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Special Report to Beria by the UNKVD Head for the Vologda Region, Pyotr Kondakov, on the Counterrevolutionary Activities of Some Polish POWs in Griazovets Camp

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By Kondakov, Pyotr Pavlovich

Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment

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Document 89

Special Report to Beria by the UNKVD Head for the Vologda Region, Pyotr Kondakov, on the Counterrevolutionary Activities of Some Polish POWs in Griazovets Camp

29 September 1940, Vologda

In the margin: “Taken for control by the Secretariat of the NKVD USSR.” In the lower left corner, with the incoming registration number: “Secretariat of the NKVD USSR. 1st Department. No. 75. 29 September 1940.” In the top right corner: “Prisoner-of-War Administration, 24 December 1940. Incoming No. 20970.”

No. 7037

Top Secret To: USSR People's Commissar for Internal Affairs

GB Commissar 1st Rank Comrade Beria Special Report on the Counterrevolutionary Activities of a Group

of Prisoners of War in the Griazovets NKVD Camp

The prisoner-of-war contingent in Griazovets NKVD camp consists of 384 officers and NCOs of the former Polish Army, officers and rank and file of the former Polish police, as well as a significant number of civilians, among whom we have discovered landowners, military settlers, and agents of the former Polish and Lithuanian intelligence organs.

Recently, the UNKVD has received several reports from the camp which make it clear that a group of POWs made up of former higher and senior

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commanders of the Polish Army, including General Wolkowicki, Colonel Grabicki, Majors Domoń and Lis, military priest Tyczkowski, Naval Captain Ginsbert, and Police Commissioner Bober, are conducting active counterrevolutionary [c-r] activity among the POWs aimed at individuals loyally inclined toward the Soviet Union.

For biographical data on Bober, Domoń, and Lis, see Biographical Sketches.

The individuals named above are conducting active c-r agitation among the POWs, propagandizing the idea of restoring a “greater Poland from sea to sea,”

The notion of a Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea—as Poland-Lithuania did in 1569 (see Maps and Aerial Photographs, map 1)—was very popular among nationalistic young Poles in the prewar period. It was particularly offensive to Russians and Ukrainians, and Soviet propaganda attributed it to the Polish government-in-exile, which did not support it.

and creating nationalistic groups from [among] the young officer cadets and 2nd lieutenants, based on the principle of [uniting] regional countrymen, which they are developing in a nationalist-chauvinist spirit by means of illegal lectures and discussions.

This anti-Soviet influence on the officer cadets and 2nd lieutenants has in several instances provoked open c-r manifestations on their part.

On 20 August of this year, a group of nationalistically minded officer cadets beat up a group of Jewish POWs who had expressed loyal views with respect to the Soviet Union.

For a report on this incident, see KD2/112; KDZ3/25.

The c-r core among the POWs under the leadership of General Wolkowicki has placed itself in active opposition to the mass political work being conducted in the camp. During the period when lectures on the history of the VKP(b)

Stalin's Short Course on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian edition, Moscow, 1938; English edition, New York, 1939) was the textbook for these lectures.

are being conducted at the behest of a significant portion of POWs, they are conducting parallel lectures and discussions of a nationalist-chauvinist character and organizing the singing of c-r nationalist songs.

They are also poisoning [the minds of] individual officer cadets and 2nd lieutenants against the POWs who are participating in mass political work. They threaten the latter that they will settle with them in the “future Poland” or upon their return to German territory. It has been established that similar threats against several POWs have been made by Police Commissioner Bober, who keeps a so-called blacklist of POWs who are loyally inclined toward the Soviet Union.

Out of fear of reprisal, several POWs have stopped attending the lectures on the history of the VKP(b) that are being conducted in the camp.

On 5 September of this year, the UNKVD received a report from the camp that preparations are under way among the POWs to declare a mass hunger strike as a sign of protest against the lack of correspondence with families and relatives.

Through operational and prophylactic measures taken on site, support for the hunger strike among the POWs has been dissipated for the time being.

As has been established, POWs Wolkowicki, Domoń, Lis, and Bober were waiting for a reply to Wolkowicki's statement, addressed to Narkomvnudel [People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs], in which he

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warned of possible recidivism among the POWs on the grounds of the lack of correspondence with relatives. Wolkowicki's statement was sent to the UPV.

For Wołkowicki's letter of 6 September 1940, requesting that prisoners be allowed to write and receive letters, see KD2/118; KDZ3/40. In another letter of 26 September 1940, Wołkowicki requested warm winter clothes for the prisoners and a monthly cash allowance for personal purchases. Above all, he said, prisoners worried about their families, so the NKVD should issue instructions on aid for them and inform the POWS that this was done; see KD2/122; KDZ3/49, facsimile, p. 148.

In connection with the lack of reply to this statement, Wolkowicki, together with Domoń, Lis, and Bober, who are connected to him through their c-r activity, began actively preparing for a mass hunger strike among the POWs, which according to the information that has been received, is supposed to be declared during the first few days of October of this year.

Thus it has been established that between 18 and 23 September, Wolkowicki went around to all the POWs in the blocks trying to convince them of the necessity of going to the camp administration every day and raising the issue of correspondence and in this way applying pressure for a positive resolution of this issue.

From the statement made on 23 September of this year by prisoner of war Wolkowicki, it is clear that the creation of a special committee to lead the hunger strike is being prepared. Its task, in addition to leading the hunger strike, will include forming groups to confiscate edible products from POWs and to destroy those products in order to achieve a universal hunger strike.

Simultaneously, Wolkowicki stated that the hunger strike must continue until a positive reply to the issue of correspondence arrives.

The camp administration has in a timely fashion informed the head of the USSR NKVD UPV GB Captain Comrade Soprunenko about the facts set forth here, but so far the camp has not received any specific instructions on these matters.

Soprunenko wrote Merkulov on 28 September 1940 proposing one letter a month for prisoners in Griazovets, Kozelsk, Suzdal, Rovno, Yukhnov, and the Northern Railway camps. He also suggested concealing the location of the camps by using a Moscow post office box address and having the correspondence go through the UPV; see KD2/123. Merkulov must have agreed, for Soprunenko sent a telegram the same day to Vasily Volkov, commandant of Griazovets camp, saying that the prisoner correspondence issue had been settled and that he would send instructions by mail, see KD2/123, n. 1; KDZ3/51.

In order to curtail c-r activity among the POWs in the camp, I think it is necessary to remove from the camp the guiding c-r core in the persons of POWs General Wolkowicki, Colonel Grabicki, Majors Domoń and Lis, the priest Tyczkowski, Captain Ginsbert, and Police Commissioner Bober, about which I request your instructions.

In mid-October, Merkulov wrote Kondakov that the proposed removal of some officers from the camp was inexpedient and that Major Lis had been sent to Moscow. At the same time, Volkov—who succeeded Khodos as camp commander—was instructed to take measures to prevent counterrevolutionary activity among the prisoners; see KD2/124, n. 1; KDZ3/64.

Head of the NKVD Administration for the Vologda Oblast GB Major Kondakov

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Document Details

Document TitleSpecial Report to Beria by the UNKVD Head for the Vologda Region, Pyotr Kondakov, on the Counterrevolutionary Activities of Some Polish POWs in Griazovets Camp

AuthorKondakov, Pyotr Pavlovich

RecipientBeria, Lavrenty Pavlovich

RepositoryRGVA

ID #f.1/p, op.4b, d.5, ll.222-225

DescriptionN/A

Date1940 Sep 29

AOC VolumeKatyn: A Crime Without Punishment

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