The material is complex... Published because we do not know the whole truth... For example, about how one day major cities Disabled people from the Second World War disappeared, almost all of them, almost overnight. So that they do not spoil the image of a socialist country, do not undermine faith in a bright tomorrow and do not darken the memory of the great Victory.
According to sources, the mass withdrawal of disabled people outside the city limits occurred in 1949, on the 70th anniversary of Stalin. In fact, they were caught from 1946 until the Khrushchev era. You can find reports to Khrushchev himself about how many legless and armless beggars in the orders were removed, for example, on railway. And the numbers there are in the thousands. Yes, not everyone was taken out. They took those who had no relatives, who did not want to burden their relatives with caring for themselves, or whom these relatives abandoned due to injury. Those who lived in families were afraid to show themselves on the street unaccompanied by relatives, lest they be taken away. Those who could, left the capital for the outskirts of the USSR, because, despite their disabilities, they could and wanted to work and lead a full life.
Valaam Island, 200 kilometers north of Svetlana in 1952-1984, was the site of one of the most inhumane experiments to form the largest human “factory”. Disabled people were exiled here, so as not to spoil the urban landscape - a variety of people, from legless and armless, to mental retardation and tuberculosis. It was believed that disabled people spoil the appearance of Soviet cities. Valaam was one, but the most famous of dozens of places of exile for war invalids. This is very famous story. It’s a pity that some “patriots” roll their eyes.
These are the most difficult times in the history of Valaam. What the first commissars did not plunder in the 40s was desecrated and destroyed later. Terrible things happened on the island: in 1952, the poor and crippled were brought there from all over the country and left to die. Some nonconformist artists made a career out of painting human stumps in their cells. The boarding home for the disabled and elderly became something of a social leper colony - there, like on Solovki during the Gulag, the “dregs of society” were kept in captivity. Not all armless and legless people were exiled, but those who begged, begged, and had no housing. There were hundreds of thousands of them, who had lost their families, their homes, no one needed, no money, but hung with awards. They were collected overnight from all over the city by special police and state security squads, taken to railway stations, loaded into ZK-type heated vehicles and sent to these very “boarding houses”. Their passports and soldier's books were taken away - in fact, they were transferred to the status of ZK. And the boarding schools themselves were part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The essence of these boarding schools was to quietly send disabled people to the next world as quickly as possible. Even the meager allowance that was allocated to the disabled was almost completely stolen. The first mass actions, when crippled veterans were taken to boarding schools almost from the city streets, took place in the late 1940s. A contemporary wrote: “…One day, as always, I came to Bessarabka and before I even got there I heard a strange, alarming silence…. At first I didn’t understand what was going on, and only then I noticed - there wasn’t a single disabled person in Bessarabka! They told me in a whisper that at night the authorities carried out a raid, collected all the Kyiv disabled people and sent them in trains to Solovki. Without guilt, without trial or investigation. So that they don’t “embarrass” citizens with their appearance...”
…3. To prevent unauthorized departures from homes for disabled and elderly people who do not want to live there, and to deprive them of the opportunity to engage in begging, some of the existing homes for disabled and elderly people should be converted into closed-type homes with a special regime... Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov.”
I really hope that there will be no inappropriate comments on this post. Further material is not for the sake of polemics, political disputes, discussions of who, when and where lived well and everything else. This material is to be remembered. With respect to the fallen, silently. On the battlefield, they fell or died from their wounds after the victorious salute died down in 1945. Take a closer look at these faces... / Artist Gennady Dobrov 1937-2011 /
“Unknown,” that’s what Dobrov called this drawing. Gennady Dobrov at one time painted a portrait gallery of war invalids from a boarding school on Valaam. “The heaviest” were brought to this island so that they would not spoil the city landscapes with their terrifying appearance. These are portraits of heroes, but not everyone has names. The artist felt someone's gaze on him. Turned around. There was a swaddled man lying on the bed in the corner. Without arms and legs. The orderly came up. - Who is this? – asked Gennady. - There are no documents. But he won’t say - after being wounded he lost his hearing, memory and speech. Later it seemed to be possible to find out (but only presumably) that it was Hero of the USSR Grigory Voloshin. He was a pilot and survived ramming an enemy plane. He survived and lived as an “Unknown” in the Valaam boarding school for 29 years. In 1994, his relatives showed up and erected a modest monument at the Igumensky cemetery, where deceased disabled people were buried, which eventually fell into disrepair. The rest of the graves remained nameless, overgrown with grass...
Quote (History of the Valaam Monastery): In 1950, a Home for Disabled Persons of War and Labor was built on Valaam. The monastery and hermitage buildings housed cripples who suffered during the Great Patriotic War... September 2 is the date of the end of World War II. 66 years ago, humanity finally celebrated the victory over fascism and... forgot its victors. Not all of them, of course, and not everywhere. Namely in the victorious country and precisely those who gave everything they had... for the Motherland... for the Victory... for Stalin. Everything... including arms and legs. The MK reporter conducted his own investigation into one of the most terrible and shameful secrets of the twentieth century. Thousands of those who emerged from the battlefields completely or almost completely disabled were cynically nicknamed “samovars” for the absence of limbs and exiled to numerous monasteries so as not to spoil the bright holiday of millions with their squalor. It is still unknown how many living human stumps died in such exiles; their names have not yet been declassified.
“Disabled” - understandable. “Samovar” is also understandable. However, the combination of these two words seems like some kind of nonsense. Meanwhile, we are talking about one of the most terrible, most hidden tragedies of the last great war. About the tragedy that stretched over hundreds of unfortunate people long years. “Samovars” were a cynical, but very accurate name in the post-war country for people severely maimed by explosions and shrapnel - disabled people who had neither arms nor legs. The fate of these “stumps of war” still remains “behind the scenes,” and many of them are still listed as missing.
But what can you call it differently - after all, there’s only one “tap” left on the body! Even when Stalin was here, they began to be brought here - from Leningrad and other large cities. Most of the cripples are former soldiers, they received injuries at the front, many received orders, medals... In general, they are honored people, but in this form they became useless to anyone. They survived by begging on the streets, markets, and cinemas. But, as they say, Joseph Vissarionovich himself ordered this flawed public to be taken out of sight, hidden away so that the city’s appearance would not be spoiled. For such a thing, Valaam - you couldn’t think of a better person. I don’t know how many of them have been here. In our village there live grandmothers who worked as servants in the boarding school for almost all these years, and I heard from them that sometimes there were up to a thousand people. Armless, on crutches... But the worst thing is the “samovars”... Absolutely helpless. It is necessary to feed it with a spoon, dress and undress it, put it on a bucket, which is adapted instead of a potty, and plant it regularly. And if there are more than a dozen of them here, can you really keep track of them all? Of course, someone, unable to hold on to this bucket, will fall to the floor, and someone, out of necessity, will not even have time to shout to the nanny... So it turns out: “samovars”, dirty in their own shit, the smell in the rooms is appropriate...
