War is the slaughterhouse of mankind, and war will change human nature and turn good people into executioners!
During the Great Patriotic War, a Soviet female soldier served as a "machine gunner" of Nazi Germany in order to survive, maiming more than 1,500 of her compatriots, including women, the elderly and children. After the war, she disappeared without a trace like the evaporation of the human world, and the KGB pursued the murderer for more than 30 years, with a clue that appeared by chance, and brought her to justice.
One day in 1978, the Belarusian town of Lip was as quiet as ever, when a speeding car drove straight to the home of the town's veteran Victor Ginsburg.
Two KGB plainclothes got out of the car, took Ginsburg's 57-year-old wife into the car, and sped away. The Ginsburg family has lived in the town for more than 30 years, and because they are veteran officers, the welfare and prestige in the local area are very high, and this sudden scene has made the local residents talk about it.
When Mrs. Ginsburg was taken to the interrogation room, the KGB asked her, "Do you know why you were brought here?" Mrs. Ginsburg pretended to be deep, "You are mistaken." ”
The KGB was certainly not jealous, and it took more than 30 years to find this former Nazi "machine gunner", which naturally had solid evidence. The KGB said: "You are Antonina Makarova, nicknamed machine gunner, who was the executioner of the German Nazis, who helped the Germans shoot thousands of our compatriots, we have been looking for you for more than 30 years, and today you will give it all!" ”
Mrs. Ginsburg said lightly, "That was a long time ago. ”
I. Soviet Women Soldiers Reduced to Nazi Accomplices "Machine Gunners"
Antonina Makarova, formerly known as Antonina Pavlova, was born in a small village in the Soviet Union in 1921 as the eldest of the family.
Makarova came to the capital Moscow before World War II broke out, hoping to find better development opportunities in Moscow. However, on June 22, 1941, Germany tore up the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, gathered 190 divisions of 5.5 million people, 4,900 aircraft, 3,700 tanks, 47,000 cannons, and 190 warships, and launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union from the north, center, and south, and the Soviet-German War officially broke out.
With the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, Makarova's original plan to study and work was disrupted. When the country was facing crisis, Makarova volunteered to join the army as a female nurse in the field and came to the front line to participate in the work of saving lives and helping the wounded.
Due to Germany's long-term preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union, and the sudden launch of a blitzkrieg, the Soviet Union, which was unprepared, was caught off guard. On September 6, 1941, Germany launched a battle plan code-named "Operation Typhoon" to capture moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, and the defense of Moscow began.
In the Battle of Viazima, more than a million Soviets were killed and more than half a million others were captured. Makarova's army was in the area, her troops were scattered by the Germans, and she also escaped death, and almost paid for it in this battle. Makarova, who had crawled out of the pile of dead men, was horrified, and at this time she had only one belief, that is, to return to the Soviet army and continue to fight.
However, finding the large force may require a difficult journey, as the area was occupied by the Germans. Hungry, she wandered through a small village, begging local villagers to give her some food and find a place to hide.
Later, makarova was found by a German policeman while passing through Lokot, and she was taken away by the German police in desperation. German police took her to a nearby makeshift prison, where Makarova was raped by the Germans, who gave her some food after insulting her, saying that if she obeyed the Germans' orders, she would not only not kill her, but would also give her a paid job.
Seeing The corpses of Soviets everywhere on the way, Makarova was already terrified at this time, and she had to obey the Germans' arrangements in order to survive. Moreover, to work for the Germans and the Germans to pay her was already luckier than death.
What Makarova did not expect, however, was that her job was to kill people, and to kill her fellow Soviets who were unarmed. The Germans were also perverted enough to let the Soviets kill themselves and force Makarova to become an accomplice to Nazi Germany.
Makarova said during the interrogation: "They warmed me up, made me drunk, took me to the yard with a machine gun in my hand. I didn't really understand what was going on... Afterwards, when I saw that I had an extra 30 marks in my hand, I was happy and agreed to cooperate. Among those she killed were prisoners of war, guerrillas and their families, including the elderly, women and children.
However, after several execution missions, she was used to the "job" because she just treated it as a job and didn't know who she was killing, because the Germans didn't tell her. Whenever she saw some "prisoner" with beautiful clothes or something of value on her body, she would stay because Germany allowed her to take the "prisoner's" belongings for herself.
