Nazi Collaborators in the during and after World War II Boris Kovalev

Abstract illustratif. L' auteur explique aussi com- viction that the problem of Nazi crimes ment un si grand nombre d' anciens colla- during World War II has been solved, Based on documents from the Russian borateurs nazis de l' ex-Union Sovietique since not all Nazi criminals have received archives, which in the early 1990s became ont pu echapper illeur peine et s' installer appropriate punishment for their open to the researchers, the author gives sans €lre inquieUs dans plusieurs pays atrocities. This paper also mentions a an account of the problem of collaboration occidentaux, notamment Ie Canada et les number of Nazi criminals and with in the USSR during Etats-Unis, et retrace l'historique de la collaborators from whose lives World War II. He discusses the role of trajectoire de certains d' entre eux. have been investigated in detail. special pun itive detachments, formed from Introduction the local populations in the occupied Special Detachments from the territories, in assisting Nazis in their policy The problem of Nazi collaborators during Local Population of terror and genocide. A brief history of and after World War II has been the In the occupied countries ofEurope, the the infamous 667th punitive battalion, subject of my research since my student Nazis pressured local populations to "Shelon, " andsomeofitsmembers serves as days. But it was only in early 1991 that I cooperate with them. These collaborators an illustrative example. The author also could approach it professionally for the were usually assigned to fulfil the most explains why so many Nazi collaborators first time. Once many positive political "dirty" jobs connected with the from the former Soviet Union managed to changes took place in Russia, I received extermination of the population. In their escape punishmentand settle in the access to the Archives of the attempts to subjugate the local Western countries, Canada and the United Administration of the National Security populations, the Nazis created the so- States in particular, and also traces the Service in Russia. This paper is based on called "bodies of new administration," history of some of them. the documents, which were obtained that co-opted the services of those willing from these archives. Precis or coerced to collaborate with them. The nature of this work there was The initiative for the creation of the En se basant sur des documents des archi- quite challenging. In some archives the local administration came from the mili- ves russes devenus accessibles aux cher- documents from the World War II period tary commandant's office, which badly cheurs au debut des annees 1990,1' auteur are not indexed and those who work in needed the support of institutions of civil rend compte du probleme de la collabora- the archives do not know their volume management. In the cities and towns tion avec I'Allemagne nazie en URSS numbers and the information these these ''bodies of new administration" pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. II documents contain. It is no exaggeration were widely created. They constituted the analyse Ie role de detachements punitifs to say that after many years of silent executive and administrative units of the speciaux, qui etaientmis en place il partir storage in the archives of Russia, many local self-government and incorporated d' elements issus des populations locales of these documents were first touched the police, finances and taxes, as well as des territoires occupes, et qui avaient pour byme. assistance to the families whose members role d' assister l' occupant nazi dans sa After World War II,millions of people went to work in Germany. The control of politique de terreur et de genocide. Un found themselves far from their original ieme these bodies stretched beyond the bref historique du sinistre 667 Ba- places of residence. The reasons for this interests of a given city or town and had a taillon Punitif" Shelon" et une description situation were both attempts to save general regional scope. signazetique de certains de ses membres themselves from the atrocities of the In the rural areas, administrative fournit ici un exemple military actions and to escape the pun- functions were fulfilled by the so-called ishmentfor crimes they had committed. Golovy (Heads). In August 1941, the Dozens of names of those who had been Dr. Boris Kovalev is Professor in the Department of occupants made it clear that beside the involved in the Nazi crimes during World definite administrative functions (tax Law, Novgorod State University named after War II are known to me from the Yaroslav Mudrii, Novgorod, Russia. collection, control and the surveillance of materials stored in the civil, military, and The full names of the alleged Nazi criminals the local population for the anti-German mentioned in the article are in the Archives of the KGB (Committee for State Security) spirit), the Heads were responsible for Administration of the National Security Service archives. Many of those guilty of crimes bringing all regulations of the German of the Russian Federation. managed to emigrate and settle in Canada Administration to the attention of the This article was translated from the Russian by and the United States under a false local population and for the promotion of Roza Kovalev. identity or by concealing their past. Thus, the ideas of "Great Germany and it is still too early to say with con-

