“In the village of Berezovka, in the region of Smolensk, drunken German soldiers assaulted and carried off all the women and girls between the ages of 16 and 30.
“In the city of Smolensk the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair.
“Everywhere the lust-maddened German gangsters break into the houses, they rape the women and girls under the very eyes of their kinfolk and children, jeer at the women they have violated, and then brutally murder their victims.
“In the city of Lvov, 32 women working in a garment factory were first violated and then murdered by German storm troopers. Drunken German soldiers dragged the girls and young women of Lvov into Kesciuszko Park, where they savagely raped them. An old priest, V. I. Pomaznew, who, cross in hand, tried to prevent these outrages, was beaten up by the fascists. They tore off his cassock, singed his beard, and bayonetted him to death.
“Near the town of Borissov in Bielorussia, 75 women and girls attempting to flee at the approach of the German troops, fell into their hands. The Germans first raped and then savagely murdered 36 of their number. By order of a German officer named Hummer, the soldiers marched L. I. Melchukova, a 16-year-old girl, into the forest, where they raped her. A little later some other women who had also been dragged into the forest saw some boards near the trees and the dying Melchukova nailed to the boards. The Germans had cut off her breasts in the presence of these women, among whom were V. I. Alperenko, and V. H. Bereznikova.
“On retreating from the village of Borovka, in the Zvenigorod district of the Moscow region, the fascists forcibly abducted several women, tearing them away from their little children in spite of their protests and prayers.
“In the town of Tikhvin in the Leningrad region, a 15-year-old girl named H. Koledetskaya, who had been wounded by shell splinters, was taken to a hospital (a former monastery) where there were wounded German soldiers. Despite her injuries the girl was raped by a group of German soldiers and died as a result of the assault.”
I omit one paragraph and continue:
“But, the Hitlerites do not stop at the murder of individual Soviet citizens. Among the most appalling atrocities in the history of Hitlerite lawlessness and terrorism on German occupied Soviet territory are the nightmare mass murders of Soviet citizens which usually accompany the temporary seizure by the Germans of Soviet towns, villages, and other inhabited centers.
“Here are a few instances of wholesale bloody murders carried out by the Germans against entire villages. In Yaskino, a village in the region of Smolensk, the Hitlerites shot all the old men and adolescents, and burnt the houses down to the ground. In the village of Pochinok of the same region, the Germans drove all the old men, old women, and children into the collective farm office, locked the doors and burnt them all alive. In the Ukrainian village of Yomelchino in the region of Zhitomir, the Germans locked 68 people into a small hut, sealed the doors and windows and asphyxiated to death everybody inside. In the village of Yershevo, of the Zvenigorod district in the Moscow region now liberated by our troops, the Germans prior to their withdrawal drove about 100 peaceful citizens and wounded Red Army men into a church, locked them in, and blew up the building. In the village of Agrafenovka of the Rostov region, on 16 November, the fascists arrested the entire male population between the ages of 16 and 70 and shot one man of every three.”