War crime in Mazai Bati on May 27, 1944

Stories

Stepans Laganovskis, a resident of Mazo Batu: "My sister burned to death in that barn. I learned about it from my other sister, because I was drafted, I served in the war for 18 months. When I came back, my sister Tekla, her husband Meikul and Veronika Myshkina had already been killed. Our mother remained alive only because she lived in the neighborhood at the time - in the Bandarova village. The partisans lived about 300 m from the barn where my relatives were later burned. Before that, in the winter, the Germans surrounded and then burned about ten Russian partisans on the farm of sister Tekla's husband Mikhail Krupnik. But then came a cruel reckoning. It could have been Whit Saturday. My sister's husband was making samagonka when men in uniform came in. They surrounded the village and drove everyone into my sister's husband's barn. Those who did not escape, burned - the Šķirmantis, the Buļi family and also my sister's husband Meikuls Krupņiks, sister Tekla Krupņika, who was pregnant at the time, were burned or shot there. She tried to escape, but the partisans had caught her and thrown her into the burning house, saying - the partisans burned in your fire, let the same number of people burn now."

Maria Linuzha, a resident of Strauvenka: "The Kononovs were residents of Strau. I still remember Vasiliy Kononov's parents well - both were honest and decent, hardworking people. We went to their flax gatherings, we also danced. I also remember Kononov himself, but when I picked flax there, he was still a very small boy. After that, I never saw him again during the war. I know what everyone said - it could have been the Saturday of the Summer Festival. The partisans came at a time when the sun was already shining, they had surrounded the village. We could only see a lot of smoke from our yard. After that, they buried everyone in the Salaja cemetery. Some people were burned, some were shot, but they couldn't shoot much at that time, because the border guards were nearby and the Germans weren't far away, they could hear. Before this tragedy, one winter evening, Tekla and her husband Meikul Krupnik's farm Partisans – about ten people – asked the owner for permission to warm themselves in the hut he had recently built. The owner allowed it, he could not refuse, because he was afraid of the partisans. He thought that he would be done for – if the Germans found out, they would destroy his family and the entire village, because at that time, according to the laws, such hiding was a threat of inevitable death. He did not want to report it, but he was afraid. Therefore, he told the Germans that there were partisans in the hut. Then the Germans ran up and shouted for the partisans to come out, but no one responded. The Germans started shooting with burning bullets – the hut burned down. Whether anyone was inside or escaped – I do not know. When the partisans arrived around the Summer Festival, Tekla asked to be left alive, because she had not told anyone anything. However, they did not spare the woman – so Tekla burned down along with the upcoming child."

The war crime of Little Batu

On May 27, 1944, a special group of saboteurs commanded by Vasilis Konov arrived in the village of Mazo Batu and killed nine villagers – Bernards Šķirmantas, Julianas Šķirmantas, Vladislavs Šķirmantas, Gelentas Šķirmantas, Ambrožas Buļas, Modestas Krupņikas, Meikuls Krupņikas, Veronikas Krupņikas, and Tekla Krupņikas.

Vasilijs Kononovs was born on January 1, 1923 in the village of Strauja. In the summer of 1941, he retreated with the Red Army to the territory of the USSR. In 1942, he was mobilized into the Red Army and underwent special saboteur training. On the night of June 23, 1943, V. Kononovs' group was delivered to the territory of Belarus occupied by Nazi Germany, where it operated as part of the 1st Latvian Partisan Brigade commanded by Vilis Samsons. After World War II, he continued to work in various police institutions of the Latvian SSR until he retired in 1988.

As a pretext for committing a war crime, V. Kononov used the battle that took place at the home of Meikul Krupnik on February 29, 1944, when units of the German occupation forces destroyed 12 fighters from the group of Major Konstantin Chugunov of the counterintelligence department "SMERSH" of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR.

In 1998, the Center for Documentation of the Consequences of Totalitarianism of the Constitutional Protection Bureau of the Republic of Latvia initiated a criminal case against Vasiliy Kononov for a possible war crime. During the proceedings, V. Kononov was both convicted and acquitted in several instances, until in 2004 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, as a higher instance, recognized and the Senate of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia later finally confirmed that V. Kononov was guilty of war crimes. On 27 August 2004, V. Kononov filed a claim with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which in its judgment of 24 July 2008 found that Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated in relation to V. Kononov, however, on 14 October of the same year, the Latvian side filed an appeal with the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. On 17 May 2010, it held by 14 votes to 3 that there had been no violation of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights.