After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet authorities launched punitive operations and the search for criminal collaborators. The country is shaking from public executions, one of the most famous was the execution at the Leningrad cinema "Giant". These processes are filmed and shown in newsreels. A real hunt and investigation begins on traitors. One of these criminals, who for a long time could not be caught and convicted of crimes, turned out to be the only woman - the executioner Tonka the machine gunner.
Lokot Republic
The urban-type settlement Lokot in the Bryansk region was captured by the Nazis. On its basis, the Reichsführer SS Himmler ordered the creation of a republic under the control of the local population. Such an organization was supposed to show the locals how good it is to live 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 forests to continue the guerrilla war, which was enough in the Bryansk regionactive.
Bronislav Kaminsky, a former technologist at a local distillery, has become the new mayor of the republic. The 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 collected in favor of the new authorities. Against this background, constant partisan battles took place, as a result of which the new leadership captured partisans and other suspicious ones. The mass destruction of dissenters was in the order of things and happened regularly.
Tonya Makarova could well have been among those executed, but she decided to survive at any cost, which turned out to be 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 into the forests to the partisans, but she began to serve the new authorities. She jumped at the opportunity to save her life.
She was assigned to carry out death sentences and given a machine gun, and before that she took an oath of allegiance to Germany.
Woman executioner
The local population had no problems with clothing or food. The Germans continuously supplied the region with essential goods.
Tone was given a room at a local stud farm and was given a salary of 30 marks. After long wanderings through the forests, after the Vyazemsky boiler, it seemed to the girl that Kaminsky's proposal was not the worst option. By those standards, she lived in luxury. She had absolutely everything. But when it came to shootings,there was no way back.
And when Tonya already believed that luck smiled at her, a machine gun was placed between her and the prisoners. Even though she was drunk, she remembered that day well. No one was going to pardon the doomed, and Tonya Makarova forgot all her doubts.
At each execution, she shot about 30 prisoners with a Maxim machine gun. That is how much was placed in the stall of the former stud farm of Mikhail Romanov. In two years, according to official figures, the girl killed about 1,500 thousand prisoners. This category included partisans, Jews and persons suspected of having links with partisans and their families.
New life
Rampant life and prostitution in an entertainment establishment led to a venereal disease. And Antonina was sent to Germany for treatment. But she managed to escape from the hospital, having made new documents for herself, 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 - Viktor Ginzburg. The biography of his future wife was unknown to him.
A week later, the couple signed, the girl took her husband's surname, which helped her get even more lost and hide from justice.
During her time at the hospital, she earned a good reputation as a front-line soldier, and Viktor Ginzburg, Makarova's husband, could not believe that his beloved wife was involved in such crimes.
Family
Viktor Ginzburg, whose biography is practically unknown, was a native of a small Belarusian town, this is where the familystart a new life.
After the end of the war, the family went to Lepel, where Antonina got a job at a garment factory. The woman's family - Viktor Ginzburg, Makarova's husband, their children - have lived in this city for 30 years and have established themselves as an exemplary family. She was in good standing with the factory management and never aroused any suspicion. From the memoirs of contemporaries, everyone characterized the Ginzburg family as exemplary.
Arrest
The state security authorities opened a criminal case against Antonina Makarova in absentia, but they could not get on her trail. The case was transferred to the archive several times, but they did not close it, she committed too terrible crimes. Neither Viktor Ginzburg nor her inner circle even suspected the woman's involvement in the brutal murders.
The investigators did not tell the family why they arrested the woman, so Viktor Ginzburg, the husband of Tonka the machine-gunner, a veteran of war and labor, threatened to complain to the UN after the unexpected arrest of his wife. Despite the fact that traces were lost, surviving witnesses pointed to the perpetrator without a doubt.
Viktor Ginzburg wrote complaints to various organizations, assuring that he loves his wife very much and is ready to forgive her all her crimes. But I didn't know how serious it was.
When Viktor Ginzburg, Makarova's husband, learned the terrible truth, the man turned gray overnight.
Last name
There are some ambiguities in the biography of Antonina Makarova. She was approximately born in the early 1920s in Moscow. Her mother was a native of the Sychevsky district of the Smolensk region. AfterAfter the end of the seventh grade, Antonina lived in Moscow with her aunt.
As for her surname, the large family bore the surname Panfilovs, patronymic - Makarovna / Makarovich. But at school, the girl was recorded by Makarova, either by accident, or because of inattention. This surname was transferred to the girl's passport.
Finally, Antonina was sentenced to death, and Viktor Ginzbrug, Makarova's husband, left the city with his two daughters in an unknown direction. Their fate is still unknown.
