Bryansk security officers about the TV series "Executioner": The real Tonka-machine gunner in a bunny mask did not go. Executioner. The real story of Tonka the machine gunner

Antonina Makarovawas born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, in a large peasant family Makara Parfyonova... She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her further life... When Tonya came to the first grade, because of shyness, she could not give her last name - Parfyonova. Classmates began to shout “Yes, she is Makarova!”, Meaning that Tony's father's name was Makar.

So, with light hand teacher, at that time almost the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfyonov family.

The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner... This movie character had a real prototype - a nurse of the Chapaevsk division Maria Popova, which once in battle really had to replace the killed machine gunner.

After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where she was caught by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War... The girl went to the front as a volunteer.

Camping Wife of the Surroundings

All the horrors of the infamous Vyazemsky Cauldron fell to the lot of 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova.

After the hardest battles, in complete encirclement from the entire unit, only a soldier was found next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk... With him, she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They did not look for partisans, they did not try to break through to their own - they fed themselves with whatever they had to, sometimes they stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his "field wife". Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.

In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.

Tonya was not driven from the Red Well, but the local residents were already full of worries. And the strange girl did not strive to go to the partisans, did not rush to break through to ours, but strove to twist love with one of the men who remained in the village. Having turned the locals against herself, Tonya was forced to leave.

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg. Photo: Public Domain

Salary killer

Tony Makarova's wanderings ended in the area of \u200b\u200bthe village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The infamous "Lokotskaya Republic", an administrative-territorial entity of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.

A police patrol detained Tonya, but the partisan or underground worker was not suspected of her. She was attracted by the police, who took her to them, gave her drink, fed her and raped her. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.

Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute under the police for long - once, drunk, she was taken out into the courtyard and put behind the Maxim machine gun. There were people in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who took not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not great work... True, to death drunk woman did not really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.

The next day, Makarova found out that she was now official person - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with his bunk.

The Lokot Republic mercilessly fought against the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.

The cell contained 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.

Neither the Germans nor even the local police wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her shooting abilities, came in very handy.

The girl did not lose her mind, but on the contrary, considered that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot enemies, and she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life is finally getting better.

1,500 lives lost

Antonina Makarova's daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night love with some cute German or, at worst, with a policeman.

As an incentive, she was allowed to take the belongings of those killed. So Tonya acquired a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes immediately interfered with wearing.

However, sometimes Tonya allowed "marriage" - several children managed to survive, because because of their vertically challenged bullets passed over the head. The children were taken out with the corpses localswho buried the dead and handed them over to the partisans. Rumors about a woman executioner, "Tonka the machine gunner", "Tonka the Muscovite" spread around the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but they could not get to it.

In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.

By the summer of 1943, Tony's life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, starting to liberate the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but here she very opportunely fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear, so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Great Germany.

Honored Veteran Instead of War Criminal

In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for accomplices.

Realizing this, Tonya fled from the hospital, once again being surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to get documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.

Antonina successfully managed to enter the service in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier fell in love with her, real hero war.

The guy made Tonya an offer, she answered with consent, and, having got married, the young after the end of the war left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, home of her husband.

So the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by the honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.

They've been looking for her for thirty years

The Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous deeds of the "Tonka-machine-gunner" immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but only two hundred were identified.

They interrogated the witnesses, checked, specified - but they could not attack the trail of the punitive woman.

Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg was leading ordinary life soviet man - lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the deeds of "Tonka the machine gunner".

The KGB spent more than three decades looking for her, but found it almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfyonov, going abroad, submitted questionnaires with information about relatives. There, among the solid Parfyonovs as own sister for some reason Antonina Makarova was listed, married to Ginzburg.

Yes, how that mistake of the teacher helped Tonya, how many years thanks to her she remained out of reach of justice!

The KGB operatives worked with jewelry - it was impossible to blame an innocent person for such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses, even a former policeman-lover, were secretly brought to Lepel. And only after all of them confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was "Tonka the machine gunner", she was arrested.

She did not deny, talked about everything calmly, said that nightmares did not torment her. She did not want to communicate with her daughters or her husband. And the front-line spouse ran around the authorities, threatened with a complaint Brezhnev, even at the UN - demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya is accused of.

After that, the dashing, gallant veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You cannot wish the enemy what these people had to endure.

Retribution

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a woman punisher.

Antonina herself was convinced that the punishment could not be too severe due to the years ago, she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. She only regretted that because of the shame she had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg's post-war exemplary biography, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.

However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.

At the trial, her guilt was documented in the murder of 168 people from those whose identities were identified. More than 1300 remained unknown victims of the "Tonka-machine-gunner". There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.

At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for pardon were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.

Who is interested in this topic and who is not yet tired of the theme of the Great Patriotic War, I can suggest this continuation of the discussion ...

She was arrested in the summer of 1978 in the Belarusian town of Lepel. Absolutely ordinary woman in a sand-colored raincoat with a string bag in her hands was walking down the street, when a car stopped nearby, inconspicuous men in civilian clothes jumped out of it and said: "You urgently need to go with us!" surrounded her, not giving an opportunity to escape.

