Why didn’t the children run away from the concentration camp in Skobrovka? We talk about the life of little donors

Do you know what a "full donor" is? This is a man from whom all the blood was taken. In Skobrovka in the 40s, children became such donors . For Hitler's army they were just living raw materials.

The village of Skobrovka is located 50 kilometers from Minsk. At the end of May 1944, a group of children from 6 to 14 years old was brought there. And they called it all “an action to save children.”

- Let's remember one thing: Nazi and white-red-white flags hung in Skobrovka. This is a children's camp. This was an action that was carried out throughout the front line of Belarus with the goal of allegedly rescuing children from the regions of the front zone. In fact, the Germans carried out a selection of children, some were sent to camps for the adoption of true Aryans. There was also a screening for parents. They arrived for the first time - they were fed at the tables... But it was all, as they say, purely personnel. And then what happened... they took blood from children in Skobrovka,” said Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Igor Marzalyuk.

"Skobrovka Youth Settlement" was opened solemnly. Officials were invited, and the camp was even consecrated.

Father Nemshevich, rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral, 73 years old:

“I, along with other clergy, was invited by the Germans to one of the villages near Maryina Gorka, as if to the opening of an orphanage. <…> In 80 houses of the village, surrounded by barbed wire, children aged 9-13 suffered, forcibly taken from their parents ". When we prayed, the children cried... We tried to calm the unfortunate children, but they cried even more, complaining that the Germans had taken away their mothers and fathers. The children , crying, told us that the Germans would take their blood. The children asked to save their…"

There are few official documents indicating the existence of the concentration camp. Among them is the “Act on the children’s camp created by the Nazi occupiers in the village of Skobrovka.” It was signed in 1944 after the Pukhovichi region was liberated.

- We lived in the houses of peasants and collective farmers in the village of Skobrovka. There are different indications. The act talks about 5-7 houses. Subsequent interviews with witnesses, which took place at a time close to ours, indicate that there were probably more than 20, about 30 houses. No one can remember for sure,” Alexander Karlyukevich, chairman of the Union of Writers of Belarus, local historian and journalist, described attempts to calculate. - If there were 7 houses and, according to the certificate, according to the act, there were from 25 to 30 children in each, then we are talking about several hundred children. Although this figure is terrifying, because it is clear that many were killed in the hospital in Maryina Gorka. And if there were several dozen houses, then, of course, you can believe the figure that is periodically called: 1500-1800 people.

From a memo by the secretary of the Minsk underground regional committee of the CP(b)B I. Belsky, July 13, 1944:

"... the Germans forcibly took their children from 7 to 14 years old from their parents and made them donors for their soldiers. Only in the village of Skobrovka, Pukhovichi district, Hitler’s bloodthirsty beasts took up to 3,000 children from the villages of Starodorozhsky, Lyubansky and other areas, and starved them to death and sucked blood for German soldiers."

From the memoirs of Lieutenant General Mikhail Fedorovich Panov:

“In Maryina Gorka, our units liberated 80 Soviet children aged 8-12 years. Living skeletons covered in skin appeared before the eyes of the guardsmen. The children could barely stand on their feet, turned blue from heavy loss of blood. It turned out that the Nazis turned the children into donors. The fanatics took children's blood for their wounded, regardless of the lives of little captives. This terrible picture increased hatred of the enemies."

- 200 grams of bread, almost no meat . A stew made from sorrel, which they themselves collected. There was no milk, although the administration kept a small herd of cows - understandably, in order to meet their food needs. Only occasionally was meat given, as evidenced by those people who were interviewed for the record,” Alexander Karlyukevich spoke about the life of the Skobrovo prisoners. - The children ran away. What is interesting is the psychology of young children. If they ran away to a neighboring village to find food, to feed someone, then we can say in today’s time: why didn’t they run away at all, since there was such security? They ran for food, returned and again lived in these conditions. You have to understand that these are children, they thought differently. They had to come under some kind of roof, get into some kind of team, and not go into the partisan forest on their own. Where to go? It was a mystery to them.

For a long time they were silent about Skobrovka. Why? It's hard to say. Local residents dispersed, some joined the partisans, some died.

- Where did the topic of Skobrovka come from? Not just from eyewitness testimony. It already arose when the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation began to work actively in the late 80s and 90s. When people received compensation for being in some kind of concentration camps or being held captive. We are talking about the civilian population of the Republic of Belarus . Then evidence began to appear, people began to tell stories. And before this time, many were simply afraid,” added Alexander Karlyukevich. - When I started collecting material about this concentration camp, Skobrovka, already in Maryina Gorka I found witnesses who began to remember: they walked around here, tried to board the train, filmed someone. Just kids. It is clear that they later did not remember where they boarded the train - at the Pukhovichi railway station, in Minsk or somewhere else. Therefore, there is virtually no documentary evidence, even at the level of witness testimony.

One of the first publications about Skobrovka at the beginning of the 2000s was “Prisoners of Ghouls.” After the material was published, people began to write to the newspaper and tell their stories.

- There were about a dozen, maybe a little more letters. In some cases - relatives, and in most - letters from those people who have survived to our time from among the prisoners. Consider: if in 1944 they were 5-7 years old, some were 4 years old, maybe 8 years old, then so much time had passed - we are talking about the beginning of the 2000s, almost 60 years - people were of retirement age. And they remembered and said that they were afraid to say that they had been in a concentration camp. For different reasons. Not only of an administrative nature, but simply for social reasons, people did not want to talk about it,” recalled Alexander Karlyukevich.

Local historians collected information about Skobrovka bit by bit. One of those who was not indifferent was retired Lieutenant General Evgeny Vasilyevich Mikulchik.

- He was a member of the board of the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation. He was friends with People's Artist of the Soviet Union Mikhail Andreevich Savitsky. He probably told him this story about Skobrovka. Told me about this place. And a person who himself went through a fascist concentration camp could not help but be stirred up by this. Therefore, he probably spent his physical strength working on a painting dedicated to the concentration camp in Skobrovka,” added Alexander Karlyukevich.

| Prepared from BELTA video, video screenshots.

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