On March 22, 1943, a battalion of military police fighting for Germany was attacked by Byelorussian partisans near the village of Khatyn.
Digging Deeper
The Nazi 118th Battalion was commanded by a German officer, but mostly manned by Ukrainians that hated the Soviet regime, criminals, and Soviet prisoners of war and deserters willing to oppose the Soviet Union.
Suffering 4 men dead from the attack by partisans, including their commander, the enraged battalion went through the village of Khatyn and forced all the population into a barn. The Nazis, having committed similar atrocities throughout Belarus and other Soviet areas they had overrun did not hesitate to immediately carry out a reprisal. The barn was burned with the population in it, and the few that tried to escape were gunned down.
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