"Do you guess why they brought you here?" - asked the investigator of the Bryansk KGB when she was brought in for the first interrogation. “Some mistake,” the woman chuckled in response.

“You are not Antonina Makarovna Ginzburg. You are Antonina Makarova, better known as Tonka the Muscovite or Tonka the machine gunner. You are a punisher, you worked for the Germans, carried out mass executions. Your atrocities in the village of Lokot, near Bryansk, are still legendary. We have been looking for you for over thirty years - now it's time to answer for what we have done. Your crimes have no statute of limitations ”.

“So, not in vain last year my heart became anxious, as if I felt that you would appear, - said the woman. - How long ago it was. As if not with me at all. Almost all my life has already passed. Well, write it down ... "

Young Tonya was not a monster from birth. On the contrary, since childhood she dreamed of being brave and courageous, like Chapaev's loyal ally - Anka the machine gunner. True, when she came to the first grade and the teacher asked her last name, she suddenly felt intimidated. And the clever peers had to shout instead of her: "Yes, she is Makarov." In the sense that Makar's daughter is named Panfilov. The teacher wrote down the new one in the journal, legitimizing the inaccuracy in further documents. This confusion later allowed the terrible Tonka-machine-gunner to go away from the search for so long. After all, they were looking for her, known from the words of the surviving victims as a Muscovite, a nurse, by family ties all Makarovs Soviet Union, not the Panfilovs.

After finishing school, Antonina moved to Moscow, where she found her on June 22, 1941. The girl, like thousands of her peers, asked to be a volunteer medical instructor to the front in order to take out the wounded from the battlefield. Who knew that what awaited her was not romantic cinematic skirmishes with the enemy cowardly fleeing at the first salvo, but bloody exhausting battles with superior forces of the Germans. Newspapers and loudspeakers assured of something else, quite different ... And here - the blood and dirt of the terrible Vyazma "cauldron", in which literally in a few days of the war more than a million Red Army soldiers laid down their heads and another half a million were taken prisoner. She was among the half-dead, dying of cold and hunger, thrown at the mercy of the Wehrmacht half a million. How she got out of the environment, what she experienced while doing so - knew only her and God.

However, she still had a choice. By truth or by crook, begging for an overnight stay in the villages in which the policemen were already loyal to the new regime, and in others, on the contrary, partisans who were preparing to give battle to the Germans were secretly grouped, mainly encircled from the Red Army, it reached the Brasovsky district of the then Oryol region. Tonya chose not a dense forest, where fighters like her, created partisan detachments, but the village of Lokot, which became a stronghold of the National Socialist ideology and the "new order".

Today, in the literature, one can find facts published by historians about this collaborationist structure of traitors, formed in the village in November 1941, after Lokot, together with neighboring settlements (now Lokot is part of the Bryansk region) was occupied by the Wehrmacht. The initiators of such "self-government" with a status that Himmler defined as "experimental" were former Soviet citizens: 46-year-old Konstantin Voskoboynik and 42-year-old Bronislav Kaminsky (I will try to make a separate post on the topic of "Lokot self-government")

... It was to this “Lokot Republic”, where there was enough cartridges and bread, cannons and butter, and Tonka Makarova, who made her final choice, arrived at the end of 1941. It was received personally by Kaminsky. The conversation was short, almost like in “Taras Bulba”. “Do you believe it? Cross yourself. Okay. How do you feel about the communists? " “I hate it,” the believing Komsomol member answered firmly. "Can you shoot?" "I can". "Will the hand tremble?" "No". "Go to the platoon." A day later, she swore allegiance to the "Fuhrer" and received a weapon - a machine gun. All!

They say that before the first execution, Antonina Makarova was given a glass of vodka. For courage. After which it became a ritual. True, with some change - in all subsequent times she drank her ration after the execution. Apparently, she was afraid to lose her victims in the gun sight.

And there were at least 27 such people at each execution - exactly the same number fit in the stable stall that served as a prison cell.

“All those sentenced to death were the same for me. Only their number changed. Usually I was ordered to shoot a group of 27 people - so many partisans could fit in a cell. I was shooting about 500 meters from the prison near some pit. The arrested were put in a chain facing the pit. One of the men was rolling out my machine gun to the place of execution. At the command of my superiors, I knelt down and shot at people until everyone fell dead ... ”From the interrogation protocol of Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg in June 1978.

Probably, this will sound cynical and even blasphemous, but Tonka's childhood dream came true: she, almost like Chapaev's Anka, became a machine gunner. And even a machine gun was given to her - the Soviet "maxim". Often, for greater convenience, she thoroughly aimed at people lying down.

“I didn’t know those whom I shoot. They didn't know me. Therefore, I was not ashamed in front of them. Sometimes, you shoot, come closer, and some still twitch. Then she again shot in the head so that the person would not suffer. Sometimes a piece of plywood with the words "partisans" written on them was hung on their chests. Some sang something before they died. After the executions, I cleaned the machine gun in the guardroom or in the yard. There were plenty of cartridges ... ”From the protocol of the interrogation of Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg in June 1978.

