The Presidential Library marking the United Action Day in memory of the genocide of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War

80 years ago on April 19, 1943 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued Decree No. 39 “On punishment measures for Nazi villains guilty of killing and torturing the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices”. The document became the legal basis for large-scale work to establish and investigate Nazi crimes against the peoples of the USSR.

Every year on April 19, in all educational institutions of the Russian Federation, the United Action Day is held in memory of the genocide of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War. It is noted that “the purpose of holding the United Action Day is to preserve the historical truth about the crimes of the Nazis and their accomplices against peaceful Soviet citizens during the Great Patriotic War in the occupied territory. Through the prism of historical memory, the All-Russian campaign "United Action Day" shows that the actions of the Red Army and the unity of the Soviet people in achieving Victory saved our state and its citizens from complete destruction.

According to various sources, from 13 to 16 million Soviet citizens became victims of Nazi atrocities in the occupied territories. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated November 2, 1942, an Extraordinary State Commission was arranged to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR. The main goal of the commission was to keep records of "all the villainous crimes of the Nazi army on the territory of the USSR". Members of the commission collected more than 250,000 testimonies about the crimes of the occupiers and compiled 56,000 acts on the atrocities committed by them on the territory of the USSR. According to the commission, the damage inflicted on the population and national economy of the USSR amounted to 679 billion rubles. 1,710 cities and urban-type settlements, over 70,000 villages and hamlets, over 6 million buildings were completely or partially destroyed and burned, and about 25 million people were deprived of shelter.

In the circular note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. M. Molotov dated April 27, 1942 "About the monstrous atrocities, atrocities and violence of the Nazi invaders in the occupied Soviet regions and on the responsibility of the German government and command for these crimes", addressed to the British Ambassador in USSR A. Kerr, the policy of Nazi Germany towards the peoples of the USSR was outlined. It was noted that "the plans and orders of the German invaders-imperialists" provide for general robbery of the population of our country; complete destruction of towns and villages; land grab; slave-serf labor and bondage; forcible removal to Germany for forced labor; liquidation of Russian national culture and national cultures of the peoples of the Soviet Union; extermination of the Soviet population, prisoners of war and partisans through bloody violence, torture, executions and massacres of Soviet citizens.

In the Act of the Leningrad City Commission on the deliberate extermination of civilians of Leningrad by the Nazi barbarians and the damage caused to the economy and cultural and historical monuments of the city during the war and blockade (1945), it was officially established that the Nazi invaders, violating international conventions, deliberately conducted the extermination of the civilian population of Leningrad by means of a starvation blockade, destroyed the city by aerial bombardment and artillery shelling. German gunners "with unparalleled cynicism and cruelty fired at crowded places of the civilian population, the most crowded intersections, tram stops, parks and squares".

On October 20, 2022, the St. Petersburg City Court satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and recognized “the siege of Leningrad by the occupation authorities of Germany and their accomplices <…> in the period from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 as a war crime, a crime against humanity and a genocide of national and ethical groups representing the population of the USSR, the peoples of the Soviet Union”.