“I don’t want a new war!” Former intelligence officer Viktor Popkov. But this veteran eked out a miserable existence in a rat hole on the island of Valaam. With one pair of broken crutches and a single short jacket. The daily schedule, even for amputees, included a walk in the fresh air. According to the aboriginal narrator, at first the medical staff loaded the Valaam “samovars” onto ordinary wooden stretchers, dragged them onto the lawn in front of the house and there they put them “for a walk” on a spread tarpaulin or hay. And then someone’s invention arrived: the boarding school acquired large wicker baskets, in which the nurses put cripples (sometimes even two at a time) and carried them into the yard. In these baskets, stump people sat for hours (sometimes they were hung from the thick lower branches of trees, in the manner of these huge nests), breathing fresh air. But sometimes the air on the northern island became too fresh in the evening, and the nannies, busy with other things, did not react in any way to the calls of their charges for help. It happened that they completely forgot to remove one of the “nests” for the night and return their inhabitants to the living quarters, then the matter could well even end in death from hypothermia.
from the story: - Many of the cripples were 20, 25 years old when the war “shared” them, but now there are only a dozen and a half armless and legless people left here. It is unlikely that you will be able to meet them at the boarding school: outsiders are not allowed there, but some disabled people get out of the gate on their own. I meet Sanka “in the wild” more often than others. He is a former tanker, he burned in his “box”, but part of him survived from his hands - almost up to his elbows. With the help of these stumps he somehow adapted to crawl. You can see it near the village store, although... Now the vodka there has run out, so until a new supply is brought in, the tanker has no use for this shop...
Quote (“Unpromising people from the island of Valaam” N. Nikonorov): After the war, Soviet cities were flooded with people who were lucky enough to survive at the front, but who lost arms and legs in the battles for their homeland. Homemade carts, on which human stumps, crutches and prosthetics of war heroes darted between the legs of passers-by, spoiled the good looks of the bright socialist today. And then one day Soviet citizens woke up and did not hear the usual rumble of carts and the creaking of dentures. Disabled people were removed from cities overnight. The island of Valaam became one of the places of their exile. As a matter of fact, these events are known, recorded in the annals of history, which means that “what happened is past.” Meanwhile, the expelled disabled people settled down on the island, started farming, started families, gave birth to children, who themselves grew up and gave birth to children themselves - real indigenous islanders.
"Defender of Leningrad." Drawing of former infantryman Alexander Ambarov, who defended besieged Leningrad. Twice during fierce bombings he found himself buried alive. With almost no hope of seeing him alive, his comrades dug up the warrior. Having healed, he went into battle again. He ended his days exiled and forgotten alive on the island of Valaam. Quote (“Valaam Notebook” by E. Kuznetsov): And in 1950, by decree of the Supreme Council of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, a House for Disabled War and Labor Disabled Persons was formed on Valaam and located in the monastery buildings. What an establishment this was!
It’s probably not an idle question: why here, on the island, and not somewhere on the mainland? After all, it’s easier to supply and cheaper to maintain. The formal explanation: there is a lot of housing, utility rooms, utility rooms (the farm alone is worth it), arable land for subsidiary farming, orchards, berry nurseries, but the informal, true reason: hundreds of thousands of disabled people were too much of an eyesore for the victorious Soviet people: armless, legless, restless, begging in train stations, on trains, on the streets, and who knows where else. Well, judge for yourself: his chest is covered in medals, and he’s begging near a bakery. No good! Get rid of them, get rid of them at all costs. But where should we put them? And in former monasteries, to the islands! Out of sight, out of mind.
Within a few months, the victorious country cleared its streets of this “shame”! This is how these almshouses arose in Kirillo-Belozersky, Goritsky, Alexander-Svirsky, Valaam and other monasteries. Or rather, on the ruins of monasteries, on the pillars of Orthodoxy crushed by Soviet power. The country of the Soviets punished its disabled winners for their injuries, for their loss of families, shelter, and native nests, devastated by the war. Punishment with poverty, loneliness, hopelessness. Anyone who came to Valaam instantly realized: “This is all!” Further - a dead end. “Then there is silence” in an unknown grave in an abandoned monastery cemetery.
Reader! My dear reader! Can you and I understand today the measure of the boundless despair of the insurmountable grief that gripped these people the moment they set foot on this earth? In prison, in the terrible Gulag camp, the prisoner always has a glimmer of hope to get out of there, to find freedom, a different, less bitter life. There was no way out from here. From here only to the grave, as if sentenced to death. Well, imagine what kind of life flowed within these walls. I saw all this up close for many years in a row. But it’s difficult to describe. Especially when their faces, eyes, hands, their indescribable smiles appear before my mind’s eye, the smiles of creatures who seem to have been guilty of something forever, as if asking for forgiveness for something. No, it's impossible to describe. It’s impossible, probably also because when remembering all this, the heart simply stops, the breath catches, and an impossible confusion arises in the thoughts, some kind of clot of pain! Sorry…
Scout Serafima Komissarova. She fought in a partisan detachment in Belarus. While performing a mission on a winter night, she was frozen into a swamp, where she was found only in the morning and literally cut out of the ice.
Lieutenant Alexander Podosenov. At the age of 17 he volunteered for the front. Became an officer. In Karelia, he was wounded by a bullet in the head and paralyzed. Everyone lived in a boarding school on the island of Valaam post-war years sitting motionless on the pillows.
"A story about medals." Fingers move gropingly along the surface of the medals on Ivan Zabara’s chest. So they found the medal “For the Defense of Stalingrad.” “It was hell there, but we survived,” said the soldier. And his face, as if carved from stone, tightly compressed lips, eyes blinded by flame, confirm these meager but proud words that he whispered on the island of Valaam. ...A book that unexpectedly came into my hands, “The Valaam Notebook” by Evgeny Kuznetsov, who once worked as a guide on the island, reminded me of what was taken and heard on Valaam. On the pages of the Notebook, new “touches to the portrait” of the Valaam special boarding school were revealed: “...They were robbed by all and sundry. It got to the point that many people went to the dining room for lunch with half-liter glass jars (for soup). There weren't enough aluminum bowls! I saw this with my own eyes... And when the guys and I, having received our salaries, came to the village and bought ten bottles of vodka and a case of beer, what began here! On wheelchairs, “gurneys” (a board with four ball-bearing “wheels”, sometimes even old icons served as such boards! - Ed.), on crutches they joyfully hurried to the clearing near the Znamenskaya Chapel... And the feast began... And with what tenacity, with what thirsting for a holiday (everything that distracted from the hopeless everyday life was a holiday) they “hurried” to the tourist pier six kilometers from the village. To look at beautiful, well-fed, well-dressed people... ...Showing this almshouse to tourists in all its “glory” was then completely impossible. It was strictly forbidden not only to take groups there, but even to show the way. This was severely punished by expulsion from work and even showdowns in the KGB ... "
Partisan, soldier Viktor Lukin. At first he fought in a partisan detachment. After the expulsion of the fascist occupiers from the territory of the USSR, he fought with enemies in the army. The war did not spare him, but he remained as strong in spirit as ever.