A symbolic coincidence: the fee assigned to her for the service was 30 marks. In all senses, Judas is an award, which amazed even the seasoned KGB investigator Leonid Savoskin, who interrogated the arrested "executor of sentences." So Makarova was officially named in the RONA documents. “Not all Russian policemen wanted to get dirty, they preferred a woman to carry out executions of partisans and their family members. Makarova was given a bed in a room at a local stud farm, where she could spend the night and store a machine gun. This is from the investigation file.

There she was once found by the former landlady from the village of Krasny Kolodets, who had a chance to spend the night with Antonina, who was choosing her way in life, - she somehow came to a well-fed Elbow for salt, almost ending up in the prison of the "republic" here. The frightened woman asked for intercession from her recent guest, who brought her to her closet. In the cramped room stood a machine gun, polished to a shine. There is a washing trough on the floor. And next to it, washed clothes with numerous bullet holes were piled neatly on a chair. Noticing the guest's gaze, frozen at them, Tonya explained: “If I like the things of the dead, then I take them off the dead, what good is it to be lost: once the teacher was shot, so I liked her blouse, pink, silk, but it was all stained with blood , I was afraid that I would not wash it - I had to leave her in the grave. It's a pity. "

Hearing such speeches, the guest, forgetting about the salt, backed up to the door, remembering God on the way and calling on Tonka to be apostate. This pissed off Makarova. “Well, since you are so brave, why did you ask me for help when they took you to prison? She screamed. - That would die like a hero! So, when the skin needs to be saved, then Tonkina's friendship is good? "

Day after day, Tonka the machine gunner continued to regularly go out to executions. Execute the sentences of Kaminsky. How to get to work.

“It seemed to me that the war would write off everything. I was just doing my job for which I was paid. It was necessary to shoot not only partisans, but also members of their families, women and teenagers. I tried not to remember this. Although I remember the circumstances of one execution - before the execution, a guy sentenced to death shouted to me: “We will not see you again, goodbye, sister! ..” From the interrogation protocol of Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg in June 1978.

She tried not to remember those she killed. Well, all those who miraculously survived after meeting her remembered Antonina Makarova for life. Already an 80-year-old gray-haired woman, resident of Lokot Elena Mostovaya told reporters how the police seized her for drawing partisan leaflets with ink. And they threw them into the stable near the punitive woman with her machine gun. “There was no electricity, only the light that came from the window, almost completely covered with brick. And only one gap - if you stand on the windowsill, you can look in and see the world of God. "

Terrible memories forever engraved in the memory of another local resident - Lydia Buznikova: “The groan stood. People were stuffed into stalls so that it was impossible not only to lie down, even to sit down ... "

When Soviet troops entered Lokot, Antonina Makarova and the trace disappeared. The victims she had shot lay in the pits and could no longer say anything. The surviving local residents remembered only her heavy look, no less terrible than the scope of the "maxim", and scant information about the newcomer: about 21 years old, presumably a Muscovite, dark-haired, with a sullen fold on her forehead. The same information was given by the arrested German accomplices who were arrested in other cases. There was no more detailed information about the mysterious Tonka.

“Our employees conducted the search for Antonina Makarova for thirty extra yearspassing it on to each other by inheritance, KGB veteran Pyotr Golovachev is no longer afraid to reveal the cards of a long-standing case in front of journalists and willingly recalls details similar to a legend. - From time to time it got into the archive, then, when we caught and interrogated another traitor to the Motherland, it again surfaced. Tonka couldn't disappear without a trace ?! During the post-war years, the KGB officers secretly and carefully checked all the women of the Soviet Union who bore this name, patronymic and surname and matched their age - there were about 250 such Tonek Makarovs in the USSR. But - it's useless. The real Tonka the machine-gunner has sunk into the water ... "

“Don't scold Tonka too much,” says Golovachev. - You know, I even feel sorry for her. This is all a war, damned, guilty, she broke her ... She had no choice - she could remain a man and then herself would be among those shot. But she chose to live, becoming an executioner. But she was only 20 years old in the 41st year ”.

But it was impossible to just take and forget about her. “Her crimes were too terrible,” says Golovachev. - It just did not fit in my head, how many lives she took. Several people managed to escape, they were the main witnesses in the case. And so, when we interrogated them, they said that Tonka still comes to them in their dreams. Young, with a machine gun, looks intently - and does not avert her eyes. They were convinced that the executioner girl was alive, and asked to be sure to find her in order to end these nightmares. We understood that she could have married a long time ago and change her passport, so we thoroughly studied life path all her possible relatives by the name of Makarov ... "

And she, as it turned out, was just lucky. Although, what is, by and large, luck? ..