Refuge, Vol. 17, No.2 (April 1998) 43

National Socialism." To control the oc- would prepare two different lists of question." It was assumed that the jus- cupied territory, German military forces population: one for the Jews and the tification for the extermination of the began to create" services of order." Ac- other for politically unreliable persons. Jewish population would be explained by cording to the regulations, such services After the suspects were identified, the the following statement, "Stalin, had to keep public order and maintain police would search them out and arrest communists and Jews are guilty of this security among local population, provide them and they would be jailed after an war from which the Russian population is assistance to the occupants in the investigation. For these purposes, a spe- suffering so much." execution of the criminal police missions cial investigation department was es- Those Jewish people who remained SD (Sicherheitsdienst, or Security tablished. When the arrested persons alive by 1942, had to wearidentification Service) aimed against any form of the were incarcerated, it was up to comman- signs, in some places these were yellow anti-government activity. dants and police to deal with themthey and white stars, in other places bands on made decisions on the form of the the sleeves. The military authorities Special Detachments in the punishment: whether to execute a sus- decided to issue a daily ration of 100 Territory of the Former Soviet pect, to send him/her to the incarnation grams of bread a day per person in Jewish Union camp or to let him/her go free. ghettos, and the most insignificant The" services of order" were widely dif- The city of Staraia Russa, for exam- offence resulted in the denial of this bread fused throughout the territory of the ple, was at the front zone and Nazis ratio. In such places as , , and former USSR (Soviet Union). In different decided "to solve the Jewish question" in Ostrov, all Jewish men, male teenagers occupied regions of the country, a variety the shortest time. Hence, during the and boys were exterminated. The of police divisions were established. The autumn of 1941, the Jewish population battalion played a direct and key role in Nazis invested big hopes in the persons was taken out of the city and extermi- the annihilation of the Jewish population. who had been persecuted by the Soviet nated. These actions were explained in The military anti-Semitism was a part of administration. Apart from common the following way: the state policy of fascist Germany. In criminals, there were many people who 1. thewarwasunleashedattheJewish these conditions, the participation of the had suffered from collectivization and initiative; Jewish people in military actions on repressions in 1937-38. The functions of 2. Jews were the nation of parasites liv- Hitler's side was thought to be impossible, the police ranged from looking after order ing at the expense others; and but history proved otherwise. A resident in the streets to fighting with subversive 3. having seized the power in Russia, of the city of Krasnograd of the Charkov elements. Jews created the Soviet jail system region, Grigori Moiseevich Gurevich, a One of the main targets of the German for the people. sergeant of the Red Army, was taken pris- administration was the complete Thus, the conclusion thatfollowed was: oner by the Germans in 1941 in the passportization (identification) of the "The end to Jews means the end to the vicinity of Leningrad. As a Jew, he could local population which was carried out by war." be shot on the spot, but he managed to the Russian police. The Military com- The persons who were collaborating conceal his background. He said that he was Ukrainian-Grigori Mikhailovich mandant of the city of Staraia Russa with the occupants and working with the Gurvich and was, therefore, sent to a stressed: police were punished accordingly after military prison. Gurevich tried to flee By the complete identification of and the war, but many of them managed to twice and twice he was caught. After the registration of the local population by escape punishment by hiding or issuing passports to each person, they last attempt, the head of the prison gave concealing their identity. him two options-to be executed or to will reveal the unwanted elements, One of the armed detachments which this will also make it easier for the become an executioner. Gurevich chose police to work with the population in was active in the territory of the north- the second option, and the first task he terms of search of suspicious persons- western part of Russia was the 667th was given by the Nazis was to execute his partisans and Soviet spies.1 punitive battalion "Shelon," belonging to comrades in flight. When the Germans