Mikhail Kazatenkov. "Old Warrior" Warrior of three wars: Russian-Japanese (1904-1905), World War I (1914-1918), World War II (1939-1945). When the artist painted Mikhail Kazankov, he was 90 years old. Knight of two St. George's Crosses for the First world war, the warrior ended his heroic life on the island of Valaam.
"Old wound." In one fierce battle, soldier Andrei Fominykh from the Far Eastern city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was seriously wounded. Years have passed, the earth has long healed its wounds, but the soldier’s wound has not healed. And so he never reached his native place. The island of Valaam is far from Sakhalin. Oh, far...
"Memory". The picture depicts Georgy Zotov, a war veteran from the village of Fenino near Moscow. Leafing through the files of newspapers from the war years, the veteran mentally turns back to the past. He returned, and how many comrades remained there on the battlefields! It’s just not clear to the old warrior what is better - to stay on the fields of Germany, or to eke out a miserable, almost animal existence on the island?
"A happy family". Vasily Lobachev defended Moscow and was wounded. Due to gangrene, his arms and legs were amputated. And his wife Lydia, who also lost both legs during the war. They were lucky to stay in Moscow. The God-bearing people allowed it. Even two sons were born! A rare happy family in Russia.
"Scorched by War." Front-line radio operator Yulia Emanova against the backdrop of Stalingrad, in the defense of which she took part. A simple village girl who volunteered to go to the front. On her chest are high awards of the USSR for military exploits - the Order of Glory and the Red Banner.
"Private War". In the Siberian city of Omsk, the artist met Mikhail Guselnikov, a former private in the 712th Infantry Brigade, who fought on the Leningrad Front. On January 28, 1943, during a breakthrough of the siege of Leningrad, a soldier was wounded in the spine. Since then he has been bedridden.
“Walked from the Caucasus to Budapest.” The artist met the sailor hero Alexei Chkheidze in the village of Danki near Moscow. Winter 1945. Budapest. A group of marines storm Royal Palace. Almost all the brave souls will die in its underground galleries. Aleksey Chkheidze, who miraculously survived, underwent several operations, had his arms amputated, was blind, and had almost completely lost his hearing, even after this he found the strength to joke: he ironically called himself a “prosthetic man.”
"Rest on the way." Russian soldier Alexey Kurganov lives in the village of Takmyk, Omsk region. On the front roads from Moscow to Hungary, he lost both legs.
"Letter to a fellow soldier." Disabled war veterans adapted to peaceful life in different ways. Vladimir Eremin from the village of Kuchino, deprived of both arms.
“A life lived...” There are lives that stand out for their special purity, morality and heroism. Mikhail Zvezdochkin lived such a life. WITH inguinal hernia he volunteered to go to the front. He commanded the artillery crew. He ended the war in Berlin. Life is on the island of Valaam.
"Front-line soldier." Muscovite Mikhail Koketkin was an airborne paratrooper at the front. As a result of a serious injury, he lost both legs.
"Front-line memories." Muscovite Boris Mileev, who lost both arms at the front, is printing front-line memoirs.
Oblivion by law...
In 2003, we managed to organize an expedition to Valaam. We recorded the memories of old women who once worked in a special boarding school,” says Vitaly Viktorovich. - Later, I had the opportunity to work with the archives of the Valaam nursing home, taken out after its transfer in 1984 from there to the Karelian village of Vyritsa. As a result, the death of about 50 Great Patriotic War veterans on Valaam was documented, but this is not a complete list. (Although it must be said that the stories about the supposedly very high mortality rate among the residents of the boarding school are not confirmed.) Data were found on the number of “contingents” on the island. Let's say, in January 1952 there were 901 disabled people here, in December of the same year - 876 disabled people, in 1955 their number increased to 975 people, and then began to gradually decrease - 812, 670, 624... By December 1971, the documents list 574 disabled people... Now Vitaly Semenov’s attention has turned to the history of another special boarding school - the one that was located in the ancient Goritsky monastery on Sheksna.
Veterans of the Great Patriotic War were sent there en masse, mainly from Leningrad and the Leningrad region. In 1948, according to documents, there were 747 people. As in the case of Valaam, I decided to find lists of the Goritsky Monastery. It turned out that this home for the disabled moved to Cherepovets in 1972. The papers of the Goritsky boarding school are partly stored there, and partly in the archives of the department social security Vologda region. At first, the employees of this institution seemed to meet me halfway and even helped me identify a dozen and a half soldiers who had passed through the Goritsky boarding school, and also suggested that the same special institution existed in another place in the Vologda region - in Andoga. However, then the head of the department imposed a ban on further research: they say, according to the law on personal data, it is prohibited to give out information about them without the consent of the heirs of the deceased, since this violates the civil rights of these people. That is, in some incredible way (maybe with the help of a psychic?!) I first need to find the heirs of a person unknown to me, and then find out his first and last name! There is no logic here, and in reality it turns out that it is impossible to restore the memory of those who disappeared and are buried in unmarked graves through the efforts of a private individual. Of course, such problems, in theory, should be dealt with local authorities, but for the time being they did not show any activity. Only after several of my harsh letters addressed to the head of the region, the situation seemed to have changed for the better. At the end of July I received official letter, which reports that by order of the Vologda governor “a working group... to perpetuate the memory of military personnel who were injured on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, who lived, died and were buried in the Vologda region.”
"Portrait of a woman with a burnt face." This woman was not at the front. Two days before the war, her beloved military husband was sent to the Brest Fortress. She also had to go there a little later. Hearing on the radio about the beginning of the war, she fainted - her face into the burning stove. Her husband, as she guessed, was no longer alive. When the artist painted her, she sang beautiful folk songs to him...
How many of them are there, “samovars”? According to the statistical collection “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century. Losses of the armed forces,” during the Great Patriotic War, 2,576,000 disabled people were demobilized, including 450,000 with one arm or one leg. It would not be an exaggeration to assume that a significant part of their number lost both arms, both legs, and even all limbs. This means that we are talking about 100–200 thousand Soviet soldiers who were actually doomed to live in harsh conditions of captivity - like prisoners! - only because in battle with the enemy they were not killed, but “only” maimed! The already mentioned Valaam special boarding school (often called the “house for disabled people of war and labor”) was formed in the buildings of a former monastery in 1948. Formally, by decree of the Supreme Council of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, although in reality, most likely by order “from Moscow.” At first, the helpless Valaam “new settlers” had a hard time. Even electricity appeared in the boarding school only a few years later. What can we say about the normal heating of old monastery buildings that are not adapted for hospital needs! It took time to provide disabled people with a more or less comfortable life. Of the hundreds of cripples brought to the island, some died in the very first months of their stay in the boarding school “paradise.”