No, she did not move at the end of 1943 from Lokot to Lepel together with the "Russian SS brigade" headed by Kaminsky that followed the Germans. Even earlier, she managed to catch a venereal disease. After all, not one glass of vodka was used to suppress post-shooting weekdays. Forty-degree doping was not enough. That is why, in silk outfits with traces of bullets, she went “after work” to dances, where she danced until she dropped with changing, like glass in a kaleidoscope, gentlemen - policemen and marauding officers from RONA.

It is strange, and perhaps natural, but the Germans decided to save their comrade-in-arms and sent Tonka, who had caught a shameless illness, to a rear hospital for treatment. So she ended up in 1945 near Konigsberg.

... Already brought under escort to Bryansk after her arrest in Lepel, Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg told the investigators in charge of the case how she managed to escape from a German hospital when the Soviet troops approached and straighten out other people's documents, according to which she decided to start new life... This is a separate story from the life of a cunning and dodgy beast.

In a completely new guise, she appeared in April 1945 in a Soviet hospital in Konigsberg in front of the wounded Sergeant Viktor Ginzburg. With an angelic vision, a young nurse in a snow-white dressing gown appeared in the ward - and a front-line soldier rejoicing in her recovery fell in love with her at first sight. A few days later they signed, Tonya took her husband's surname. At first, the newlyweds lived in the Kaliningrad region, and then moved to Lepel, closer to her husband's homeland, because Viktor Semenovich was from Polotsk, where his family died at the hands of the punishers.

In quiet Lepel, where almost everyone knows each other and greets each other when they meet, the Ginzburg couple lived happily until the end of the seventies. A real exemplary Soviet family: both veterans of the Great Patriotic War, excellent workers, raising two daughters. Benefits, order table, order ribbons on the chest in holidays... The portrait of Antonina Makarovna, as old-timers of Lepel recall, adorned the local plaque of Honor. But what can I say - photographs of the couple of veterans were even in the local museum. Later, when everything was clarified, one of the photographs - a woman's - had to be hastily withdrawn from museum funds and sent for cancellation with formulations unusual for museum workers.

The exposure of the punisher was largely due to chance

A Moscow resident named Panfilov in 1976 had to urgently get ready for a trip abroad. Being a disciplined person, he, according to all the rules of that time, filled out the required lengthy questionnaire, not missing any of the relatives in the list. It was then that a mysterious detail came to light: all his brothers-sisters were the Panfilovs, and one for some reason was Makarov. How, pardon the pun, did it happen? Citizen Panfilov was summoned to the OVIR for additional explanations, during which they were present and interested people in civilian clothes. Panfilov told about his sister Antonina living in Belarus.

“In December 1976 Ginzburg V.S. went to Moscow to see his wife's brother, Colonel of the Soviet Army Panfilov. It was alarming that the brother did not have the same surname as Ginzburg's wife. The collected data served as the basis for the establishment in February 1977 at A.M. Ginzburg (Makarov). check cases "Sadist". When checking Panfilov, it was found out that Ginzburg A.M., as indicated by her brother in his autobiography, had been held captive by the Germans during the war. The check also showed that she bears great resemblance to the previously wanted KGB in the Bryansk region Makarova Antonina Makarovna, born in 1920 - 1922, a native of the Moscow region, a former nurse of the Soviet Army, who was declared on the all-Union wanted list. The search for her was stopped by the KGB in the Bryansk region due to the small amount of data necessary for active search activities and death (allegedly shot by the Germans, among other women who were sick venereal disease). A group of sick women was indeed shot, but the Germans took Ginzburg (A. Makarova. - Author) with them to the Kaliningrad region, where she remained after the escape of the invaders. "

As we can see from the certificate, from time to time even the most indefatigable operatives, searching for the elusive Tonka, gave up. True, it was immediately resumed, it was only necessary to open up to new facts in the history that had been protracted for 33 years, which allows us to speak about the continuity of the search.

And strange facts about the Makarova case in 1976 already began to pour in from a cornucopia. Contextually, in the aggregate, so to speak, strange.

Taking into account all the collisions that arose in the case, the investigators decided to hold an "encrypted conversation" with her at the military enlistment office. Together with Makarova, several more women, participants in the Great Patriotic War, were also invited here. The conversation was about participation in hostilities, supposedly for future awards. The front-line soldiers readily remembered. Makarova-Ginzburg was clearly at a loss during this conversation: she could not remember either the battalion commander or her colleagues, although her military ID indicates that she fought in the 422nd sanitary battalion from 1941 to 1944 inclusive.

“Checking the records of the military medical museum in Leningrad showed that Ginzburg (Makarova) A.M. did not serve in the 422nd sanitary battalion. However, she received an incomplete pension, which included service in the ranks of the Soviet Army during the war, while continuing to work as a senior inspector of the quality control department of the sewing department of the Lepel woodworking association. "

Such "forgetfulness" no longer looks like a weirdness, but rather a real piece of evidence.

But any guess requires confirmation. Now the investigators had to either receive such confirmation, or, conversely, refute their own version. To do this, you had to show your object of interest to living witnesses of the crimes of Tonka the machine gunner. To arrange, as they say, a confrontation - however, in a rather delicate form.

