They are worse than animals
Testimony of witness Viktor Fedorov
Leningrad trial concerning crimes committed by former German army servicemen in the Leningrad region during the occupation. Evening session on December 30, 1945Chair: Witness Fedorov, what is your name, patronymic, year of birth, and place of birth?
Answer: Viktor Fedorovich, born in 1886, from the village of Gnilino in the Pskov region, collective farmer.
Chair: Comrade Prosecutor, please begin questioning the witness Fedorov.
Prosecutor: Witness Fedorov, please answer the following question: where were you living when the Germans were in the Pskov region?
Answer: At that time, I was living in the village of Rostkovo.
Prosecutor: When were Germans last in your village, and what were they doing there?
Answer: It was before the village was burned down.
Prosecutor: What did the Germans do the last time they were in your village?
Answer: Comrade Prosecutor, should I answer the questions or tell you in detail what happened to me and my family?
Prosecutor: Tell us what happened to you, your family, and your village.
Answer: I want to tell everything as it really was. I am already 58 years old, and I want to talk only about what happened and what was done in our village.
In the evening, the village head told us that we had to report for work early in the morning; those who did not show up would be given several lashes and a fine of five hundred.
Early in the morning, when it was still dark, we went to work. Not far from the village, we encountered a group of German looters traveling in a cart, fully armed, accompanied by their commander. We asked, “Where are you going?” They replied, “We don't understand, we don't understand,” and continued on their way. We, in turn, went to work. We had just started working when we heard shooting. Our hands went limp, and we felt in our hearts that something was wrong in the village. We looked and saw that our cows and all our livestock were being driven away. Someone shouted, “Fedorov, Rostkovo is being burned down.” Hearing this, we dropped our work and ran towards our village, which was 6 kilometers away. I said, “Comrades, we won't make it anyway, we'll exhaust ourselves, we have to walk,” and when we got there, we saw that the whole village was on fire. We were stomping around in our felt boots, but it was useless. There was not a single person around.
We ran to another village, thinking that maybe our people had been taken there, but we didn't find a single person there. We only learned from the local residents that all of our people had been burned in a barn and some had been shot.
We walked and walked and went to neighboring villages to spend the night. After spending the night, we went to Rostkovo the next morning to look for our relatives. Only 10 of us remained. In the village, we found only corpses crammed into a large barn. All of these corpses had been burned, and most of them remained in a sitting position. One corpse still had its head and half of its torso, but when we touched the head, it crumbled away. Some had burned hands, others had burned feet.Looking at them, we were overcome with fear and ran into the forest, where we sat all day, but we did not have winter clothes: it got cold, and we went to another village, where the headman gave us a place to stay. After spending the night there, we returned to the forest, immediately dug a dugout for ourselves, and so the 10 people who had survived began to live in it. At first, the partisans helped us, but then they started to hunt for themselves, taking some things from what was left in the village of Rostkovo. We lived like this until the arrival of our heroes, our Red Army.
Comrades! I had three sons, as tall and handsome as you, and now I am left alone—an old man, living in a bathhouse. If I could, I would cut these robbers to pieces; I cannot look at them calmly because of my ruined life.
I have nothing more to say, citizens of the jury.
Prosecutor: Tell me, who among your relatives were burned and shot?
Answer: From my family, there was my beautiful wife, first of all, and secondly, my daughter-in-law, born in 1914, and my 4-year-old granddaughter, like a doll, whom we cherished and loved.
Prosecutor: Do you know any of the neighbors or residents?
Answer: There were 17 families in total. I know them all, but it's difficult to list them all now.
Chair: And the children?
Answer: There were 33 children, and a total of 64 people died.
Prosecutor: Was it possible to determine whether they were burned or shot?
Answer: No. They were not shot; they were all burned in one barn, but we found three more bodies that had been shot in another building.
Prosecutor: So, the following members of your family died: your wife, Maria Nikolaevna, 53 years old, your daughter-in-law and her daughter, Inna, 4 years old.
Answer: Yes.Prosecutor: I have no further questions.
Presiding Judge: What was the date and month and year of this?
Answer: December 23, 1943.
Presiding Judge: Who burned your village and its inhabitants? Do you know the names of the German soldiers?
Answer: Your Honor, I cannot say who burned it down. They were German punitive forces, but it is difficult to recognize them by their faces.
Presiding Judge: But it was German soldiers who burned it down?
Answer: Yes, they are worse than animals, Your Honor.No statute of limitations. Documents from public trials of Nazi criminals and their accomplices conducted by the USSR in 1943–1947: collection of documents: Vol. 2. 1944–1946 / ed. by A. V. Yurasov; comp. by O. V. Lavinskaya, Yu. G. Orlova, comp. by E. V. Balushkin [et al.] — Moscow: Svyaz Epokh Foundation, 2025. — 648 p. : [16] p. ill. — Pp. 384–386.
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