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I was taking a nap, when I heard the loud order: 'Get up!' There was an unknown junior lieutenant in front of me clad in a new uniform. Dadunashvili was already standing, so I got up too. The lieutenant asked another question with the same intonation pitch: 'Were you captured by Germans? Which assignments did you get from them?' I couldn't comprehend what he was talking about.
Then he said he would shoot us at once if we kept silent. We told him about our hard misadventures, but he wasn't interested in that; he reiterated the same question: what was our assignment given by the Germans. We again started our story, and then he called two armed soldiers sitting close by and told them to take us to the special squad, the SMERSH [31].
Captain Sukhinin approached us. He was the one who understood what was going on and stood between us and the junior lieutenant. He said that he knew us as radio operators of the regiment and he would vouch for us. The junior lieutenant tried to object to Sukhinin by saying that he wasn't entitled to stand in his way and that he would report to the commander of the SMERSH making Sukhinin take us there by himself. Sukhinin said that being acting regiment commander he ordered the lieutenant to leave the regiment immediately. The junior lieutenant and his subordinates left. Only later on we got to know that Sukhinin rescued us from big trouble: we could have been shot as German spies.
Then he said he would shoot us at once if we kept silent. We told him about our hard misadventures, but he wasn't interested in that; he reiterated the same question: what was our assignment given by the Germans. We again started our story, and then he called two armed soldiers sitting close by and told them to take us to the special squad, the SMERSH [31].
Captain Sukhinin approached us. He was the one who understood what was going on and stood between us and the junior lieutenant. He said that he knew us as radio operators of the regiment and he would vouch for us. The junior lieutenant tried to object to Sukhinin by saying that he wasn't entitled to stand in his way and that he would report to the commander of the SMERSH making Sukhinin take us there by himself. Sukhinin said that being acting regiment commander he ordered the lieutenant to leave the regiment immediately. The junior lieutenant and his subordinates left. Only later on we got to know that Sukhinin rescued us from big trouble: we could have been shot as German spies.
Period
Location
Belarus
Interview
Yuri Bogdanov