Those who could identify the female executioner from Elbow were secretly brought to Lepel. It is clear that this had to be done very carefully - so as not to endanger in case negative result the reputation of a respected "front-line soldier and an excellent worker" in the city. That is, to know that process is underway identification, only one side could - the identifying one. The suspect, on the other hand, should not have guessed.

Further work on the case, to put it in dry language all the same "Information about the measures to find the" Sadist ", was carried out in contact with the KGB in the Bryansk region. On August 24, 1977, Ginzburg (Makarova) was re-identified by Pelageya Komarova and Olga Panina who arrived in Lepel from the Bryansk region. In the fall of 1941, Tonka rented a corner from the first in the village of Krasny Kolodets (remember, the story about the campaign to Lokot for salt?), And the second in early 1943 was thrown by the Germans into Lokot prison. Both women unconditionally recognized Tonka-machine-gunner in Antonina Ginzburg.

“We were terribly afraid to jeopardize the reputation of a respected woman, a front-line soldier, a wonderful mother and wife,” recalls Golovachev. - Therefore, our employees went to the Belarusian Lepel secretly, whole year watched Antonina Ginzburg, brought there one by one surviving witnesses, a former punisher, one of her lovers, for identification. Only when every last one said the same thing - it was she, Tonka the machine gunner, we recognized her by the noticeable fold on her forehead - doubts disappeared.

On June 2, 1978, Ginzburg (Makarova) was once again identified by a woman who had arrived from the Leningrad Region, a former cohabitant of the head of the Lokotsky prison. After that, the respected citizen of Lepel Antonina Makarovna was stopped on the street polite people in civilian clothes, with whom she, as if realizing that the drawn-out game was over, only asked in a low voice for a cigarette. Do I need to clarify that this was the arrest of a war criminal? At the subsequent brief interrogation, she confessed that she was Tonka the machine gunner. On the same day, officers of the KGB for the Bryansk region took Makarova-Ginzburg to Bryansk.

During the investigative experiment, she was taken to Lokot, Bryansk investigators remember well how the residents who recognized her shied away and spat after her. And she walked and remembered everything. Calmly, as they remember everyday affairs.

Antonina's husband, Viktor Ginzburg, a war and labor veteran, promised to complain to the UN after her unexpected arrest. “We didn’t confess to him what the accusation was against the one with whom he lived happily whole life... They were afraid that the man would simply not survive this, ”the investigators said.

When the old man was told the truth, he turned gray overnight. And he did not write any more complaints.

“The woman who was arrested from the pre-trial detention center did not give a single line to her husband. And by the way, she also did not write anything to the two daughters whom she gave birth to after the war and did not ask to see him, ”says investigator Leonid Savoskin. - When we managed to find contact with our accused, she began to talk about everything. About how she escaped, having escaped from a German hospital and got into our environment, straightened out other people's veteran documents, according to which she began to live. She did not hide anything, but this was the most terrible thing. There was a feeling that she sincerely misunderstood: why was she imprisoned, what was SO terrible she had done? It was as if a bloc of some kind from the war stood in her head, so that she probably would not go crazy herself. She remembered everything, each of her executions, but she did not regret anything. She seemed to me very cruel woman... I don't know what she was like when she was young. And what made her commit these crimes. Desire to survive? A moment's darkening? Horrors of war? In any case, this does not justify her. She killed not only strangers, but her own family. She simply destroyed them with her exposure. Psychological examination showed that Antonina Makarovna Makarova is sane. "

Investigators were very afraid of some excesses on the part of the accused: before, there were cases when former policemen, healthy men, remembering past crimes, committed suicide right in the cell. The aged Tonya did not suffer from bouts of remorse. “You cannot be constantly afraid,” she said. - The first ten years I waited for a knock on the door, and then calmed down. There are no such sins that a person would be tormented all his life "

“They disgraced me in my old age,” she complained in the evenings, sitting in a cell, to her jailers. - Now after the verdict I will have to leave Lepel, otherwise every fool will poke a finger at me. I think that I will be given probation for three years. For what more? Then you have to somehow reorganize life. And how much is your salary in the jail, girls? Maybe I can get a job with you - something familiar ... "

Her involvement in the execution of 168 people was officially proven during the investigation.

Antonina Makarova was sentenced to death. The court's decision came as an absolute surprise even for the people who were investigating, not to mention the defendant herself. All of the 55-year-old Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg's petitions for clemency in Moscow were rejected ... The sentence was carried out on August 11, 1979

In Lokt, the Chekists took her along the old and well-known path - to the pit, where she carried out the sentences of Kaminsky and his gang. Bryansk investigators remember well how the residents who recognized it ran aside and spat after. And she walked and remembered everything. Calmly, as they remember everyday affairs. They say she was even surprised at human hatred - after all, in her opinion, the war should have written off everything. And, they say, she didn't ask for a date either. Or to give them a message.

