>As the Germans fell back, millions of Russians beheld the devastation and carnage left behind them. Many who remained unmoved by the familiar plight of adults gave way to emotion on witnessing the tragedies of the very young.
>Captain Pavel Kovalenko wrote, *We understand the horrors of war, its relentless laws written in blood. But children, these blossoms of life, these innocent holy souls, the beauty of our lives, they, who have done no harm to anyone. We’ve failed to protect them from the beast. One’s heart bleeds, one’s thoughts freeze with horror at the sight of small bloodsoaked bodies, with gnarled fingers and distorted little faces. They bear mute testimony to indescribable human suffering. These small, frozen, dead eyes reproach us, the living.*
>In the village of Tarasevichi by the Dnieper, Vasily Grossman met a teenage boy. *They are so frightening, these old, tired lifeless eyes of children.* “Where is your father?” “Killed,” he answered. “ And mother?” “She died.” “Have you got brothers or sisters?” “A sister. They took her to Germany.” “Have you got any relatives?” “No, they were all burned in the partisan village.” *And he walked into a potato field, his feet bare and black from the mud, straightening the rags of his torn shirt*.
* Max Hastings, *All Hell Let Loose,* on the numerous scenes akin to those in this photograph across the Eastern Front
Iron_Cavalry on
This photo was one of [several taken ](https://imgur.com/a/man-finds-his-wife-children-among-bodies-vLGau4Z)in January 1942, during the brief Soviet liberation of the Kerch Peninsula. Pictured is Grigory Berman, Jewish head of a local middle school. In the background are Red Army soldiers, and local civilians finding the bodies of their families, victims of a Nazi massacre that killed 7,000 Jews.
The killers in this massacre were from Sonderkommando 10b of Einsatzgruppe D, one of the deadly killing units designed for slaughter in the Nazi-occupied areas. The deadliest phase of the Holocaust, Operation Reinhard, was still yet to unfold at the time of this photograph.
percuter on
Never forget what fascism have done and keep doing.
Killing innocent for nothing else than greed and power.
salvatore813 on
what upsets me is half of today’s genz is going to call this fake, that’s right, the most documented genocide in history is being called fake
Particular-Cat-8031 on
The murder of so many by hate-driven psychopaths, loyal to no one but Der Führer, was a very dark time in the history of the 20th century. We need to overcome the bloodlust that holds too many in its sway.
7 Comments
>As the Germans fell back, millions of Russians beheld the devastation and carnage left behind them. Many who remained unmoved by the familiar plight of adults gave way to emotion on witnessing the tragedies of the very young.
>Captain Pavel Kovalenko wrote, *We understand the horrors of war, its relentless laws written in blood. But children, these blossoms of life, these innocent holy souls, the beauty of our lives, they, who have done no harm to anyone. We’ve failed to protect them from the beast. One’s heart bleeds, one’s thoughts freeze with horror at the sight of small bloodsoaked bodies, with gnarled fingers and distorted little faces. They bear mute testimony to indescribable human suffering. These small, frozen, dead eyes reproach us, the living.*
>In the village of Tarasevichi by the Dnieper, Vasily Grossman met a teenage boy. *They are so frightening, these old, tired lifeless eyes of children.* “Where is your father?” “Killed,” he answered. “ And mother?” “She died.” “Have you got brothers or sisters?” “A sister. They took her to Germany.” “Have you got any relatives?” “No, they were all burned in the partisan village.” *And he walked into a potato field, his feet bare and black from the mud, straightening the rags of his torn shirt*.
* Max Hastings, *All Hell Let Loose,* on the numerous scenes akin to those in this photograph across the Eastern Front
This photo was one of [several taken ](https://imgur.com/a/man-finds-his-wife-children-among-bodies-vLGau4Z)in January 1942, during the brief Soviet liberation of the Kerch Peninsula. Pictured is Grigory Berman, Jewish head of a local middle school. In the background are Red Army soldiers, and local civilians finding the bodies of their families, victims of a Nazi massacre that killed 7,000 Jews.
The photo was taken by Yevgeny Khaldei, another Jew whose entire family, save a sister, had been killed in the Holocaust and the White Pogroms of the earlier Russian Civil War. Khaldei was the same man who captured the famous moment of a [Red Army soldier raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Raising_a_flag_over_the_Reichstag_-_Restoration.jpg/3840px-Raising_a_flag_over_the_Reichstag_-_Restoration.jpg).
The killers in this massacre were from Sonderkommando 10b of Einsatzgruppe D, one of the deadly killing units designed for slaughter in the Nazi-occupied areas. The deadliest phase of the Holocaust, Operation Reinhard, was still yet to unfold at the time of this photograph.
Never forget what fascism have done and keep doing.
Killing innocent for nothing else than greed and power.
what upsets me is half of today’s genz is going to call this fake, that’s right, the most documented genocide in history is being called fake
The murder of so many by hate-driven psychopaths, loyal to no one but Der Führer, was a very dark time in the history of the 20th century. We need to overcome the bloodlust that holds too many in its sway.
The retribution was equally awful.
This is fascism, America.