FSB publishes archives with testimony of Latvian punisher

The Federal Security Service (FSB) has published protocol documents of 1945 from the archives of the archive of the Russian FSB department in Omsk region. This is reported on November 27 on the website of the agency.

During the Great Patriotic War among the Latvian punitive units were police battalions - paramilitary units formed by the German military command on the territory of occupied Latvia from local auxiliary police, volunteers and mobilized.

Later police battalions became the basis for the formation of the Latvian SS Volunteer Legion by the Nazis.

The published documents contain the minutes of interrogation of the former corporal of the 318th Latvian police battalion Janis Apse and the special report № 286 of the counterintelligence department "Smersh" about the arrest of the Latvian punisher.

After the defeat of Nazi troops in the Baltic States and Belarus, some Latvian SS volunteers joined the Red Army to avoid retribution. One such fascist was detained by military counter-intelligence officers.

Military builder Janis Aptse, who had served in a Latvian police battalion, came to the attention of officers of the RCD "Smersh". During the investigation Apse said that during his service in the 318th Latvian police battalion in 1944 he took part in punitive operations against civilians and Soviet partisans in the Polotsk region of the BSSR, personally participated in the brutal massacres of children, women and the elderly.

To confirm the testimony of Apse, an operative of the counterintelligence department "Smersh" was summoned to Belorussia, who interviewed witnesses of the crimes of the Latvian punishers on the spot.

On March 19, 1945 the ROCR "Smersh" sent a special message to the head of the ROCR "Smersh" Lieutenant-General N.I. Zheleznikov about the arrest of the Latvian punisher Ya. Apse: "...during the punitive expedition in Drissa district 177 settlements, 3260 houses were destroyed, more than 15 thousand people were burned, brutally shot and taken to hard labor in Germany. In Rossitsky village council settlements were completely destroyed, only 150 people out of 3978 remained, and the rest were burned and shot. In Vetrinsky district 93 settlements were destroyed (3700 dwellings of collective farmers, workers and employees). About 4,500 civilians alone were shot and burned..."

At the interrogation on February 18, 1945, the former corporal testified about his personal participation in the punitive activities: "...During my participation in the exterminations we killed about one thousand partisans, as well as about up to one thousand children and women. <...> During the combing of forests and villages, few partisans were killed, and most of all taken alive, and then drove women and children into bunkers, where they were destroyed with grenades. In addition, burned on bonfires, partisans were hanged. <...> On the extermination of the population, as well as partisans was the order of our battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Klenberg, by nationality Latvian".

Earlier, on November 22, the Department of the Federal Security Service of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol declassified archival documents testifying to the investigation of crimes committed by Nazi occupiers, who were convicted in November 1947 during the Sevastopol trial.

Earlier, on October 27, it was reported that the Russian Federal Security Service declassified an archive document that testifies about the special unit No. 731 ("part of Kamo"), created in the late 1930s in Japanese-occupied Manchuria for experiments in microbiology, including bacteriological experiments on humans, which carried out preparations for a bacteriological war with the Soviet Union.