“...Recently the fighting men - to whom will the stumps tell sorrow? And what can tongues say when neither legs nor arms are in order? ...Yes, Valaam is the second Solovki. They have seen so much suffering! “Here, old people died out instantly, barely thirty…” (Archpriest Andrei Logvinov)
Other similar “institutions” appeared during that period. All of them were located in remote places hidden from human eyes, most often in abandoned monasteries - Kirillo-Belozersky, Alexander-Svirsky, Goritsky... You can call it a victory. Although very small, local. Indeed, in the post-war years, boarding schools for the maintenance of disabled soldiers existed in almost every region of Russia. But only a few of them are known. Returned from oblivion... Wooden pillars with five-pointed stars were placed on the graves of disabled people who died in “houses of mourning” for war veterans, but over time these “monuments” decayed. And along with the nameless hills, all sorts of traces that could tell about the fate of hundreds of Soviet soldiers, who have remained to this day among those who disappeared unknown, disappeared into the abandoned churchyards. “In response to my request, the Vologda Regional Department of Social Development received an answer that the burial of the deceased disabled people of the Goritsky boarding school “was carried out in the old monastery cemetery,” says Vitaly Semenov. - They sent me memories of one of the local residents who once worked in a special boarding school. She mentions that there were a lot of dead people, they even began to be buried outside the general cemetery.
“I will always remember the Valaam cemetery. No tombstones, no names, only three rotten, fallen columns - a terrible monument to unconsciousness, the meaninglessness of life, the absence of any justice and payment for heroism.” This is the testimony of a person who visited Valaam in former times. However, among the half-erased graves, one well-groomed one appeared in the 1990s. On the stainless steel obelisk you can read that Hero of the Soviet Union Grigory Voloshin is buried here. The memory of a man who died twice, and many years later returned from oblivion.
“Grigory Andreevich Voloshin 02/05/1922–01/16/1945. Fighter pilot, junior lieutenant. Participant of the Great Patriotic War since 1944. Fought as part of the 813th Fighter Aviation Regiment. On January 16, 1945, in an air battle, while rescuing his commander, he rammed a Focke-Wulf 190 and died himself.” (From the reference book “Military Pilots.”) However, in reality, the funeral sent to the hero’s family turned out to be a deception - a deception “for the good.” In that airy “meat grinder” Voloshin remained alive, although terribly disfigured. The young pilot lost not only both arms and legs, but also his hearing and speech. After long treatment in hospitals, the helpless cripple chose to remain for his loved ones, heroically killed in battle. For many years he lived on Valaam practically as a man without a name, and shortly before his death he turned out to be a “life model” for the artist Gennady Dobrov, who managed not only to get to the secret island special boarding school, but also to make a series of portraits of its inhabitants. The painting entitled “Unknown” was later shown at one of the exhibitions, and allegedly it was thanks to this that Voloshin was, by chance, identified by his loved ones.
Still, I cannot confirm this fact,” Vladimir Vysotsky, the current director of the Valaam Archipelago natural park, clarified in a conversation with MK. - I only know that, left without arms and legs, Grigory Andreevich lived among other similar cripples on Valaam for more than a quarter of a century and died in 1974. Only almost 20 years later did his son learn about the fate of the hero - from archival data or thanks to what he saw by chance painting by Dobrov... In 1994, he came to the island, found his father’s grave here with the inscription on the tablet, which was barely legible, and erected a new monument. According to Vysotsky, the names of 54 veterans who died in the Valaam special boarding school have now been revealed. All of them are carved on a stele recently installed at the old Igumensky cemetery.
Alexander Dobrovolsky
taken from ng_cherkashin
This is not a caricature - this is a portrait of a real disabled war veteran, a resident of Valaam Island
Note.
A couple of years ago I visited Valaam. Between two runs of the excursion - "look left, look right" - I met the eyes of the local inhabitants basking in the rays of the scant northern sun. We looked at each other - separated by an imaginary, but no less real grid - as one looks at exotic zoo exhibits, with amazement and a bit of disgust. Since there were no explanatory signs, the mystery remained unsolved for us, tourists. By appearance they were not disabled, and there was no time limit, and all the limbs were in place. But in their souls, in their stamp of rejection, in their habitual, innate hopelessness - they were the most disabled people on earth - i.e. such disabled people who not only forgot, but simply never knew that they were born disabled and would die disabled. And their children, if any are born, will also be disabled.
Most likely, these were the descendants of war invalids who had already been laid to rest in a common unmarked Valaam grave. Descendants, conceived without love, born without joy, raised without childhood, probably wonder themselves why they are here. Not quite human anymore, not quite beast yet. Our brothers and sisters.
Commies of all countries, already for Valaam alone, what is destined for you in eternity! But our drama is that the cursed commies are also, for the most part, our grandfathers, fathers, brothers and sisters.
In this sense we have suffered complete defeat, with which all that remains is to congratulate each other.
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"....And in 1950, by decree of the Supreme Council of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, a House for War and Labor Disabled Persons was established on Valaam and in the monastery buildings. What an institution it was!
It’s probably not an idle question: why here, on the island, and not somewhere on the mainland? After all, it’s easier to supply and cheaper to maintain. The formal explanation: there is a lot of housing, utility rooms, utility rooms (the farm alone is worth it), arable land for subsidiary farming, orchards, berry nurseries, but the informal, true reason: hundreds of thousands of disabled people were too much of an eyesore for the victorious Soviet people: armless, legless, restless, begging in train stations, on trains, on the streets, and who knows where else. Well, judge for yourself: his chest is full of o-r-d-e-n-a-h, and he’s begging near the bakery. No good! Get rid of them, get rid of them at all costs. But where should we put them? And to former monasteries, to the islands! Out of sight, out of mind. Within a few months, the victorious country cleared its streets of this “shame”! This is how these almshouses arose in Kirillo-Belozersky, Goritsky, Alexander-Svirsky, Valaam and other monasteries. Or rather, on the ruins of monasteries, on the pillars of Orthodoxy crushed by Soviet power. The country of the Soviets punished its disabled winners for their injuries, for their loss of families, shelter, and native nests, devastated by the war. Punishment with poverty, loneliness, hopelessness. Anyone who came to Valaam instantly realized: “This is all!” Further - a dead end. “Then there is silence” in an unknown grave in an abandoned monastery cemetery...."
From the comments: My father, a veteran, by the will of fate, fought and survived that war. In the late 60s, I went on a business trip to Valaam with some commission from the Ministry of Health. I returned years older in those few days. He was silent for a long time and could not talk to me about anything. Then, when he started talking about what he saw on Valaam, he had a heart attack. This is how I learned about Valaam Hell from my father. Yes, this Hell was!... And blessed memory to the victims of the Soviet Holocaust!
It's a long way to the island of Valaam
Not all armless and legless people were exiled, but those who begged, begged, and had no housing. There were hundreds of thousands of them, who had lost their families, their homes, no one needed, no money, but hung with awards.
They were collected overnight from all over the city by special police and state security squads, taken to railway stations, loaded into ZK-type heated vehicles and sent to these very “boarding houses”. Their passports and soldier's books were taken away - in fact, they were transferred to the status of ZK. And the boarding schools themselves were part of the mentoring department.