the 16th army of Wehnnacht under the The heads of the police units were began to form punitive battalions, management of the military intelligence Gurevich became a soldier in one of them. ordered to create a net of trustworthy service. The battalion was setup in Feb- He was a machine-gunner and he people in the shortest time possible, and ruary 1942, and it was formed from pris- participated in punitive actions more than to use them for the identification of per- oners of war and the local population of once, dealing with the local population sons with hostile attitudes to the German the occupied districts of the Leningrad allegedly in contact with the guerrillas. In occupants. They were encouraged to hire region. It consisted of six divisions and 1943, he was wounded. The Red Army relatives and close friends for this job. had 700 persons in service. was advancing and soon Gurevich was The policemen monitored the local In 1942-43, this battalion destroyed taken prisoner by the Soviets, but during population and were used by the Nazis to more than forty residential areas and the interrogation, he participate in the extermination and carried out multiple group and single punitive operations. Usually, the police executions. The main task for this force Refuge, Vol. 17, No.2 (April 1998) was "the final solution of the Jewish 44 managed to hide his membership in the tors from the east to the west and the participation in punitive actions against punitive battalion. He was conscripted to other way round. the civil population. It was impossible to the acting Red Army with which he Thus, many Nazi collaborators from verify their words. They were granted the reached Berlin. He also received military Russia found themselves in France, opportunity to stay in the Western rewards for his service. Denmark, and Norway as the result of the Europe. After the war, he resided in Leningrad relocations. They had to fight the local After World War II, Europe lay in without attracting the attention of the population there and guard the shoreline ruins. Its eastern part was under USSR KGB. It was the KGB, which searched from the landing of EnglishAmerican control; in its western part, particularly in for military criminals in the USSR. This forces. The luckiest ones were those who France and Italy, the communist parties continued smoothly up to 1973, when had been sent to Scandinavia, since they were consolidating their positions. That Gurevich applied to emigrate to Israel. did not participate in military actions up was the main reason why former During a very painstaking verification of to the spring of 1945. They did not resist collaborators felt like moving as far as his documents the inconsistencies were the approaching allied forces and were possible from places of the recent military revealed. This led to suspicions, and after taken prisoners without a fight. After the actions. In such circumstances, Canada a number of inquiries and cross war, the Soviet government requested the and the United States became the examinations, it became clear that immediate release and forced return of all preferred countries for emigration and Gurevich, a person applying to move to former soldiers of the punitive settlement. Israel, and, Gurvich, a soldier of the Nazi detachments to the USSR, so they could According to the available informa- punitive battalion, were one and the same face punishmentthere, but the Allies, tion, all collaborators who managed to person. The court sentenced him to the mainly British took their time. They emigrate to Canada and the United States severest possible punishment, the death knew that Stalin had ordered public became law-abiding citizens. They were penalty. hangings of anyone alleged to have not known toqeate problems for the collaborated with the Nazis. If they were authorities of their new countries of Former Nazi Criminals in North not hanged they would be destined to residence. Thus, the Commander of the America serve long prison terms. Stalin's justice SS battalion, A. R. and major of the In the autumn of 1943, the "Shelon" was not interested in the genuine facts. who was awarded two "Iron battalion was transferred to Denmark to Very often, crimes of different weight Crosses" was residing in the city of defend the shore from the possible land- were punished equally. In these Cleveland (USA) until the end of 1970s. ing of the Allies there. Many former sol- conditions, the British officers had to His deputy, P. R. found home in the same diers from the "Shelon" battalion were choose between the immediate fulfilment place. According to the documents, A. R. able to move to the United States and of the requests of the Soviet side was an "accomplished" sadist. He Canada and settle there. Information from (according to the Yalta Agreement, all enjoyed the most cruel tortures of pris- the criminal investigation department of citizens of the USSR had to be returned oners. He entertained himself by hanging Russia made it possible to follow their to their "motherland") or to investigate prisoners by their genitals. His deputy route-from active Nazi collaborators, who each