And in Lepel, there and then there was talk about the event that excited everyone: it could not go unnoticed. Moreover, in Bryansk, where in December 1978 a trial was held against Antonina Makarova, the residents of Lepel were found acquaintances - they sent the local newspaper Bryansk Rabochy with a large publication under the heading “On the Steps of Betrayal”. The number went from hand to hand among the locals. And on May 31, 1979 she gave big article about the trial and the newspaper "Pravda" - under the heading "Fall". It told about the betrayal of Antonina Makarova, born in 1920, a native of the city of Moscow (according to other sources, the village of Malaya Volkovka, Sychevsky district Smolensk region), who worked before being exposed as a senior inspector of the quality control department of the sewing shop of the Lepel woodworking association.

They say she wrote appeals for pardon to the Central Committee of the CPSU, because the coming 1979 was supposed to be the Year of Women. But the judges rejected the petitions. The verdict was carried out.

This, perhaps, did not know the newest national history... Neither the all-Union, nor the Belarusian. The Antonina Makarova case turned out to be loud. One might even say unique. For the first time in the post-war years, a woman executioner was shot by a court verdict, whose involvement in the execution of 168 people was officially proven during the investigation.

However, if we approach the issue from a clear legal basis, then there is an opinion that from a purely legal point of view, they did not have the right to sentence her to death penalty... There are two reasons. First, more than 15 years passed from the day the crime was committed until the arrest, and the Criminal Code of the Soviet era did not contain provisions on crimes for which the statute of limitations does not apply. A person who committed a crime punishable by firing squad could be prosecuted even after the expiration of 15 years, but in this case the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment. The second - in the USSR in 1947, the death penalty was abolished, although it was restored three years later. As you know, laws mitigating punishment are retroactive, aggravating ones are not. Thus, since the convicted person was not brought to justice before the abolition of the death penalty in the USSR, the law on the abolition of her was fully extended. The law on restoration could only be applied to persons who committed crimes after its entry into force.

Antonina Makrova is a real character, famous history a war criminal. In the series "Executioner" she was given a different name - Raisa Safonova, and the cities and dates were slightly changed. In general, her crimes did take place, and remembering them is still creepy.

Antonina, after Parfyonov's father, but mistakenly recorded in school forms Makarova (my father's name was Makar), and remained with this surname. She was born in the Smolensk region, after school she went to study in Moscow. From there she went to the front, meeting the war at the age of 20.

Tonya always admired Anka the machine gunner, wanted to be like her, but the unprepared girl was left with only the work of a nurse. A few months later, the unit in which Makarova served was surrounded - it was the Vyazemsky Cauldron near Moscow, in which many Soviet soldiers died in October 1941. Makarova survived, wandered around the villages for a long time, until she came to the Bryansk region (the Oryol region is indicated in the film). There she was "sheltered" by a police detachment, consisting of collaborators and putting things in order in the district for the benefit of the invaders. However, in the unenviable role “ common wifeAntonina did not stay long. One fine day, drunk, they gave her a machine gun and ordered to shoot at the prisoners - local residents, "partisan accomplices". Makarova coped with the task with pleasure. Her dream has come true, now she is Tonka the machine gunner.

In the film, Tonka the machine-gunner is played by Victoria Tolstoganova

After, telling the investigation about her feelings at that moment, Makarova stated: she did not know these people, and therefore she did not feel sorry for them. Moreover - she finished them off "out of compassion", firing bullets from a pistol into their eyes - "so that her face would not remain in them." In total, more than 1.5 thousand people were shot on the account of the female executioner. On the whole: “She was young, stupid, she wanted to live…” - this is how Antonina justified her crimes.

There were terrible rumors about the atrocities of Tonka the machine gunner. Every morning she began with a shooting, killing 27 prisoners in the only cell in her precinct - after all, it was necessary to make room for the next. When the Red Army launched an offensive, Tonka surprisingly "successfully" got into the German rear - to the hospital, to treat syphilis. There, anticipating the imminent arrival of Soviet troops, she stole documents and became .... a Soviet nurse, for the good of the Motherland, who worked all the years of the war in one of the hospitals.

With the end of the war, she married and settled in Lepel (in the series - not far from Moscow). The family has two daughters (according to the film - a daughter and foster-son). For a long time she was considered dead, but in 1978 Antonina Makarova, now Ginzburg, was exposed. She confessed to the crimes she had committed and was shot.

Despite the fact that in "The Executioner" the action takes place in 1965, the personality of Tonka the machine gunner is historically accurate. All the horrors that are told about her are true. At the same time, military historians admit: fiction only smoothes the colors, while reality turns out to be even more terrible.

Antonina Makarova (or Antonina Ginzburg) is a woman who became an executioner for many Soviet partisans during the war years and was nicknamed "Tonka the Machine Gunner" for this. She carried out more than 1.5 thousand sentences of the fascists, forever covering her name with indelible shame.

Tonka the machine-gunner was born in the Smolensk region, in the small village of Malaya Volkovka in 1920. At birth, she had the surname Parfenova. Due to an incorrect entry in the school journal, Antonina Makarovna Parfenova "lost" her real surname and turned into Antonina Makarovna Makarova. This surname was used by her in the future.

