| Koriukivka Massacre | |
|---|---|
 Monument in Koriukivka memorializing the victims of Nazi violence | |
| Location | Koriukivka,Army Group South Rear Area |
| Date | 1–2 March 1943 |
| Target | Ukrainians |
Attack type | Genocidal massacre |
| Weapons | Firearms |
| Deaths | 6,700–7,000 civilians |
| Perpetrators |  Nazi Germany Hungary[1] |
TheKoriukivka massacre was awar crime against 6,700–7,000 residents[2][3] ofKoriukivka,Soviet Ukraine on 1–2 March 1943 by theSS forces ofNazi Germany and the 105th Light Division of theRoyal Hungarian Army. 1290 houses in Koriukivka were burned down and only ten brick buildings and a church survived.[4] The residents of neighboring localities were intimidated and refused to help the Koriukivka residents.[4] On 9 March, the Germans returned to Koriukivka and burned alive some elderly people who had returned to the village after escaping thinking it was safe.[5]
According toforensic evidence, the deaths were brought on particularly by shootings from automatic weapons such assubmachine guns andlight machine guns also blows with blunt objects and burning. Some people were burned alive.[6] The mass murder was committed as a retribution forSoviet partisan activities headed byOleksiy Fedorov.[3] Koriukivka was liberated by Soviet troops on 19 March 1943. A report on the number of victims and inflicted damage was compiled in the same year. The Koriukivka massacre was the largest German punitive operation against civilians inWorld War II.[6]
During the German occupation, the village of Koriukivka was a center ofSoviet partisan warfare inChernihiv Oblast. On the night of 27 February 1943, the partisans ofOleksiy Fedorov, having learned that the children of the commanders of a Soviet partisan unit were jailed in the Koriukivka prison, attacked the localAxis garrison, which consisted mostly of Hungarians. During that raid, 78 Axis soldiers were killed and eight captured.[4] Several prisoners were released, and some buildings blown up. The partisans had warned the residents of Koriukivka about possible German retribution, but the next day after the partisan raid the way out was blocked. Nonetheless, at least one woman with three children managed to escape from Koriukivka on that day.[4][unreliable source?]
On the morning of 1 March 1943 anSS unit came to Koriukivka fromShchors. Koriukivka was sealed off. Initially, the Germans tried to huddle all residents in the village's center. When some residents, anticipating the forthcoming killings, had tried to escape, the Germans started to enter all houses, shooting down every occupant. Those who were huddled in the village's centre were shot down in the village's largest buildings, the restaurant and the theater. In the restaurant, about 500 people were killed. Five of the civilians huddled at the restaurant managed to survive. An order to shoot down all Koriukivka residents who had escaped to neighboring settlements was issued.[4]
According to historian Dmytro Vedeneyev, the massacre was committed bySS andcollaborationist auxiliary police.[7] The number of perpetrators of the massacre is estimated at 300–500.[6] 5,612 victims of the massacre remain unidentified.[8]
According to the documents released from Russian archives on request of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory in 2011, the perpetrators of the massacre were the soldiers of the Hungarian 105 light infantry division under command of general-lieutenant Zoltan Algya-Pap, in cooperation with aSchutzmannschaft bataillon of local collaborators,[9] for which he was tried in 1947 and sentenced to labor camps. The order was issued by Lt Col. Bruno Franz Bayer, the commandant of the 399th field commandant's office (Konotop District) in the occupied territory.[10]
Hungarian participation in the massacre cannot be proven.[11]