[The court in Russia's Novgorod region recognized the Nazi German genocide during the occupation]
On April 5, "Moscow Time" reported that the court of Novgorod region in Russia recognized that the crimes committed by the Nazi German occupiers and their accomplices in the Novgorod region during the Great Patriotic War from 1941 to 1945 constituted acts of genocide. The General Prosecutor's Office of Russia and the Federal Security Service explained the war crimes of the German occupiers. The basis of the case included testimonies of witnesses and archives.
The trial began on March 10. According to the instructions of the Prosecutor General, Sergei Shvezov, the prosecutor of Novgorod region, made a statement during the trial. He said that during the occupation, the Novgorod region was part of Leningrad region. He also mentioned that "disciplinary battalions" formed by the occupiers were active in the area. Soldiers of these battalions "massacred prisoners of war" and also massacred civilians, who were mainly composed of elderly people, women, and children.
All residents and Soviet soldiers captured by the occupiers were imprisoned in concentration camps, where they were "massacred." Others suffered torture and beatings, living under "inhuman conditions," with the sole purpose of torturing them to death.
Shvezov claimed that from July 1941 to February 1944, the occupiers killed "no less than 15,000 civilians," as well as 186,000 prisoners of war. "Another 166,000 citizens were taken to Germany for forced labor."
For example, at the Kolmovo psychiatric hospital near Novgorod, Germans killed 200 patients by injecting them with toxic substances, while another 627 died of starvation. In August 1941, the Nazis sank a barge carrying 760 civilians (mainly women and children) attempting to retreat to the rear.
The Federal Security Service stated that fascists "tortured women who refused to cohabit in particularly cruel ways." For instance, a 38-year-old woman in Demiansk district was shot, leaving behind four underage children. People were not only publicly executed, but their bodies were prohibited from being buried to humiliate others. They were denied food, had their clothes taken away, and were "burned alive or sealed in brick walls to die in unbearable pain."
The German occupiers destroyed everything along their path — houses, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, enterprises... The losses caused by their actions exceeded 48 trillion rubles.
On April 3, the court of Novgorod region ruled: fully supported the request of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov, recognizing that the war crimes committed by Nazi German occupiers and their accomplices against the Soviet people in this region during the Great Patriotic War constituted acts of genocide.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1828636779172995/
Disclaimer: This article solely represents the views of the author.