First year of war

After graduating from school, Antonina went to study at a technical school, intending to become a doctor. When the war began, the girl was 21 years old. Inspired by the image of Anka the machine-gunner, Makarova went to the front to "beat the enemies." Presumably, this is what prompted her to take up such a weapon as a machine gun. Psychiatry professor Alexander Bukhanovsky investigated the personality of this woman in his time. He suggested that she might have a mental disorder.

In 1941, Makarova managed to escape in the Vyazemskaya operation, the catastrophic defeat of the Soviet army near Moscow. For several days she hid in the woods. Then she was captured by the Nazis. With the help of Private Nikolai Fedchuk, she managed to escape. Wandering through the forests began again, which had a bad effect on psychological state Antonina.

After a few months of such a life, the woman ended up in the Lokot Republic. After living for some time with a local peasant woman, Antonina noticed that the Soviet citizens who collaborated with the Germans had settled well here. Then she went to work for the Nazis.

Executioner in a skirt

Later, at the trial, Makarova explained this act with a desire to survive. At first, she served in the auxiliary police and beat prisoners. The police chief, assessing her efforts, ordered to issue a machine gun to the zealous Makarova. From that moment on, she was officially appointed as the executioner. The Germans thought: it would be much better if a Soviet girl would shoot the partisans. You don't need to get your hands dirty yourself, and this demoralizes the enemy.

On new position Makarova received not only a more suitable weapon for her, but also a separate room... To make the first shot, Antonina had to drink heavily. Then things went “like clockwork”. All the rest of the executions Tonka-machine gunner made on a sober head. Later at the trial she explained that she did not treat those whom she shot as ordinary people... For her, they were strangers, and therefore they did not feel sorry for them.

Antonina Makarova "worked" with rare cynicism. She always personally checked whether the "work" was done well. In case of a miss, she would definitely finish off the wounded. At the end of the execution, she removed good things from the corpses. It got to the point that on the eve of the executions Makarova began to bypass the barracks with prisoners and choose those who had good clothes.

After the war, Tonka the machine-gunner said that she never regretted anything or anyone. She did not have nightmares, the people she killed did not appear in visions. She did not feel any remorse, which indicates a psychopathic personality type.

"Merits" of Tonka-machine-gunner

Antonina Makarova “worked” extremely hard. She shot Soviet partisans and their relatives three times a day. She has more than 1.5 thousand ruined souls on her account. For each executioner in a skirt she received 30 German Reichsmarks. In addition, Tonka provided intimate services to German soldiers. By 1943, she had to be treated for a whole bunch of venereal diseases in the German rear. Just at this time, Lokot was recaptured from the Nazis.

Then Makarova began to hide from both the Russians and the Germans. She stole a military ID from somewhere and pretended to be a nurse. At the end of the war, she worked on this ticket nurse in one of the hospitals for the Red Army. There she also met private Viktor Ginzburg and soon became his wife.

In peacetime

After the war, the Ginzburgs settled in the Belarusian city of Lepel. Antonina gave birth to 2 daughters and began to work as a quality controller at garment factory... She was extremely withdrawn character... Never drank, probably for fear of blabbing about her past. For a long time no one knew about him.

Security agencies have been looking for Tonka the machine gunner for 30 years. Only in 1976 were they able to get on her trail. Two years later, she was found and identified. Several witnesses at once confirmed the identity of Makarova, who was already Ginzburg at that time. During the arrest, and then the investigation and trial, she behaved surprisingly calmly. Tonka the machine-gunner could not understand why they wanted to punish her. She considered her actions in wartime quite logical.

Antonina's husband did not know why his wife was arrested. When the investigators told the man the truth, he took the children and left the city for good. Where he subsequently began to live is not known. At the end of November 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Ginzburg to death. She took the verdict calmly. She later wrote several requests for clemency. She was executed on August 11, 1979.

Following in the footsteps of the "Executioner" series on Channel One

Woman for the sake of salvation own life serving as an executioner for the Nazis, for three decades successfully passed herself off as a war heroine.

Casus with the last name

Antonina Makarova was born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, in the large peasant family of Makar Parfyonov. She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her future life. When Tonya came to the first grade, because of shyness, she could not give her last name - Parfyonova.

Classmates began to shout “Yes, she is Makarova!”, Meaning that Tony's father's name was Makar. So, with the light hand of a teacher, at that time almost the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfyonov family.

The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner. This film image had a real prototype - the nurse of the Chapaevsk division, Maria Popova, who once really had to replace the killed machine gunner in battle.

After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where she was caught by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The girl went to the front as a volunteer.

Camping Wife of the Surroundings

All the horrors of the infamous Vyazemsky Cauldron fell to the lot of 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova.

After the hardest battles, only soldier Nikolai Fedchuk from the entire unit was next to the young nurse Tonya. With him, she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They did not look for partisans, did not try to break through to their own - they fed themselves with whatever they had to do, sometimes they stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his "field wife". Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.

In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.

