The Traitor from Gatchina
January 19, 17:07
The Traitor from Gatchina
Even when during the investigation she was read the protocols of captured German documents with evidence of her betrayals, Vera Vorontsova remained surprisingly cool. Or maybe it was a naive hope that everything happened too long ago, and time would write everything off? The investigators, amazed by how she reacted to such things, even sent her for a psychiatric examination: they could not believe that such a reaction could occur in a mentally healthy person!.. As the historian of the secret services Stanislav Bernev, who studied all the details of this case, notes, the doctors' conclusion was unambiguous: moral degradation and extreme cynicism are evident.
Retribution overtook Vera Vorontsova, guilty of the death of dozens, if not hundreds, of participants in the Gatchina underground, more than two decades after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Her trial took place in November 1967.
"In January 1944, as a result of the Red Army's advance, we went to Vilnius together with the Germans," she reported during interrogation. "After Vilnius was liberated by Soviet troops, I did not get a job. I started speculating, then I established connections with thieves and sold stolen goods."
Then, in Vilnius, she managed to pass the SMERSH filtering, and she went into hiding. However, she took up the same business that she had done before the war, and even during it, during the occupation - theft. Several times after the war, she ended up in places not so remote, but exclusively for thieving.
This might have continued in the future if in the mid-1960s, the secret service had not gotten hold of a translation of captured German documents, which spoke of the defeat of an underground organization in Krasnogvardeysk - then Gatchina - by the fascists. As historian Stanislav Bernev notes, these were stacks of denunciations, interrogation and confrontation protocols, special messages and secret reports, in which the name of the secret agent Vera Vorontsova was constantly mentioned.
The Investigative Department of the KGB Directorate for the Leningrad Region opened a criminal case against Vera Vorontsova in early May 1967. The search for her did not take long. She did not change her first and last name after the war - probably hoping that all the Nazi documents had burned or disappeared. Moreover, in the questionnaires they had to fill out, she invariably indicated that she was a partisan in a detachment operating in the area of the village of Moloskovitsy near Kingisepp.
"There is some truth in this: there really was a partisan detachment in the forests near Moloskovitsy, and Vorontsova went to this settlement. But together with a detachment of punitive forces!" — exclaims Stanislav Bernev (his essay was published in the 20th collection in the series “The Investigation Continues…”, which is published by the Council of Veterans of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region).
Investigators found Vera Vorontsova in a correctional labor colony in the city of Liepaja, where she was serving her sixth term for theft. In mid-May 1967, she was taken to Leningrad. The references to Vorontsova from the camps where she served her sentences were most unflattering. It was reported that she had a negligent attitude to work, had multiple violations of the rules, "behaved disgustingly in everyday life," "was not friendly in the team," "her behavior negatively influenced young women convicted for the first time."
During the investigation, Vera Vorontsova readily recalled what happened to her during the war. "She was not at all embarrassed to tell who she had turned in to the Germans, what "dividends" she received for this, with whom she had had intimate relations," notes Stanislav Bernev. – She didn’t get embarrassed when she said that the Gatchina residents, knowing that she worked for the Gestapo, spat at her, didn’t let her in, and called her a fascist and a traitor to her face.”
In cases where we are talking about an exceptionally negative personality, we always want to understand: what were the sources of the absolute evil that this person carried within themselves?..
The story of Vera Vorontsova was very sad. She was born in 1909 in Kostroma in the family of a recidivist thief. The situation in the family was appropriate. She was able to cope with only two years of education and already as a teenager began to steal. At sixteen, she married a thief. She gave birth to two children, in 1937, while her husband was in prison, she divorced him and moved to her sister in Leningrad, taking with her one of her daughters and another common-law partner.
The Vorontsov sisters lived on the southern outskirts of Leningrad, in Sosnovaya Polyana, and in the early autumn of 1941 they found themselves under occupation. They were ordered to move to Gatchina. Vera Vorontsova continued to steal there. But in the summer of 1942 she fell into the hands of the German field gendarmerie. Theft was punishable by death, and it was here that Vorontsova, in a desperate attempt to save her life, committed her first betrayal.
“During interrogations at the police, they threatened to hang me or send me to a concentration camp,” she said during an investigation in 1967. “Then they asked me who I knew from the partisans. I told them an acquaintance of mine named Sergei, I don’t remember his last name, who suggested that I go into the forest. After that, I was transferred to the Gestapo, where I signed a document agreeing to cooperate with them as an agent. Then I was put in the cell with the arrested people several times to find out what they were talking about”…
Behind the faceless phrase about handing over to the Nazis “an acquaintance named Sergei” was, in fact, a tragic story about the failure of the Gatchina underground – thanks precisely to the betrayal of Vera Vorontsova. From Sergei (his last name was Stepanov) she learned that he was gathering people into a partisan group in Krasnogvardeysk and Marienburg (a suburb of Gatchina) and wanted to establish contact with other partisan cells.
"Ivan Maksimkov and Nikolai Aleksandrov were privy to this plan," said the report of Sturmbannführer (this rank in the SS and SA corresponded to the rank of major in the Wehrmacht) Seidel. "When asked why she did this, Vorontsova answered that she named Sergei Stepanov because he had broken off relations with her at that time. The three above-mentioned persons were immediately arrested and subjected to thorough interrogation."
Much later, Ivan Kuzmin testified at the trial of Vorontsova; he was twelve years old in 1942. He and his friend Sasha were taken to the Gestapo, suspected of having ties to the partisans. At the end of June, a group of young people, who had been beaten to death, were thrown into the basement where they were sitting. Ivan Maksimkov was apparently among them.