case separately. was nicknamed "Sanitar" because he used were performing the dirtiest jobs, to the All persons involved in military to shoot prisoners on the ice of frozen decent citizens who established crimes did their best to escape deporta- lakes and rivers. He shot his victims and themselves in the Western countries. tion to the USSR. They tried to convince then dumped them under the ice. In this At the time when the Nazi troops were the Allied officers that they had been manner, he murdered all of the residents victorious, it was not difficult to pick up forced to put a German military uniform of the village of Borki. These former people from the occupied population who on and the reasons to do so were the members of the punitive battalion were would co-operate with them for certain following: working on the railway road in the United 2 benefits, but at the end of1943 the 1. They wanted to save themselves from States up to the 1970s. situation changed drastically. The so- the inevitable death from starvation in Some members of the same battalion called "additional allied detachments" the German concentration camps. suchasF. P.,and V. V., who also partici- started to lose their ability to fight. Many 2. They intended to help the local pated in the bloody murders, came to collaborators who did taint themselves population in some way. Canada and became residents there. with blood started to flee and join the 3. They hated the Soviet regime which According to the testimony of witnesses, resistance forces. This tendency was exterminated the best representatives in December of1942, they supervised the apparent not only in Russia but in other of the Russian nation. shooting of the peaceful population at the countries as well, and in these situations, Some of them maintained that their river Polist, which is in the northwest of the Nazis undertook the policy of participation in the war on the German Russia. One of the witnesses testified, relocating the collabora- side was a form of resistance to the to- "Among the bodies there was a wounded talitarian communist regime. And all of boy of 9-10 years, he was crying and them without exception denied their sobbing from pain, Refuge, Vol. 17, No.2 (April 1998) 45 two killers, [F. P. and V. V.], who were first city head of the ancient Russian city files of all persons who were under sus- nicknamed Vasia and Skobar, approached of N ovgorod during the German occu- picion. Their friends, relatives and the boy and gunned the boy."3 From the pation. He was a professional historian colleagues were questioned; their corre- 1950s, bothF. P. and V. V. were residing and before the war he worked in the spondence was constantly checked and in Toronto. F. P. resided in Mississauga HistoricalMuseumofNovgorod. There attempts were made to locate them. and later he moved to Toronto. He was no time to evacuate all the exhibits At the end of the 1950s, mail from became aneighbour ofV. V., his from the museum; many were left in abroad began to come to the USSR. The companion in the punitive actions. Novgorod whichwas occupied by the authors were people who had been Apart from these two, other alleged Nazis in August of 1941. V. P. partici- forcefully moved to work in Germany killers from the same battalion moved to pated directly in the transfer abroad of during Wodd War II and who decided the country of the Maple Leaf. These in- the most valuable objects of art.s Lost after the war not to return to the USSR. eluded S. K., V. S., and V. L. The first forever were the collections of ancient Officers of the KGB were looking for any one showe d the most horrible cruelty to- Russian Icons and French paintings of the piece of information that could shed some wards the Jewish population. V. S. and V. 18th century. Among other lost paintings, light on the war criminals. We can L. eagerly followed orders and solved the we can mention the canvas of Peter Paul assume that Soviet diplomats and other "Jewish problem" in the city of Porchov Rubens, "The Portrait of V espasian." representatives of the USSR abroad were completely. They were appointed to work These paintings belonged to the private involved in the same work, i.e. to collect at the Commandant's office. First of all, collections of Russian noblemen who all possible information about the war they started with cutting the bread ratio in resided in this area before the October criminals. The majority of the criminals the ghetto by half, that is to 50 grams of Revolution of 1917. They were seized had been located and at this point the bread per person. This is how they during the Revolution and distributed work was stopped except in one instance. explained their actions, "Russian people among the museums. The museum of In the middle of the 1960s, a scandal was are starving and in this situation, Zydy [a Novgorod ranked high in the collections sparked in Germany because one of the diminutive Russian term for Jews] do not of art before W orid War I!. former Nazi criminals had a high position need food." The Jewish population of the V. P . left Russia for Germany in 1943 in the Constitutional Court of the