman was shot for possessing old hunting equipment. This woman was pregnant. I remember they reported this to me, but it was after the execution, and I replied: “That means two people were shot.”,” the message quotes the commandant’s words from archival records.

In addition, the materials reveal details of medical experiments for the murder and removal of organs of Soviet prisoners of war.

As Sergei Natalevich, candidate of historical sciences, head of the department for using information from documents of the State Archives of the Republic of Crimea, said, the Nazis, who left Crimea under the onslaught of the Red Army in April 1944, even mined fruit trees, which caused injuries to minor residents of the region. According to the researcher, in June 1944 — November 1945, more than 152 thousand anti-tank and over 119 thousand anti-personnel mines were discovered and destroyed on the territory of Crimea.

REFERENCE: The Crimean offensive operation began on April 8, 1944, when troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front, having broken through the enemy defenses south of Sivash and on the Perekop Isthmus, rushed from the north of the peninsula towards Dzhankoy and Simferopol. The offensive ended on May 12, 1944 with the final defeat of the 200,000-strong 17th German enemy army at Cape Chersonese.

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