As a professional executioner, Makarova usually arranged to shoot 27 people in a cell with machine guns in the morning, drink and dance in a German club in the evening, and then spend the night with a German officer or policeman.
Soon, a rumor spread in the area about female executioners and machine gunners serving the Germans, and local Soviet guerrillas listed them as assassination targets. However, they did not catch Makarova.
In the summer of 1943, the Soviets launched a massive counteroffensive that soon liberated the Lokot region. The Soviets dug up the bones of about 1,500 people in mass graves, and after investigation, it was learned that it was makarova, a female machine gunner, and some Soviet traitors who had committed the horrific atrocities. The Soviet army hanged the traitors who worked for the Nazis in Germany, but Makarova escaped punishment from the Soviets. Because At that time, Makarova was sent to the hospital in the rear for treatment because of her venereal disease, and she was not captured.
Second, the KGB pursued the murderer with all its might but to no avail
After World War II, the Soviet Union began to liquidate traitors who betrayed the Soviet Union as Nazi accomplices in the war, and Makarova was among them for her service to the German Nazis. However, the Soviet authorities knew nothing about Makarova other than that she was born in 1921 and had lived in Moscow before the war.
In order to find the executioner, who was hated by the Soviets, investigators surveyed the country's named Antonina Makarova and found that there were a total of 250 women across the country who had this name. After investigating them one by one, it was found that none of the 250 women were the executioner they were looking for.
Although no real executioners were found among the 250 Antonina Makarova, the KGB authorities were not dead-hearted, believing that the real executioners were still alive. So they kept Antonina Makarova's file until one day they suddenly found new clues and then went on tracking down the real executioner.
Third, more than 30 years later, new clues appeared occasionally
In 1976, a Defense Ministry official was preparing to leave the country, and according to the Soviet Union's registration procedures at the time, all family members needed to be registered. He registered among his siblings a sister named Antonina Makarova, all of whom were surnamed Pavnova, which attracted the attention of the KGB, and they intervened in the investigation based on this new clue.
It turned out that after the end of World War II, Makarova forged documents to prove that she was working in a health unit at the time, and then entered a mobile hospital to continue her work as a nurse. At the hospital, she met Viktor Ginsburg, a young Soviet military officer who was being treated for his injuries. Ginsburg gradually fell in love with the beautiful female nurse who took care of her day and night, so the two fell in love. After Ginsburg was discharged from the hospital from injury, Makarova followed her back to the small town of Lip in her hometown of Belarus.
Because of his military exploits on the battlefield, Ginsburg enjoyed the benefits of being a veteran of the Great Patriotic War and was given a free apartment. The two then married and had children and lived in the area for more than thirty years. Since Ginsburg is a veteran officer, their family has a relatively high prestige in the local area. And Makarova also made up her glorious past to the children, and in the eyes of the locals and children, they were a heroic family. And if it weren't for this chance exposure, Makarova might have lived her life in such a low profile.
The reason why the KGB authorities could not find Antonina Makarova in the whole country was because her original name was Antonina Pavlova, but the teacher used it wrong when she went to school, and she became Antonina Makarova, so the executioner could not be found looking for Antonina Makarova. And Makarova changed her surname to Ginsburg after marrying Victor Ginsburg.
After the KGB found Makarova, they identified the survivor, Antonina Ginsburg. As a result, the survivors identified her as the executioner of the year, and the KGB arrested her. After learning that his wife was the executioner, her husband grew old overnight, broke off relations with his wife, and left Lip with the children.
After being arrested, Makarova looked very calm, as if nothing had happened, unaware that she had committed a felony or feared it. She told investigators that she was only killing people to save her life, which was also a last resort, and hoped that the court would be able to sentence her to a suspended sentence of less than three years. However, the court rejected her request for a suspended sentence and instead sentenced her directly to death.
On August 11, 1978, Antonina was executed.
Makarova originally joined the army with the enthusiasm of defending the motherland, which shows that she is a young woman with patriotism and responsibility. However, after being captured by the Germans, when faced with the test of her own life and death, she chose to betray her country and people and completely became an accomplice of the German Nazis. When she faces being executed, will she recall the person she executed in this way? At this time, what kind of mentality is she?
In the face of war, how many human beings can withstand the test of life and death?