Khatyn massacre

Khatyn, Chatyń was a village in Belarus, in Lahoysk Raion, Minsk Region. On March 22, 1943, the entire population of the village was massacred by the 118th Schutzmannschaft Nazi battalion.

The battalion was formed in July 1942 in Kiev and was made up mostly of Ukrainian nationalists from Western Ukraine and collaborators, Soviet army prisoners-of-war/deserters and the Dirlewanger Waffen-SSspecial battalion.

The massacre was not an unusual incident in Belarus during World War II, started together by Nazis and Soviets in 1939.

In the first 2 years of Soviet occupation 1939-1941 of Polish Kresy region hundreds of thousand (up 1,5, million) Poles were sent to Siberia, and executed.

In the WW2 period 1939-1945 at least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were burned, destroyed by the Nazis together with their Russian collaborants and some or all their inhabitants were killed as a punishment for collaboration with partisans.

In the Vitebsk region 243 villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times.

In the Minsk region 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times.

Altogether, over two million people were killed in Belarus during the five years war and three years of Nazi occupation, almost a quarter of the country's population. These figures of course could be disputed, because Soviet Statistics used to play with figures and many of the victims counted for Nazi Germans, actually were Russian occupation victims 1939-1941.

Commanders of operation in Khatyn

• командиры — майор Смовский (Смовський К. А.),
• майор Иван Шудря;
• командиры рот: гауптман Ганс Вельке (1943) (Hans Woellke);
• Винницкий;
• взводные: лейтенант Мелешко, Пасичнык;
• начальник штаба: Григорий Васюра (с декабря 1942);
• рядовой состав:
• капрал-пулемётчик И. Козынченко,
• рядовые Г. Спивак,
• С. Сахно,
• О. Кнап,
• Т. Топчий,
• И. Петричук,
• Катрюк,
• Лакуста,
• Лукович,
• Щербань,
• Варламов,
• Хренов,
• Егоров,
• Субботин,
• Искандеров,
• Хачатурян.

Victims (families):