Throughout the Second World War, there were a huge number of civilians who were executed
and killed as the world’s most deadly conflict came to their doorsteps.
Many found themselves living under German Occupation, and as the war turned against
the Germans, the liberating forces often caused as much chaos as the Nazis did.
In France for example, women who were accused of sleeping with the Germans were subjected
to the ugly carnival, where they were forced to run the gauntlet in front of the angry
French population.
Members of the resistance would then humiliate the women, and shave their heads in public
as many were branded with nazi signs, and some were even covered in tar and were beaten.
In Paris, some women were even killed for sleeping with the enemy.
But there were many women who suffered at the hands of liberating forces, and the Red
Army would commit scores of crimes as they stormed towards the German heartland.
Many women found themselves being attacked by the Soviet forces, and there were huge
amounts of women who became victims of the Red Army.
Especially in Germany, the Soviets committed large scale assault upon German women as they
believed they could take them as spoils of war.
But inside of northern Poland, just recently uncovered were the remains of three nuns who
were executed and killed by the Red Army in horrific fashion.
But what is their story?
Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of the nuns slaughtered by the Red Army, to
support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
As the war turned against the Germans, the Germans would make last ditch attempts to
defend on the Western Front, but in the East they were being pushed back heavily.
In January 1945, the Red Army attacked in Poland and they pushed from the Vistula to
the Oder River in Germany, and they overran East Prussia.
The Red Army had suffered heavily during the Second World War, with millions killed and
the German Army and Wehrmacht enclosed millions of Soviet POWs in make shift camps with little
or no shelter, food and water.
Quickly many people died, and the Wehrmacht would turn overt thousands of Soviet POWs
to the SS, and the SS would execute them and work them to death inside of concentration
camps.
Two million soviet soldiers in the 8 months following Operation Barbarossa would die in
German captivity, but the war would turn following the Battle of Stalingrad.
By the end of 1943, the Soviets had pushed German forces out of most of Ukraine, and
virtually all of Russia and Eastern Belarus.
They as mentioned then would turn towards Eastern Poland.
The Red Army forces inside of Poland attempted to quickly seize control of the lands by carrying
out massacres and killings almost as the Germans had done.
They sought to bring a reign of terror to the lands, and they committed a number of
crimes against the population.
They would loot and destroy churches, and also murder local soldiers and religious figures,
and in the years before they would have a deep history of executions, having committed
the Katyn massacre with 22,000 Polish military officers and members of the intelligence sector
of society being killed.
But still today the stories of crimes committed during the war are being uncovered, and many
bodies of civilians still remain under the ground.
But in 2021, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a number of nuns, who were part
of a religious order who were brutally slain by the Soviet soldiers.
Records from 1945 state how Soviet soldiers killed seven nuns from the order of St Catherine
of Alexandria, who were working as nurses at the Marian Hospital in Olsztyn.
The Polish institute of National Remembrance then launched a campaign to find the remains
of these women, and they were uncovered.
The remains of Sister Charytyna in Gdansk were found first, a nun who was brutally killed
at there hands of the Soviets.
But then also in Olsztyn, the bones of Sister Generous, Sister Krzystofara and Sister Liberia
were found under the ground.
The final three nuns, Sister Rolanda, Sister Gunhilda, and Sister Bona were the final skeletons
found, and these were discovered at a municipal cemetery in Orneta.
Also found with them were a number of religious artefacts linked to the nuns, including their
religious clothing, and their rosaries which were around their necks at the time they were
killed.
Also crucifixes were found which were on their persons, meaning that they were killed with
these on their possession.They were all working at the time as nurses looking to help the
sick, and they also helped to organise burials inside of the cemetery nearby.
The burials and remains of the Nuns told a shocking story of their death and executions
at the hands of the Soviets.
Sister Maria Gunhilda was recovering in hospital from tuberculosis when the Red Army arrived.
At 6am on the 15th February 1945, soldiers entered the building on their way to Berlin,
and they did not act like liberators.
The Soviet soldiers attacked the young sister when they found her in one of the hospital
rooms.
She was set upon by the soldiers, and during her resisting, she was shot three times, once
in the chest, collarbone and forearm.
Blood would have gushed all out of her wounds, and this would have soaked her clothes and
bedsheets.
She managed to live for three months, and the nuns who were looking after her managed
to dress her wounds, but a shortage of bandages and medicine led to her passing away on the
30th May 1945 at the age of 27.
Sister Bona was also found with her, and she too was infection with TB, and she had also
cruelly and horrifically been abused by the Red Army soldiers.
She would die also 8 weeks after her attack, and she died on the 1st May 1945.
Also found with these two nuns was Sister Rolanda, who’s remains told also a horrifying
story.
She was found with her fact mutilated, and her remains showed that her face was swollen
beyond recognition, meaning she had been battered before she was killed.
Chances are that she was trying to fight off her attackers who were trying to abuse her.
Sister Liberia was another nun who was found, and she was hiding with a number of her patients,
many of whom were children inside of an air raid shelter in St Mary’s Hospital in Olsztyn.
The red army’s artillery would strike nearby, and as she left the shelter to give help to
one of the sick, she was met by gunshots from a Red Army soldier.
He fired his weapon into her, and then his comrades threw grenades into the air raid
shelter with the civilians inside.
Sister Krzystofora was also subjected to a horrific ordeal, as according to her remains,
she was stabbed with a bayonet 16 times.
She also had her eyes gouged out, and her tongue cut out, showing how brutal the Soviet
Red Army was.
Sister Maria Chartyna also died in a similar manner, after she was beaten to death by Red
Army soldiers whilst trying to protect other nuns from assault.
A cross was found in the pocket of her habit.
In the final moments of their lives, the Polish nuns were horrifically and brutally tortured
by the Soviet Red Army, who were supposed to be liberating them.
One researcher said, ‘We do not know the reasons why the Soviets murderered innocent
sisters, however the cruelty and torture to which they were subjected make it possible
to conclude they were victims of religious hatred.
We have brutal descriptions of brutal torture to which they were subjected.
Not only were their lives taken from them, but also efforts were make to deprive them
of their female dignity, which in the case of the religious sisters, must have been particularly
painful.’
But the Polish Nuns who were slaughtered by the Soviet Red army were subjected to horrific
and terrifying ordeals at the hands of the soldiers who were supposed to be free-ing
them from years of Nazi occupation.
They were incredibly pious and devoted women, who saw it as their job to help and support
people inside of hospitals, and many of these women were suffering themselves.
Their ordeals were just some of thousands similar which occurred at the hands of the
Soviet Red Army, as they entered Germany they committed large scale assaults on women.
In Berlin as the war was coming to an end, women believed there was a hunting hour where
Soviet soldiers would go house to house searching for women, whatever age.
It was a terrifying time, and the Soviet Red Army’s actions in lands they were supposed
to be liberating and freeing was a dark stain on their advances throughout Nazi lands.
They were considered as terrifying as the Germans by many people living in their occupation,
and as mentioned many of the stories of evil and cruelty are being uncovered.
The stories of the nuns mentioned in this video have just been uncovered in the past
few years, and they are stories and women who deserve to be remembered.
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