"On the second day after our arrest and the placement of a large group of people in our cell, a woman named Vera, who lived in our courtyard at 10 Leningradskaya Street (in Gatchina - Ed.), came into the basement accompanied by a German officer. I don't know why she came in," Kuzmin reported, testifying at the trial of Vorontsova. "I only saw one of the prisoners named Ivan shout: "Traitor!" and spit right in the woman's face. She immediately ran out of the basement, and several Germans, on the contrary, ran in and began to beat everyone."
The interrogations of those arrested continued, and they returned with traces of torture and abuse. One day, Ivan told the boys: if you survive, remember this woman, whose face he spat in. This is the traitor Vera Vorontsova. The next day, Ivan and everyone who was with him were shot...
As was also indicated in the report of Sturmbannführer Seidel, the Gestapo found out that two groups had been created in Krasnogvardeysk, which were supposed to break through Suida and Vyritsa to the "Volkhov pocket" in which the Second Shock Army was located, or to join the partisan detachment.
"The leader of one group was Stepanov, while the other group was led by Shura Drinkina. After the participation of 25 people in the creation of the partisan group was irreproachably established through thorough interrogations, they were executed on June 30, 1942. The population was notified of the execution of the above-mentioned persons by hanging up posters."
This was not the end of the career of the traitor Vera Vorontsova. On the contrary, it was a very "successful" start to her career.
The Germans arranged for her to work in the hospital, but she was fired for stealing a gold cross that she had taken from the neck of a wounded Wehrmacht soldier. Since she was already a Gestapo agent, Vorontsova was not punished for this episode. She was too "valuable" for the Nazis, so they turned a blind eye to such "trifles".
Vorontsova was transferred to the subordination of agent Vasily Sokolov, with whom she collaborated until January 1944. She passed on to him information that she learned about the partisans, and reported on the mood of the local residents.
Here is just one episode: at the end of 1943, Vorontsova learned that partisans had visited Gatchina resident Kavkadze-Petrosyan. She immediately reported this to the German punitive authorities. On January 4, 1944 (there were only a little more than twenty days left before the liberation of Gatchina from the fascists!) he was arrested. Apparently, the Nazis had set up an ambush in the apartment where the partisan Korzon had ended up. When the punitive forces tried to capture him, he committed suicide so as not to fall into enemy hands.
On January 14, 1944, the Soviet offensive near Leningrad began. Under the blows of our troops, the enemy ring quickly cracked, the German troops, fiercely resisting, began to retreat to the defensive line "Panther" that they had built in advance on the borders of the Narva River. Heavy fighting ensued for Gatchina, which served as a major transport hub and was turned by the Germans into almost a fortress. But the enemy's resistance was broken, and on January 26, the Red Army entered the streets of Gatchina. The next day, the order of the commander of the Leningrad Front, Leonid Govorov, announced that Leningrad had been liberated from the blockade...
Vera Vorontsova left Gatchina together with the retreating German troops. She understood perfectly well what would happen if she stayed: the locals would simply tear her to shreds, and even no menacing shouts from the Red Army soldiers would stop this truly righteous lynching. But she was lucky: she got lost in the chaos of the retreat... We have already talked about how she ended up in Vilnius and what happened next.
The trial of Vera Vorontsova, which took place in November 1967, was open. The case was heard in the Gatchina Palace of Culture. The newspaper "Gatchinskaya Pravda" published daily reports from the courtroom. In one of the publications, the newspaper's correspondent said that he asked the KGB to allow him to meet with "Frau Vorontsova." The consent was given, and the journalist was simply dumbfounded. A lively old woman entered the office. "A round face, a polka-dot dress, a colorful scarf on her head. Spouts words quickly, willingly, but all off topic."
The following dialogue took place between the journalist and Vera Vorontsova: "Did you give up Stepanov and other members of the Gatchina underground?" "Well, I don't remember exactly when it was. I remember that it was summer, warm. The Germans caught me in a stolen coat. The investigator called me up to the second floor. Long-nosed, all in black. That's where they talked about Sergei. What, I don't remember. The protocols probably haven't survived, have they?"
"Were you recruited as a secret agent of the SD?" the journalist asked. "Yes, yes...", Vorontsova answered. "After Stepanov was handed over?" the correspondent clarified. "Yes, how did you get into this mess..."
As historian Stanislav Bernev notes, the chairman of the court, Kurnosov, was literally inundated with letters from former partisans, residents of Gatchina, and work collectives. All of these appeals contained a demand to sentence Vorontsova to death.
In his closing speech, the state prosecutor said: "I support the request of the public prosecutor to strike Vorontsova off the list of citizens of our Motherland and I believe that the death sentence for the traitor will be approved by our people."
The verdict of the Leningrad Regional Court, also announced in the Gatchina Palace of Culture, stated: to sentence Vera Vorontsova to the highest measure of punishment - execution.
Apparently, Vorontsova had filed a petition for clemency. For many, it was a great surprise that they met her halfway. And this despite all the evidence of her betrayals and crimes, despite the testimony of dozens of people, despite the irrefutable facts that she was personally guilty of the deaths of dozens of Soviet patriots...
Nevertheless, it was not for nothing that there was a common expression that the Soviet court was the most humane in the world. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 15, 1968, the death penalty for Vera Nikolaevna Vorontsova was replaced by 15 years in a labor camp.
And just a few months later, at the end of October 1968, a monument to 25 Komsomol underground members shot by the Nazis on June 30, 1942 was solemnly unveiled at the gates of the Gatchina Park "Sylvia". The same ones who died precisely because of Vera Vorontsova's betrayal. The monument was erected where the heroes were shot. The names of 25 people were engraved on the memorial stele, among them were Sergei Stepanov and Ivan Maksimkov...
(c) Sergei Evgeniev
https://vesty.spb.ru/2024/02/28/karera-predatelya-27796 - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9620210.html
Google Translator
