What were the NKVD prisoner massacres?
Q: What were the NKVD prisoner massacres?
A: The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD secret police against prisoners in Eastern Europe during World War II.
Q: Who were the main victims of the NKVD prisoner massacres?
A: The victims were mainly from Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and other parts of the Soviet Union.
Q: When did the massacres take place?
A: The massacres took place during World War II, when the Red Army was withdrawing ahead of the German invasion in 1941 (see Operation Barbarossa).
Q: What was the death toll of the NKVD prisoner massacres?
A: The death toll came to 100,000 or more.
Q: Where were some of the places where the massacres occurred?
A: There were nearly 9,000 in the Ukrainian SSR, to 20,000–30,000 in occupied eastern Poland, now western Ukraine, to all Tartar prisoners in Crimea among other places.
Q: Were all prisoner victims murdered?
A: Not all prisoner victims (150,000 of them in total) were murdered; some were transported into the interior, others were abandoned in prisons or managed to escape because the retreating Soviet executioners could not attend to all of them.
Q: Who carried out the NKVD prisoner massacres?
A: The Soviet NKVD secret police carried out the NKVD prisoner massacres.