The essence of these boarding schools was to quietly send disabled people to the next world as quickly as possible. Even the meager allowance that was allocated to the disabled was almost completely stolen.
In the early 60s we had a neighbor who was a legless war invalid. I remember him riding this cart on ball bearings. But he was always afraid to leave the yard unaccompanied. The wife or one of the relatives had to walk alongside. I remember how my father was worried about him, how everyone was afraid that the disabled man would be taken away, although he had a family and an apartment. In the year 65-66, my father got him (through the military registration and enlistment office, social security and regional committee) a wheelchair and we celebrated the “liberation” with the whole yard, and we, the children, ran after him and asked for a ride.
The population of the USSR before the war is estimated at 220 million, taking into account the population of the annexed territories of Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic countries. The total demographic losses of the USSR for the period 41-45 are estimated at 52-57 million people. But this figure includes the “unborn”. The real number of population losses can be estimated at about 42-44 million. 32-34 million are military losses of the army, air force and navy + 2 million Jews exterminated as a result of the Holocaust + 2 million civilians killed as a result of hostilities. Try to explain the rest of the missing millions yourself.
Valaam Island, 200 kilometers north of Svetlana in 1952-1984, was the site of one of the most inhumane experiments to form the largest human “factory”. Disabled people of all kinds were exiled here from Leningrad and the Leningrad region, so as not to spoil the urban landscape - from the legless and armless, to mental retardation and tuberculosis. It was believed that disabled people spoil the appearance of Soviet cities.
On Valaam they were almost counted on their heads as “these disabled people.” They “died” in the hundreds, but at the Valaam cemetery we found only 2 rotten columns with ... numbers. There was nothing left - they all went into the ground, leaving no monument to the terrible experiment of the human zoo of the Soviet island.
“I don’t want a new war!” This was the title of a drawing recently published in the media by former intelligence officer Viktor Popkov from the series “We survived hell!” - portraits of disabled front-line soldiers by artist Gennady Dobrov. Dobrov painted on Valaam. We will illustrate this material with his works.
Ay-ay-ay... What Sovkovsky pathos emanates from the official legends under the drawings. From the best representatives of the people, who are constantly seizing foreign lands and supplying weapons to all the terrorists of the world. But this veteran eked out a miserable existence in a rat hole on the island of Valaam. With one pair of broken crutches and a single short jacket.
Quote: " After the war, Soviet cities were flooded with people who were lucky enough to survive at the front, but who lost arms and legs in the battles for their homeland. Homemade carts, on which human stumps, crutches and prosthetics of war heroes darted between the legs of passers-by, spoiled the good looks of the bright socialist today. And then one day Soviet citizens woke up and did not hear the usual rumble of carts and the creaking of dentures. Disabled people were removed from cities overnight. The island of Valaam became one of the places of their exile. As a matter of fact, these events are known, recorded in the annals of history, which means that “what happened is past.” Meanwhile, the expelled disabled people settled down on the island, started farming, started families, gave birth to children, who themselves grew up and gave birth to children themselves - real indigenous islanders.
Unpromising people from the island of Valaam
First, let's do some math. If the calculations are wrong, correct them.
In World War II, the USSR lost, according to various estimates, from 20 to 60 million people killed. This is the spread. Statistics and military science claim that during a battle, for every one killed, there are several wounded. Among them there are crippled (disabled) people. I cannot judge what percentage. But let’s assume it’s small, comparable to the number of people killed. This means that the number of cripples after the war should have been in the TENS OF MILLIONS.
My conscious childhood began in 1973. You can say they died from their wounds. Maybe. My grandfather died of wounds in '54. But not all the same? Tens of millions? My mother was born during the war. A long time ago she dropped a phrase that, due to my youth, I did not attach any importance to. She said that after the war there were a lot of cripples on the streets. Some worked part-time, some begged or wandered. And then somehow they were suddenly gone. I think she said they were taken somewhere. But I can’t vouch for this particular phrase. I want to clarify that my mother is a person without imagination. Therefore, if she said a lot, then most likely it was so..
Let's summarize: after the war, tens of millions of disabled people remained. Many are very young. Twenty to thirty years. Still to live and live. Even taking into account disability... But thirty years after the war, I have not seen practically a single one. And, according to some, the cripples disappeared within a very short period of time after the end of the war. Where did they go? Your opinions, gentlemen, comrades...
P.S. I can add on my own behalf that everything written is the absolute truth. When I first came to Valaam, some premises and churches had already been given to the monastery, and its slow restoration began. I lived in the monastery for about a month, as a labor worker (there is such a practice in monasteries - you can live there and work for a while).
One day I looked into one of the monastery’s outbuildings. A dark narrow corridor filled with buckets, basins, some kind of barrels, rags, and several small cages on the sides of the corridor. In dirty little cages, old men sat on beds or on chairs - blind and silent. There was little light, and the smell of long-unventilated rooms came from the cages.
At first I thought that this was some kind of prison, and that some exiles lived here. However, a little later, when I asked the monk what kind of old, emaciated people were in the monastery, he answered bluntly that these were war invalids exiled here shortly after the victory by order of Stalin.
After this story, every time I hear about “the great Stalin,” I remember these old men exiled to the then almost uninhabited island of Valaam, who had almost lost their human appearance, whom the great Stalin thanked in this way for the victory and for the loss of health in this terrible war. Well, later I found out that approximately the same thing happened in all major cities Council of Deputies, and one fine day thousands of beggars and beggars from among the war invalids were, on the orders of Stalin, sent by the security officers to such remote cells - away from sight, so that they would not interfere with the communists building socialism and telling the people what a beautiful country they built and how freely they a person breathes in it. But many of these exiled disabled people had orders all over their chests. "For the health of the Russian people!" - Soviet Stalinists like to remember this toast supposedly once made by Stalin as proof of the greatness of the Leader and his gratitude to the Russian people for the Victory and all the hardships of the war endured.
In addition, I realized that in the 20s, the security officers led by Dzerzhinsky solved the problem of street children in exactly the same way, and that most of the street boys were simply hidden in prisons and camps, and some of them, apparently, were simply destroyed.
That's it. Glory to the Soviet Motherland! Glory to Lenin and Stalin! Glory to the CPSU! And long live Putin, Medvedev and Abramovich, with their Cheka and all their Russian pussy. After all, all these degenerates are Soviet people, but whether a Soviet person can be called a human being is still a very, very big question. After all, all Soviet and post-Soviet people are, in essence, the same disabled people who were mutilated by communism and the Soviet propaganda and repressive machine. Well, there’s nothing to say about the degenerates from the Cheka - this criminal organization from the very first day of Bolshevism was the main instrument of the entire inhumane cannibalistic policy of the Soviet government.
After World War II, the USSR was left bloodless: millions of young people died at the front. The lives of those who did not die, but were injured, were ambivalent. Front-line soldiers returned home crippled, and to live a “normal” and full life they couldn't. There is an opinion that, to please Stalin, disabled people were taken to Solovki and Valaam, “so as not to spoil the Victory Day with their presence.”