They didn't drive Tonya out of the Red Well, but the local residents were already full of worries. And the strange girl did not strive to go to the partisans, did not rush to break through to ours, but strove to twist love with one of the men who remained in the village. Having turned the locals against herself, Tonya was forced to leave.

Salary killer

Tony Makarova's wanderings ended in the area of \u200b\u200bthe village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The infamous Lokotskaya Republic, an administrative-territorial entity of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.

The police patrol detained Tonya, but the partisan or the underground was not suspected of her. She liked the policemen, who took her to them, gave her drink, fed her and raped her. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.

Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute under the police for long - once, drunk, she was taken out into the courtyard and put behind the Maxim machine gun. People stood in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who took not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, a drunk woman did not really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.

The next day, Makarova learned that she was now an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her own bed.

The Lokot Republic mercilessly fought against the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.

The cell contained 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.
Neither the Germans nor even the local police wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere, came in very handy with her shooting abilities.

The girl did not lose her mind, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot enemies, and she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life is finally getting better.

1,500 lives lost

Antonina Makarova's daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night love with some cute German or, at worst, with a policeman.

As an incentive, she was allowed to take the belongings of those killed. So Tonya acquired a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes immediately interfered with wearing.

However, sometimes Tonya allowed a "marriage" - several children managed to survive, because because of their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by the local residents who buried the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a woman executioner, "Tonka the machine gunner", "Tonka the Muscovite" spread around the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but they could not get to it.

In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.

By the summer of 1943, Tony's life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved west, starting to liberate the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but here she very opportunely fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear, so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Great Germany.

Honored Veteran Instead of War Criminal

In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for accomplices.

Realizing this, Tonya fled from the hospital, once again being surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to get documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.

Antonina successfully managed to enter the service in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her.

The guy made Tonya an offer, she answered with consent, and, having got married, the young people left after the end of the war for the Belarusian city of Lepel, home of her husband.

So the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by the honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.

They've been looking for her for thirty years

The Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous deeds of the "Tonka-machine-gunner" immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but only two hundred were identified.
Witnesses were interrogated, checked, specified - but they could not attack the trail of the punitive woman.

Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led the ordinary life of a Soviet person - she lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the deeds of "Tonka the machine gunner".

The KGB spent more than three decades looking for her, but found it almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfyonov, going abroad, submitted questionnaires with information about relatives. There, among the solid Parfyonovs, for some reason Antonina Makarova, married to Ginzburg, was listed as her own sister.

Yes, how that mistake of the teacher helped Tonya, how many years thanks to her she remained out of reach of justice!

The KGB operatives worked with jewelry - it was impossible to blame an innocent person for such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses, even a former policeman-lover, were secretly brought to Lepel. And only after all of them confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was "Tonka the machine gunner", she was arrested.

She did not deny, talked about everything calmly, said that nightmares did not torment her. She did not want to communicate with her daughters or her husband. And the front-line spouse ran around the authorities, threatened with a complaint to Brezhnev, even at the UN - demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya is accused of.

After that, the dashing, gallant veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You cannot wish the enemy what these people had to endure.

Retribution

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a woman punisher.

Antonina herself was convinced that the punishment could not be too severe due to the years ago, she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. She only regretted that because of the shame she had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about the post-war exemplary biography of Antonina Ginzburg, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.

However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt was documented in the murder of 168 people from those whose identities were identified. More than 1300 remained unknown victims of the "Tonka-machine-gunner". There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.

At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency had been rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.

Bryansk security officers about the series "Executioner": The real Tonka-machine gunner in a bunny mask did not go

"Komsomolskaya Pravda" watched the TV movie together with the FSB veteran

The plot of the series "Executioner" is based on real story war criminal Tonka the machine-gunner, who shot in the Bryansk village of Lokot during the war about one and a half thousand people - partisans and civilians. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" tracked down the veteran of the state security organs Leonid Savoskin, who worked for about 30 years in the KGB and was engaged in investigating criminal cases against traitors to the Motherland. Together with him we watched the film and found out how everything really was.

In the series:

Detectives go on the trail of the war criminal Tonka the machine gunner, investigating a series of mysterious murders in the Moscow region. The investigation is being conducted by an officer of the MUR, Major Ivan Cherkasov.
In life:
“In fact, there were no murders, all this is fiction,” says Leonid Vasilyevich. - And of course, the affairs of traitors to the Motherland, war criminals were not dealt with by the detectives of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, but by the KGB. The case of Tonka the machine gunner was investigated by the Bryansk and Belarusian security officers.

In the series:

The plot is built on intrigue: the viewer only at the end of the film understands who the real executioner is ...
In life:
- The real name of the woman punisher is Antonina Makarova, her husband is Ginzburg, - says our interlocutor. - There is no external resemblance to the actress who plays her in the series - the real Tonka was dark-haired and large. 21-year-old Makarova was a nurse, was surrounded, ended up in the village of Lokot - then he was still part of the Oryol region. She herself, of her own free will, agreed to work for the Germans, to participate in punitive operations, she was even paid 30 Reichsmarks, which is very good money.