How they managed to find Khatyn’s punishers and in what countries they were hiding

The investigators of the KGB in Grodno region, who investigated the crimes of the Nazis, those who burned villages and killed people, were able to find the Khatyn punishers in the 1970s. Hundreds of volumes of criminal cases, which reveal the details of the Khatyn tragedy, are kept in the Central Archive of the KGB. This is discussed in the documentary film "They Burned Khatyn" from the series "Without Statute of Limitations".

Inquiries were sent from Grodno to several regions of Ukraine and the Baltic States. Lakusta was the first to be punished. He lived in Donetsk. He was arrested on April 1, 1973. On the same day at 12:30 the first interrogation started. Then he was transported to Grodno. Four more accused were gradually brought there. They were kept in Grodno prison No. 1 until the trial.

By accident or by design, the case against the Khatyn punishers was opened on the 40th anniversary of the tragedy, March 21, 1973. A native of the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine, Grigory Lakusta worked at the "Donetskshakhtostroy" trust.

Lakusta led a team of 35 carpenters, says special services historian Alexander Kislitsky. He coached a soccer team of the department, which won first places in district and regional competitions, a children's soccer team.

Grigory Lacusta had two daughters: Nadezhda worked as a dispatcher at the state gas station in Dokuchayevsk, and Lyudmila was a student at Donetsk University.

Yevgeni Dalidovich, a retired colonel of the Belarusian State Security Committee in Grodno region (1957-1988), recalls that a young girl jumped into the office screaming, "Daddy, the KGB summoned you! I still didn't know that you served with the Nazis." He shook his head glumly. She turned from the table to the window (which was the third floor) and tried to rush downstairs.

The second one they took was Kurka. He lived in his homeland, in the village of Velika Gorozhanka, Lviv Region and worked at a collective farm. He had two children: a son and a daughter; four brothers, one of whom, Ivan, was a security guard of the opera and ballet theater in Lvov; his two sisters were pensioners.

In October, Sakhno, Knap, and Lozinsky were arrested one by one. Knap and Lozinsky lived in Lviv Region, Sakhno in Kuibyshev. All of them were taken to Grodno. The investigation continued until December 29, 1973.

The verdict was pronounced on March 15, 1974. The regional court sentenced them all to capital punishment, Yevgeni Dalidovich says. Only Lakusta, deputy platoon commander, was not executed.

In 1974 a criminal case was brought against Meleshko, platoon commander of the 118th battalion.

On May 22, 1975, the military tribunal of the Belarusian Military District pronounced its verdict on Vasily Meleshko. The capital punishment was carried out on December 22, 1975.