How did this myth come about?
History is a science that is constantly being interpreted. Classical historians and alternative historians broadcast polar opinions regarding Stalin’s merits in the Great Patriotic War. But in the case of disabled people, the Second World War is unanimous: guilty! He sent disabled people to Solovki and Valaam to be shot! The source of the myth is considered to be the “Valaam Notebook” by Evgeny Kuznetsov, a tour guide of Valaam. The modern source of the myth is considered to be a conversation between Natella Boltyanskaya and Alexander Daniel on Ekho Moskvy on May 9, 2009. Excerpt from the conversation:
“Boltyanskaya: Comment on the monstrous fact when, on the orders of Stalin after the Great Patriotic War disabled people were forcibly exiled to Valaam, to Solovki, so that they, armless, legless heroes, would not spoil the victory holiday with their appearance. Why is there so little talk about this now? Why aren't they called by name? After all, it was these people who paid for the victory with their blood and wounds. Or can they now also not be mentioned?
Daniel: Well, why comment on this fact? This fact is well known and monstrous. It is completely understandable why Stalin and the Stalinist leadership expelled the veterans from the cities.
Boltyanskaya: Well, they really didn’t want to spoil the festive look?
Daniel: Absolutely. I'm sure it's for aesthetic reasons. Legless people on carts didn't fit into that piece of art, so to speak, in the style of socialist realism, into which the leadership wanted to turn the country. There is nothing to evaluate here"
There is not a single fact or reference to a specific historical source. The leitmotif of the conversation is that Stalin’s merits are overstated, his image does not correspond to his actions.
Why a myth?
The myth about prison boarding schools for disabled veterans did not appear immediately. Mythologization began with the mysterious atmosphere around the house on Valaam. The author of the famous “Valaam Notebook”, guide Evgeny Kuznetsov, wrote:
“In 1950, by decree of the Supreme Council of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, the House of War and Labor Disabled Persons was formed on Valaam and located in the monastery buildings. What an establishment this was! It’s probably not an idle question: why here, on the island, and not somewhere on the mainland? After all, it’s easier to supply and cheaper to maintain. The formal explanation is that there is a lot of housing, utility rooms, utility rooms (a farm alone is worth it), arable land for subsidiary farming, orchards, and berry nurseries. And the informal, true reason is that hundreds of thousands of disabled people were too much of an eyesore for the victorious Soviet people: armless, legless, restless, who lived by begging in train stations, on trains, on the streets, and who knows where else. Well, judge for yourself: his chest is covered in medals, and he’s begging near a bakery. No good! Get rid of them, get rid of them at all costs. But where should we put them? And to former monasteries, to the islands! Out of sight, out of mind. Within a few months, the victorious country cleared its streets of this “shame”! This is how these almshouses arose in Kirillo-Belozersky, Goritsky, Alexander-Svirsky, Valaam and other monasteries...”
That is, the remoteness of the island of Valaam aroused Kuznetsov’s suspicion that they wanted to get rid of the veterans: “To the former monasteries, to the islands! Out of sight...” And immediately he included Goritsy, Kirillov, and the village of Staraya Sloboda (Svirskoe) among the “islands.” But how, for example, in Goritsy, in the Vologda region, was it possible to “hide” disabled people? It's big locality, where everything is in plain sight.
There are no documents in the public domain that directly indicate that disabled people are exiled to Solovki, Valaam and other “places of detention.” It may well be that these documents exist in archives, but there is no published data yet. Therefore, talk about places of exile refers to myths.
The main open source is considered to be the “Valaam Notebook” by Evgeny Kuznetsov, who worked as a guide on Valaam for more than 40 years. But the only source is not conclusive evidence.
Solovki has a grim reputation as a concentration camp. Even the phrase “send to Solovki” has a menacing connotation, so linking the home for the disabled and Solovki means convincing that the disabled suffered and died in agony.
Another source of the myth is the deep conviction of people that disabled people of the Second World War were bullied, forgotten about and not given due respect. Lyudmila Alekseeva, chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, published an essay on the Echo of Moscow website “How the Motherland Repaid Its Winners.” Historian Alexander Daniel and his famous interview with Natella Boltyanskaya on radio “Echo of Moscow”. Igor Garin (real name Igor Papirov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences) wrote a long essay “Another truth about the Second World War, documents, journalism.” Internet users reading such materials form a clearly negative opinion.
Another point of view
Eduard Kochergin, a Soviet artist and writer, author of “Stories of the St. Petersburg Islands,” wrote about Vasya Petrogradsky, a former sailor of the Baltic Fleet who lost both legs in the war. He was leaving by boat for Goritsy, a home for the disabled. Here is what Kochergin writes about Petrogradsky’s stay there: “The most amazing and most unexpected thing is that upon arrival in Goritsy, our Vasily Ivanovich not only did not get lost, but on the contrary, he finally showed up. In the former convent Complete stumps of war were brought from all over the North-West, that is, people completely devoid of arms and legs, popularly called “samovars”. So, with his singing passion and abilities, from these remnants of people he created a choir - a choir of “samovars” - and in this he found his meaning of life." It turns out that the disabled did not live last days. The authorities believed that rather than begging and sleeping under a fence (and many disabled people did not have a home), it was better to be under constant supervision and care. After some time, disabled people remained in Goritsy who did not want to be a burden to the family. Those who recovered were released and helped with getting a job.
Fragment of the Goritsky list of disabled people:
“Ratushnyak Sergey Silvestrovich (amp. cult. right thigh) 1922 JOB 01.10.1946 to at will to Vinnytsia region.
Rigorin Sergey Vasilyevich worker 1914 JOB 06/17/1944 for employment.
Rogozin Vasily Nikolaevich 1916 JOB 02/15/1946 left for Makhachkala 04/05/1948 transferred to another boarding school.
Rogozin Kirill Gavrilovich 1906 JOB 06/21/1948 transferred to group 3.
Romanov Pyotr Petrovich 1923 JOB 06/23/1946 at his own request in Tomsk.”
The main task of the home for the disabled is to rehabilitate and integrate into life, to help them learn a new profession. For example, legless disabled people were trained as bookkeepers and shoemakers. And the situation with “catching disabled people” is ambiguous. Front-line soldiers with injuries understood that life on the street (most often this was the case - relatives were killed, parents died or needed help) was bad. Such front-line soldiers wrote to the authorities with a request to send them to a nursing home. Only after this they were sent to Valaam, Goritsy or Solovki.
Another myth is that relatives knew nothing about the affairs of disabled people. In the personal files there are letters to which the administration of Valaam responded: “We inform you that the health of such and such is as before, he receives your letters, but does not write, because there is no news and there is nothing to write about - everything is as before, but he sends greetings to you "".