Federal ghetto faced starvation, and people were and for some time any trace of him was Republic of Germany. As a result the getting weaker and weaker, and many lost. At the end of 1950s, he was seen in former SS officer lost a prestigious became too exhausted to go to work. V. Italy and in the United States, and at the position. S. and V. L. daily inspected the houses same time the paintings from the The materials on former Nazi col- where the Jewish people lived and beat to Novgorod museum appeared in the art laborators who resided in Canada and the death those who were still alive buttoo market. In 1988, when Novgorod cel- United States were prepared for a meeting weak to move. According to the reports, ebrated the millennium of the adoption of between Leonid Brezhnev and Gerald which were found in the archives, those Christianity, St. Sophia Cathedral of Ford in the City of Yladivostokin 1974. two murdered more than 20 Jewish Novgorod received a gift from an Ameri- The Soviet periodicals appeared to have persons. V. L. settled in Toronto.4 can collector, the icons that had been lost numerous materials about the Nazi During the first months after the war, during the war. Art critics and historians punitive actions, its victims and the the government of the USSR created assumed that these icons had been seized perpetrators of these crimes. The number special bodies that were in charge of by V. P. whose responsibility was to look of witnesses was very large and U.S. returning objects of art from the territory after the storage of icons in Novgorod. authorities suggested that the witnesses of Germany and its allies, that had been The cold war and the situation of should be allowed to travel to the United seized by Germany in Russia between mistrust between the East and the West States to help in the investigation; but the 1941 and 1944. The relocation of the art helped many Nazi criminals to escape the Soviet authorities refused to cooperate. objects to the Third Reich was monitored punishment they deserved. After the Many witnesses have now passed away. not only by Nazi Germany government death of Stalin, the international situation Conclusion authorities, but also by individual officers became more flexible. The new policies and soldiers who were often assisted by of Nikita Khrustchev allowed masses of Nazi crimes were committed more than local persons. the imprisoned to be set free and in this 50 years ago but we have to remember In recent years, the interest of the new situation the Soviet secret services that the decisions of the NurembergTri- public in the problems ofrecovery of the abandoned the search for false criminals. bunal have not been annulled, and that lost property, i.e. the recovery of the as- The KGB created new structures, which crimes against humanity do not have time sets which were relocated in the years of enforced the search for Nazi war limits. More than fifty years have passed Wodd War II, has increased. criminals, but it would be unjust and since the day when Wodd War II, the The story of V. P. reflects this issue wrong to say that no work had been done bloodiest war in the history of mankind, and is worth discussing. He was the before. The KGB had the ended. The main culprits of the war, the German fascists were pun-

46 Refuge, Vol. 17, No.2 (April 1998)

ished. The leaders of the Third Reich were charged with crimes against hu- manity and received severe sentences, usually the death penalty. Also many of those who collaborated with the Nazis and executed the orders to exterminate both Germans and the representatives of other nations were also pUnished, but there were many who managed to escape justice and hide in the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. II Notes 1. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Novgorod Region. Ar- chives Criminal Record: No. 1/6995, Vol. I, 164-65. 2. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Leningrad Region. Ar- chives Criminal Record: No. 19344A19143, Vol. 2. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Novgorod Region. Ar- chives Criminal Record: No. 1/6995, Vol. 4. 3. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Novgorod Region. Ar- chives Criminal Record: No. 43689,34-35. 4. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Pskov Region. Archives Criminal Record: No. C 14643, Vol. 3. 5. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Novgorod Region. Ar- chives Criminal Record: No. 2/4995, Vol. 1. Bibliography The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Novgorod Region. Ar- chives Criminal Records: No. 19094 (Vol. 1,2,6),No. 1/6995 (Vol. 1),No.43689,No. 2/4995 (Vol. 1). The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Leningrad Region and the City of St. Petersburg. Archives Criminal Record: No. 19344. The Archives of the Administration of the National Security Service of the Russian Federation of the Pskov Region. Archives Criminal Records: No. C 16229, No. C 7014, No. C 14643, No. 2467. Cl

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Refuge • Vol. 17 • No.2· April 1998

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