Yesterday at 20:02
In June 1941, the Soviet NKVD Secret Police executed hundreds of prisoners in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk, as Nazi German forces advanced. Many of those killed included priests, teachers, and regular peasants.
To try to gain some feeling of understanding of what the prisoners faced, 77 years after the prison massacres, a group of 30 young people spent a night in Lutsk Prison in a historical reenactment of 1941.
At 2 a.m. about a dozen of the participants sat on the cold floor of a Lutsk prison.
While their experience did not actually involve torture or execution, the participants felt the experience would still serve to give them some feeling for what people had gone through.
Participants could not bring cell phones, food or drinks. When it was almost morning, they were given some water and bread
There isn’t exact information on the number of people executed in the prison in June 1941. In western Ukraine, it’s estimated that 72,000 were killed in the first few days of the war. In Lutsk prison itself, it could have been between 2,500 to 5000 in total.
The reenactment came to an end at dawn. Organizers hope the reenactment will make a contribution to people’s consciousness so that they will never allow totalitarian dictators to take over the country again.