The final solution to the “disability issue” in the USSR was as follows:
In 1949, before the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Stalin, front-line soldiers and disabled people from World War II were shot in the USSR. Some of them were shot... some were taken to the distant islands of the North, and to the remote corners of Siberia - for the purpose of further “disposal”.
Valaam is a concentration camp for disabled people of the Second World War, located on the island of Valaam (the northern part of Lake Ladoga), where after the Second World War in 1950 - 1984 war disabled people were taken. Founded by order of the Soviet leadership in 1950. It was located in old monastery buildings. Closed in 1984.
The final solution to the “disability issue” in the USSR was carried out in one night - by forces special units Soviet people's militia. In one night, the authorities conducted a raid, collected homeless disabled people, and centrally took them to the station, loaded them into ZK-type heated cars, and sent them in trains to Solovki. Without guilt and trial! - that they unpleasant looking their front-line stumps did not embarrass citizens... and did not spoil the idyllic picture of the general socialist prosperity of Soviet cities.
There is an opinion that homeless WWII disabled people, of whom there were tens of thousands after the war, primarily aroused anger among those who actually sat through the war at headquarters.
There were rumors that this action was organized personally by Zhukov.
Disabled people, for example, were taken not only from Kyiv, they were taken from all major cities of the USSR.
They “cleared” the country in one night!.. It was a special operation unprecedented in its scale. They said that the disabled tried to resist...threw themselves onto the rails...but they were picked up and carried anyway.
They even “took out” the so-called “samovars” - people without arms and legs. On Solovki they were sometimes taken out to breathe fresh air and hung on ropes from trees. Sometimes they forgot and they froze. These were usually 20-year-old guys, crippled by the war and written off by the Motherland as waste human material no longer useful to the Motherland.
Many of them were injured during the storming of Berlin in March-April 1945, when Marshal Zhukov, in order to save tanks, sent infantry soldiers to attack minefields. Thus, stepping on mines and being blown up... the soldiers cleared the minefields with their bodies, creating a corridor for the troops... thereby bringing the Great Victory closer.
Comrade Zhukov proudly boasted about this fact to Eisenhower, which was recorded in the personal diary of the American military leader, who simply fell into a stupor from such revelations of his Soviet colleague.
Several thousand disabled people were taken out from all over Kyiv at that time. Disabled people who lived in families were not touched. The “purge of disabled people” was repeated in the late 40s. But then disabled people were sent to boarding schools, which also resembled prisons... And these boarding schools were under the NKVD department.
Since then, there have been no more disabled people at veterans' parades. They were simply removed as an unpleasant mention. Thus, the Motherland never remembered this unpleasant problem- about people with disabilities. And the Soviet people could continue to carefreely enjoy the Soviet grace-filled reality... without having to contemplate the unpleasant sight of thousands of beggars... and drunken disabled stumps. Even their names disappeared into oblivion.
Much later, disabled survivors began to receive benefits and other benefits.
And those lonely legless and armless boys were simply buried alive on Solovki... and today no one knows their names... or their suffering.
This was how the final solution to the issue of disabled people in the USSR was made.
Quite by accident I found out that Steeln ordered to destroy great amount disabled people of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in large cities. In 1949, before the celebration of Stalin's 70th anniversary, in former USSR
). The film "Riot of the Executioners" has a duration of 84 minutes. Year of creation: 1998. Director: Gennady Zemel. The film stars: Konstantin Kot-Ogly, Igor Gorshkov, Erken Suleymanov, Dmitry Savinykh, German Gorst, Vladimir Epifanov, Arman Nugmanov, Andrey Buzikov, Alexey Shemes, Alexander Zubov, Eduard Boyarsky, Sergey Ufimtsev, Sergey Popov, Sergey Lukyantsev, Pavel Sirotin, Oleg Biryuchev.
Figure 1. Still from the film “Riot of the Executioners”
The content of the film is as follows. In 1949, before the celebration of Stalin's 70th anniversary, disabled WWII soldiers were shot in the former USSR. The state could not provide them with even a basic existence and simply destroyed them. Some of them were shot, some were taken to the distant islands of the North and to the remote corners of Siberia. The film reproduces a possible story of a similar extermination of crippled soldiers in one of Stalin’s camps. Combat commander Alexey finds his old military friend, who is also to be shot. A real riot begins... And so on. Look.
The film deeply sank into my soul. After watching the movie, I couldn't sleep for several nights. At first I didn’t want to believe what I saw. Is it really Stalin and Soviet authority were so cruel that they shot hundreds of thousands of war heroes because they came from the war crippled: without arms, without legs, without eyes, and so on? Horror! This is how you have to hate your people in order to kill the heroes who, Joseph Vissarionovich, defended you from the shameful captivity of Nazi Germany? Little by little I began to collect information about this bloody history of our socialist state. And here's what I found out. Disabled beggars were not expelled from all cities, but only from large cities in the European part of the USSR. A legless veteran who begs for alms at a bakery did not worry the authorities if he lived in a village or in a small town (in Klin, Vologda or Yaroslavl). For Stalin, the situation was unacceptable when in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Riga, Tallinn, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Tomsk, Novosibirsk (where Stalin planned to move the capital of the USSR) disabled people were lying on the dirty sidewalks, hung with orders and medals, received for feats of arms. The authorities' policy is clear - disabled people must be fed, clothed, given a roof over their heads and treated. Since the state did not provide any financial support to the crippled (WWII veterans), they were forced to beg, beg, and live under a fence in the dirt and in poverty. Many of the former front-line soldiers suffered from alcoholism. In the post-war years (1946 - 1948), thousands of legless and armless officers and soldiers of the valiant Red Army begged for alms in large cities. Homeless disabled people were grouped in the basements of non-residential premises. Of course, even in the difficult post-war years, the USSR would have had enough funds to provide several million war invalids with housing, food and clothing. But, unfortunately, Stalin made the standard decision for that time - to shoot and destroy. “No man, no problem”.
Figure 2. Partisan from Belarus Serafima Komissarova. Drawing by Gennady Dobrov
In many memoirs, people are surprised by the sudden disappearance of disabled people from city streets. « EVGENY KUZNETSOV. "VALAAM NOTEBOOK". I still can’t forget Sverdlovsk in the early 50s. Captured Germans marching under escort and, most importantly, our soldiers who returned from the war disabled. I often saw them at “American women”, small pubs scattered around the city. How old was I then? About 5-6 years old, no more... And before my eyes, like today, a cart on bearings and a man on it without legs, being pushed off the ground by pieces of wood wrapped in rags... Then they disappeared overnight. There were all kinds of rumors about their fate... But everyone tried to assure themselves and others that the state took care of the fate of the crippled front-line soldiers... » But the concern of the socialist state was reduced to banal destruction. At the beginning of 1946, Stalin gave an oral order to L.P. Beria to begin “developing activities” for the systematic elimination of such a “shameful phenomenon of Soviet reality” as the miserable life of WWII disabled people in large cities of the state: Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Minsk , Odessa, Riga, Tallinn, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Tomsk, Novosibirsk. Disabled people who lived in these cities, but started families, worked and did not beg - didn't touch. Some disabled people worked in factories as watchmen, on collective farms as accountants, accountants, shoemakers, watchmen, made baskets and repaired small equipment, including radios. Many cripples started families and had healthy children. These WWII veterans died of old age at 70–80 years old. But millions of unemployed and homeless disabled people were simply destroyed. It is the practice of executing Stalin’s order to liquidate WWII veterans that is described in the film “Riot of the Executioners.”N It is necessary to repeat once again that all WWII disabled people who worked in cities and lived in villages, villages, towns and small towns were in no way affected by the next wave of Stalinist repressions y. Rural cripples both begged and begged, and continued to beg at a great distance from “civilization” until their death from old age. But the authorities treated the city’s crippled beggars very cruelly.
