An exemplary wife, a veteran... a criminal. How was Tonka the Machine Gunner found and tried?

- I fell into Soviet encirclement. She had fake nursing IDs. Subsequently, she actually got a job at the hospital. There she met one of the servicemen who became her husband,” said Pavel Trubchik, Deputy Director for Research at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor.

- According to some sources, literally a week after they met, they got married. According to others, they lived for quite a long time without registration, only in 1947, when their daughter was born, did they officially get married, added senior lecturer at the Belarusian State University Sergei Kaun.

This is how Antonina got a third surname - Ginzburg. Tonka the machine gunner has once again confused her tracks. My husband Victor couldn’t even imagine who lived next to him.

- He was from a Jewish family; during the Holocaust, all his relatives died during German punitive operations. Then he served in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and was a sergeant. He took part in the battle for Königsberg, was wounded and ended up in a mobile hospital, where Antonina Makarova worked using forged documents.

For some time the couple lived in Kaliningrad, then moved to Lepel, the homeland of Viktor Ginzburg.

- Here Antonina behaved like an exemplary wife. They had two daughters. The first in 1947, the second a little later. They had an exemplary family. It must be said that Antonina Ginzburg began working in the sewing workshop of the Lepel Industrial Plant in 1961. She has proven herself to be a neat, diligent worker. She hung on the Honor Board several times, they spoke positively about her as a former front-line soldier - they still thought that she was a nurse from 1941 to 1944. She had forged documents that she served in the 422nd sanitary battalion.

The Ginsburgs were respected and appreciated in the city. Of course, they are front-line soldiers, they fought for their Motherland. Antonina was invited to schools and businesses. Her photograph hung on the Honor Board and in the local museum.

- She was awarded anniversary medals. In 1965 - 20 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, in 1975 - 30 years of Victory, etc. She was considered a front-line nurse, a very demonstrative, exemplary wife and mother. The only thing is that she never made any friends. The point that was paid attention to: she drank very little alcohol at the festivities (in contrast to the information that was associated with her behavior in the Lokot self-government, when she drank a lot). Why did she behave this way? Most likely, she was afraid of getting drunk and saying something unnecessary.

But Bronislav Kaminsky, the head of that same self-government, did not live to see peacetime. On July 30, 1944, the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, personally awarded him the Iron Cross, First Class, and awarded the traitor the rank of general - Brigadefuhrer of the SS troops. But after a month he changed his mercy to anger.

“Kaminsky was shot on Polish territory in August 1944,” said Pavel Trubchik. - In particular, his brigade took part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. In total, about 230 thousand people were killed there. Of which the absolute majority - about 200 thousand - are civilians. Kaminsky's brigade was distinguished by significant cruelty towards the civilian population. They engaged in robbery, looting, and raped women.

Kaminsky's gang escaped the control of the German authorities. Hitler personally gave the order to remove the former head of Lokot self-government. Kaminsky was taken to Lodz, where he and several subordinates were shot. The soldiers of his army were told that Bronislav was killed by partisans. In 1945, when the Nuremberg trials took place, this information was fully confirmed.

In 1976, the head of the Lokot prison, Nikolai Ivanin, was detained in Bryansk. He revealed the name of the executioner - Antonin Makarov. Only now they started checking women who were registered this way in childhood. And Tonka the Machine Gunner received the surname Panfilov at birth.

Chance helped find the killer. In 1976, one of Antonina Ginzburg’s relatives filled out a form to travel abroad. The document indicated her details. And he noted that her maiden name was Makarova. This attracted the attention of investigators.

- To identify Tonka the machine gunner, residents (mostly women) were brought from the Braslav region, directly from Lokt, who remembered her back in those days. The bad reputation about her was still alive in Lokt at that time. Everyone whispered: she is an executioner, she shoots. But no one knew anything else about her - just Tonka the Machine Gunner. First they brought one witness, she looked out of the window at Antonina passing by. And she said that she was the one. But Makarova was a distinguished person - a more detailed identification is needed. Therefore, operational cases were formed when Antonina had to go to some places where women from Elbow could see her. In particular, this happened in the savings bank. One woman was put in the cashier’s place, and when Makarova turned up, the decoy cashier recognized her, described Associate Professor, Candidate of Historical Sciences Sergei Aleksandrovich. - The main criterion that for some reason appeared in the description of Tonka the Machine Gunner when the commission to investigate the atrocities of the Nazis in the Braslav region began to work was her crease on her forehead. She appears, yes. Then already, in my youth.

From the interrogation protocol of Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg in June 1978:

It seemed to me that the war would write off everything. I was just doing my job, for which I was paid. It was necessary to shoot not only the partisans, but also members of their families, women, and teenagers. I tried not to remember this. Although I remember the circumstances of one execution - before the execution, the guy sentenced to death shouted to me: “We won’t see you again, goodbye, sister!”

- She said that for the first 10 years she was afraid of every knock on the door. But then I thought that they had forgotten about her, they had left her and nothing would happen to her anymore. She lived for more than 30 years after the war, and she was not punished in any way,” added Sergei Kaun.

- Antonina Makarova behaved very calmly and restrained during interrogations. Investigators noted her coldness and detachment. She believed that she was doing ordinary work that she had to do for what she was paid, said Sergei Alexandrovich. - Access to the materials of her case is still limited. She spoke impartially about how this was the hard work of her war. For some reason, she believed that due to the passage of time (plus 1979 was declared the Year of Women in the USSR), she would not receive a strict sentence. She was surprised, but at the same time she still remained cold.

On November 20, 1978, the court found Makarova guilty of murdering 168 people. This is a tenth of all alleged victims; the identities of the majority of those killed could not be established.

- The courthouse in Bryansk was guarded very strictly, because the authorities were afraid of lynching. There were many living participants in this tragedy who recognized that it was Tonka the Machine Gunner and lost relatives and loved ones. Moreover, this was a rare, unique trial of a female punisher. This will never happen again in the Soviet Union. There was no before, there was no after. Probably, after all, the person before us is psychologically underdeveloped. Now, perhaps, they would make a diagnosis of mental retardation, says Sergei Aleksandrovich. - Maybe someone else. Emotionally she was a very emasculated person, very cold. But a number of investigators noted her cruelty and some kind of lack of understanding of what she was doing. Well, I did and did... other work is the same, here it is like this. This amazed those who led the investigation.

Tonka the machine gunner submitted several petitions for pardon to different authorities. All of them were rejected. On August 11, 1979 the sentence was carried out.

- After that, there were rumors that Victor packed his suitcase, gathered his daughters and they left Lepel. Some said that he went to Israel, some said that he went to some other city, which only the secret services knew about. According to the latest data, he died in Lepel on February 2, 1993,” summed up Sergei Kaun.

In the pre-trial detention center Antonina Ginzburg, aka Makarova, was indignant: they say that after the trial she will have to leave Lepel so that they don’t point fingers in the street... The killer was sure that she would be given three years, and then only conditionally. The case caused a lot of controversy. Some said that one should not blame a girl who survived as best she could. Others considered her a sadist. Even in peacetime, Tonka the Machine Gunner did not cease to be an executioner: she killed the faith in people in her husband and daughters. And then she herself had to attend the execution in the role of a victim.

| Prepared from BELTA video, video screenshots.

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