LIENTZ: THE COSSACK GENOCIDE
(from an
eyewitness’s account)
-the mournful date,
Within
the years of civil war, in times of Communist terror with Stalin’s bloody
collectivization, artificial famine and the reprisal’s from the People’s
Commissariat of Internal Affairs (KGB), more than two million Cossacks were
eliminated. Because of this political
criminal genocide, Cossacks were provoked to flee in enormous masses and
transition themselves to the side of
Escaping
Soviet authority, in 1945, within the territories of
The
shameful, dark and bloody page of Lientz’s history
began on May 28, 1945, when the English command invited all of the officers and
generals of the Cossack encampment to a “a conference” where all
of them were placed in lorries and taken to the city of Shpital. There, 2176 officers were handed over to the
organizations of the KGB and the death squads.
Several hundred officers were shot on the spot and again the following
day and their corpses
burned. The rest were sent
back to the USSR, placed in concentration camps from where they would not
return.
On
the evening of May 28, when the officers had not yet returned, their mothers
and wives went to the English commander, Major Davis, to find out, what had
happened to the officers. Major Davis very politely answered: “It
is unnecessary to worry; all of the officers will return shortly.” He apologized to them that he could not
disclose their location, as it was “a military secret”. He assured them that “they do not require anything”,
and if anyone of them wanted to leave a note or a letter, he promised to
deliver it personally as addressed.
In
the evening word had spread in Lientz that the
officers were handed over to the Red army, but Major Davis continued with his denials. Not until a motor vehicle appeared with a
loud speaker, the Cossacks, in the valley of river Drava,
were notified that all of them would be repatriated to the USSR, based upon the
Yalta Treaty of Churchill, Roosevelt and the red dragon Stalin. The load speakers also threatened that any
resistance would be met with fire. In
protest, the prisoners of Camp Peggets declared a
hunger strike! The camp’s priest, Father
Protopriest Vasily Grigoriev,
a Don Cossack, wrote a request of protest signed by thousands of names, to
Major Davis, who was also asked to deliver copies of the same to: the King of England, George VI, a close
relative to Czar Nicholas II; to the King of Yugoslavia, Peter; to the Pope of
Rome; to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Supreme Commander of the
Allied Army in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The black flags of death decorated the roof tops of houses, telephone
poles and the entrance gate of the camp.
Not
only did the Cossacks protest against the brutal repatriation, but also a
Catholic priest, from the town of
No
one had an inkling and it never entered anyone’s mind
that the British would raise their weapons on the disarmed Cossacks, their
wives and their children.
The
Ataman of Camp Peggets, Cosma
Tolunin, declared to Major Davis that no one will
volunteer to return to the USSR, as death would only await them; therefore,
they would be better off to die in Austria than in the frozen tundra of the
North Pole.
By
this time, the Cossacks understood that they had been deceived and decided to
resist to the end. They refused to be
loaded voluntarily unto the transport vehicles, and instead, hung throughout
the camp posters declaring: “Better death than returning to the USSR for
tortures”. Resistance to the
forced repatriation was lead by 22 military clergy of the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad. The tanks and the lorries continued to tighten and tighten their grip around
the camp’s inhabitants.
On
Under
the cover of night, many managed to escape into the woods, while others spent
the early hours of the day in morning prayer. At the same time, the Red army crept closer
with their wagons, unto which
from their lorries the English intended to unload their prey.
At
five o’clock in the morning, the Cossack priesthood asked for permission to
celebrate the Divine Liturgy in an open field, before the storming waters of
the river Drava, permission was granted.
From
all ends of the encampment, crowds of worshipers with Icons and banners, led in
front by the priests, pulled themselves to the open field, where by this time a
make-shift church was built. By
In
the middle of the prayer, shots were heard.
The Englishmen began to squeeze on the crowd from two sides. After several minutes, more shots were heard
in rapid succession, which were volleyed into the crowd. The crowd, even more so now, began to tighten
into a one monolithic wall. The British
witnessed the resistance and let their bullets fly along with their bayonets
and rifle butts. Blood began flow like a
river.
At
this time, the cadets, forgetting their youth, within moments grew into heroes.
Applying their weaponless powerful hands, they crumbled the British, took hold
of some of the lorries loaded with human cadavers,
decapitated corpses or with people with head wounds. Seeing this, the blood hungry British
directed at this youth their tanks and ran them over, killing all of them! In this brutal and inhumane fight, the
British killed either with bayonet or by the butt of their rifles. Soul tearing cries were carried through the
valley. In this cataclysm, many were run
over to their deaths, mainly the small children.
Wailing
screams and outcries of the mothers smothered the valley of Lientz,
and in truth, within the history of Christianity, the words of Prophet Jeremiah
came to life again: “weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they
were no more”; the Cossack
mothers cry for their children and do not want to be comforted, for they are no
more.
My
entire family was in the center of this tragic whirlpool. My father, uncle Vasya,
my brother, the future Hieromonk Ignaty, my two
sisters and my mother, who always held me by the hand as I was only four years
and two months old.
And
here, for the first time, I saw blood.
Blood of a baby raised by a British bayonet and thrown into the
river!!! A soul
chilling picture. Further at the
river, a mother with her children in her arms, damning the murderer Stalin,
throws herself and
disappears into the waves of the storming river. At this time, my father saw a small girl,
wandering in tears. Father took her into
his hands and with all his might shouted: “to whomg does
this little one belong to?” A
female shout responded, with a sobbing voice from across the other side of the
river, waving her arms to attract attention.
“She is my own. Dearest one,
save her for God’s sake and rescue her”. Father threw himself and the little girl into
the river, crossed it and gave her back to her mother and with the same path,
returned.
The
crowd waved like lava, under the pressure of the British bayonets. Yes, the Sea Power deserved this indelible
eternal shame. People were thrown into lorries, some of them with torn off hands, contused broken
heads, with bloody faces, without feet.... Many of the Cossack women and men
committed suicide, wishing death over repatriation to a barbaric country, which
not long ago was
My
mother, seeing all around the events that were taking place, said to me: “let
us run, as the bridge is still open!”
We ran over the bridge and disappeared into the woods. After having caught our breath, we went down
into the valley and here, without any notice, a British soldier appeared and
without any thought, raised his automatic weapon upon us. Mother pressed me against her trembling
chest, dropped unto the grass, shielding me with her body, we rolled and landed
in a ditch, from which we saw standing over us the same soldier who aimed his
automatic rifle on us. He stood and stood and then fired five shots on top of
the trees and then left. We quickly ran
to our encampment.
My
father who could not find us, with great effort found my brother. He saw that the bridge was occupied by the
Englishman, who killed anyone trying to attempt to run across the river by way
of the bridge. Father took my brother’s
hand and ran as far away as he could from the bridge to that place where the
river
And
where were my sisters, uncle Vasya? My sisters returned the next day, having to
seek refuge in the mountains. As soon as
the murderers removed their machine guns from the bridge, at night, they crept
back over the bridge and came running back to the
encampment. And uncle Vasya? With
great power he tried to fend off the British, but they overtook him, beat him
and threw him into a lorry. Uncle Vasya would spend 10 years in
Up
to their final tragic end at the Stalin’s Gulag and the torture chambers of Lybyanka, Cossack Atamans and ranked Cossacks remained
faithful and steadfast and did not falter from their Christian Faith and Sacred
Orthodoxy. Their names, You, my God, only know!
Preserve their eternal memory.
With
love in Christ,
Protopriest
Anatoly Trepatschko