How did the USSR security officials carry out Stalin's order in practical terms? Most of the war veterans were shot in the Soviet Gulag. A small part was placed in concentration camps, which the Soviet government called “special boarding schools” or “sanatoriums for WWII participants.” But when I read the documents posted on the Internet about the conditions of war veterans in these “sanatoriums,” my hair stood on end with horror. Anyone interested in this problem should type “Stalin’s repressions against WWII cripples” into any Internet search engine.
Figure 3. Hero of the defense of Stalingrad Ivan Zabara. Drawing by Gennady Dobrov
Figure 4. Disabled WWII in St. Petersburg.
Statistics from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense provide the following data. 28 million 540 thousand soldiers, commanders and civilians died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. 46 million 250 thousand were injured. 775 thousand front-line soldiers returned home with broken skulls. One-eyed - 155 thousand. There are 54 thousand blind people. With mutilated faces 501,342. With severed genitals 28,648. One-armed 3 million 147. Armless 1 million 10 thousand. There are 3 million 255 thousand one-legged people. There are 1 million 121 thousand legless people. With partially severed arms and legs - 418,905. So-called “samovars”, armless and legless - 85,942. According to the Military Medical Museum (St. Petersburg), 47 million 150 thousand Soviet citizens were injured during the Great Patriotic War. Of this number, about 10 million returned from the front with various forms disability. Of this number, 775 thousand were wounded in the head, 155 thousand with one eye, 54 thousand blind, 2.1 million without one leg or both legs, 3 million without one arm, 1.1 million without both arms... and so on . From archival documents it was revealed that some of the WWII disabled people brought (to the Gulag camps, to “special boarding schools”, “sanatoriums” and “dispensaries”) were shot, some were taken to the distant islands of the North and to the remote corners of Siberia, where they died of disease and hunger. In the reference book of documents "GULAG: 1918-1960" (Moscow, publishing house "Materik", 2002) I found information that on May 27, 1946, a network of camps was hastily created (in particular, Olkhovsky, Solikamsky, Chistyuinsky, etc. ), where DISABLED PEOPLE OF WAR were brought (from clear signs disability) WITHOUT COURT SENTENCES. There they were shot, starved, and so on…. Read “Circles of Hell of the “holy” people”. On the Internet there is a link to the article http://ipvnews.org/nurnberg_article29102010.php. It's just getting scary. On the Internet I found a large number of documents about the inhuman living conditions of disabled people on the island of Valaam. Valaam is a camp for disabled people of the Second World War, located on the island of Valaam (in the northern part of Lake Ladoga), where after the Second World War in 1945-1954 war invalids from all over the USSR were brought. The camp was founded by decree of the Supreme Council of the Karelo-Finnish SSR in 1950. Located in former monastery buildings. In the Valaam special boarding school, front-line soldiers died en masse. In winter there were a lot of dead people, so many that they even began to bury them outside the cemetery, without coffins, ten people per grave. The graves were without tombstones, without names, only three rotten, fallen columns - a terrible monument to unconsciousness, the meaninglessness of life, the absence of any justice and payment for heroism. The camp was closed only in 1984. The same “special boarding school for the disabled” was created on the Solovetsky Islands, in Belarus, near Omsk and in 32 other places in the great and mighty USSR.
Figure 5. Soviet propaganda presented Stalin as a compassionate fighter for the people's happiness.
How concentration camps under the guise of “special boarding schools” and “sanatoriums” were filled with people with disabilities? At night, security officers conducted a raid, collected all disabled people without a fixed place of residence, and sent them in trains to places “not so remote.” They took away all the cripples indiscriminately. Commanders did not give soldiers time to understand the social status of disabled people. “I grabbed the cripple - load it into a lorry, and then take it to the station, where a train with wagons is waiting.” At the same time, convicted military personnel - penal prisoners and former prisoners of fascist camps - were also loaded onto the train. But the former prisoners of the fascist camps, at least formally, were put on trial, the charges were read out, and a verdict was passed. And the war cripples were sentenced to extermination without guilt, without trial and without investigation. It seems to me that disabled people, first of all, aroused anger among those who actually sat out the entire war at headquarters and never stormed well-fortified German trenches. In one document I read that a major action to exterminate cripples in Ukraine was personally organized by Marshal Zhukov. So, disabled people were taken out of all major cities of the USSR. Security agencies “cleaned up” the country quickly and without sentimentality. Some documents say that disabled people tried to resist and threw themselves onto the rails. But the NKVD soldiers picked them up and took them out. They even took out “samovars” - people without arms and legs. On Solovki, the bodies of these soldiers were taken out to breathe fresh air, but what would they have taken? vertical position Instead of lying on the grass, the “orderlies” suspended them on ropes from tree branches, placing their torsos in large wicker baskets. The “orderlies” were convicted front-line soldiers who were captured by the Nazis, but were released by the advancing troops or escaped from captivity. Soldiers and officers who surrendered to the Nazis, authorities Stalin era were perceived as traitors. The crippled front-line soldiers were mostly 20-year-old guys who burned in damaged tanks, after which their arms and legs were amputated. They were pulled out of the tanks by their comrades, or they themselves were able to crawl out of the burning car. But doctors were forced to amputate their limbs. For example, 9,804 disabled people were taken out of Kyiv, Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa in 1947 alone. Since 1949, there were no longer disabled people at veterans' parades. Disabled people completely disappeared from city streets after 1949. They were simply “removed” as an unpleasant memory of the incompetent management of military operations by our generals, marshals and Generalissimo Stalin personally. And the Motherland never again remembered its best sons, who, without sparing their lives and health, defended this Motherland. Even their names disappeared into oblivion. It was much later (after 1970) that the surviving disabled people began to receive benefits, rations and other benefits. And until 1970, those lonely, legless and armless boys were simply buried alive in special boarding schools (= Gulag camps), or worse, they were shot as superfluous people of a powerful state, who were actually equated with the real enemies of the people: murderers, bandits, traitors, executioners, Vlasovites. It’s disgusting to watch when some patriotic communists or pro-communist citizens roll their eyes and scream heart-rendingly « Yes, this cannot be!». Documentary facts confirm that this happened, and these actions of the authorities can never be erased from the history of socialism!
MOLOSTOV.
