Victor Ginzburg, husband of Antonina Makarova: biography

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet authorities launch punitive operations and search for criminals-collaborators. The country shudders from public executions, one of the most famous was the execution at the Leningrad cinema "Giant". These processes are filmed and shown in newsreels. The traitors start the real hunting and investigation. One of these criminals, who for a long time could not catch and convict of crimes, was the only woman - the executioner Tonka the machine-gunner.

Lokot Republic

The urban village of Lokot of the Bryansk region was captured by the Nazis. On its base the Reichsführer SS Himmler ordered the creation of a republic under the control of the local population. Such an organization was supposed to show local people how to live well without the Communists. The Autonomous Lokot Republic became a place where peasants were allowed to work on their own land. But not all residents supported the new order, some went to the forest to continue the guerrilla war, which in the Bryansk region was quite active.

Bronislaw Kaminsky - the former technologist of the local distillery became the new mayor of the republic. German generals gave him the highest confidence and allowed him to build a new future.

Private trade was allowed in the republic, and only a small tax was levied in favor of the new authorities. Against this background, there were constant guerrilla fights, as a result of which the new leadership took prisoner guerrillas and other suspicious. Mass destruction of dissenters was in the order of things and happened regularly.

Among the executed could well be Tonya Makarova, but she decided to survive at any cost, which was too high. Kaminsky personally invited her to do the work of the executioner of the new regime. The nineteen-year-old girl agreed. She could go to the woods to the partisans, but began to serve the new authorities. She seized the opportunity to save her life.

She was instructed to execute the death sentences and handed out a machine gun, and before that she took the oath of allegiance to Germany.

Woman-hangman

The local population had no problems with clothes or with food. The Germans were supplying the region with goods of prime necessity without interruption.

Tone was assigned a room at the local stud farm and was assigned a salary of 30 marks. After a long wanderings through the forests, after the Vyazma boiler, it seemed to the girl that Kaminsky's offer was not the worst option. By the standards she lived in luxury. She had absolutely everything. But when it came to shooting, there was no turning back.

And when Tonya already believed that she had been lucky, a machine gun was placed between her and the prisoners. Despite the fact that she was drunk, well remembered this day. Nobody was going to show mercy to the doomed, but Tonya Makarova forgot all doubts.

At each execution, she shot about 30 prisoners from the Maxim machine gun. That's what was put in the stall of the former stud farm Mikhail Romanov. For two years, according to official data, the girl killed about 1500 thousand prisoners. This category included guerrillas, Jews and persons suspected of having links with partisans, and their families.

New life

Riotous life and prostitution in the entertainment institution led to a venereal disease. And Antonina was sent to Germany for treatment. But she managed to escape from the hospital, making new documents, she got a job in a military hospital. There she met her future husband. They became a Belarusian soldier, who was in the hospital after being wounded - Victor Ginzburg. Biography of his future wife he was not known.

A week later, the couple signed, she took her husband's surname, which helped her to get even more lost and hide from justice.

During her time in the hospital, she earned a good reputation as a frontline soldier, and Victor Ginzburg, Makarova's husband, could not believe that his beloved wife was involved in such crimes.

A family

Victor Ginzburg, whose biography is almost unknown, was a native of a small Belarusian city, it was here that the family began a new life.

After the war the family went to Lepel, where Antonina got a job at a sewing factory. The family of the woman - Viktor Ginzburg, husband of Makarova, their children - lived in this city for 30 years and established themselves as an exemplary family. She was in good standing with the factory management and never raised any suspicions. From the memoirs of contemporaries, everyone characterized the Ginzburg family as exemplary.

Arrest

State security agencies against Antonina Makarova filed a criminal case in absentia, but could not get on her track. The case was repeatedly transferred to the archive, but was not closed down, she had committed too terrible crimes. Neither Victor Ginzburg nor her closest associates even suspected the woman's involvement in the brutal murders.

Investigators did not recognize the family, why they arrested the woman, so Victor Ginzburg, the husband of Tonka the machine-gunner, a veteran of war and labor, threatened to complain to the UN after his wife was unexpectedly arrested. Despite the fact that the tracks were lost, surviving witnesses pointed to the criminal without doubt.

Victor Ginzburg wrote complaints to various organizations, claiming that he very much loves his wife and is ready to forgive her all crimes. But I did not know how serious it all was.

When Victor Ginzburg, the husband of Makarova, learned the terrible truth, the man turned gray overnight.

Surname

In the biography of Antonina Makarova there are some ambiguities. Approximately, she was born in the early 20-ies in Moscow. Her mother was a native of Sychevsky district of the Smolensk region. After the end of the seventh grade Antonina lived in Moscow with her aunt.

As for her surname, the large family carried the name of the Panfilovs, the patronymic was Makarovna / Makarovich. But at school the girl was written down by Makarova, whether by chance, or because of inattention. This name was transferred to the girl's passport.

Finally, Antonina was sentenced to death, and Victor Ginzbrug, the husband of Makarova, went with his two daughters out of the city in an unknown direction. Their fate is still unknown.