In those days, they put it on par with entertainment programs, so not a single weekend passed without this “entertainment.” The execution of the death sentence could not have taken place without the executioners. It was they who carried out torture, cut off heads and prepared guillotines. But who is the executioner: cruel and heartless or an eternally damned unfortunate person?

An Ignoble Calling

The executioner was considered an employee of the judicial system, authorized to carry out punishment and the death penalty by the ruler of the state themselves. It would seem that the profession of an executioner could well be honorable with such a definition, but everything was different. He was not free to change his occupation or go to public places.

They had to live outside the city, in the same place where the prisons were located. He carries out all the work himself from start to finish, that is, he prepared the necessary tools, and after the job was completed, he buried the corpse. Their work required good knowledge of anatomy.

There is a myth that they wore black masks. In fact, they did not hide their faces, and they could be recognized by their black robe and highly developed muscles. There was no point in hiding his face, because everyone already knew who the executioner was and where he lived. They covered their faces only during the execution of kings, so that their devoted servants would not take revenge afterwards.

Position in society

A paradoxical situation: citizens watched with delight the executioner’s work, but at the same time despised him. Maybe people would treat them with more respect if they had a decent salary; they received a small salary. As a bonus, they could take all the belongings of the executed person. They often worked as exorcists. In the Middle Ages, they were sure that by torturing one’s body one could drive out demons; this played into the hands of professional torturers.

But what kind of profession is an executioner if it does not have certain privileges? He could buy what he needed from the market absolutely free of charge. This peculiar benefit is explained by the fact that no one wanted to take money from the hands of the killer. At the same time, the state needed such people, and therefore traders followed this rule.

Another way of earning money for them was trading in unusual things. These included body parts of executed people, skin, blood, and various potions. Alchemists were confident that special potions could be created from such ingredients. Gallows' ropes were also bought; according to some legends, they could bring good luck to their owner. Doctors bought the bodies completely and carried out their research on the human body and entrails. Magicians bought skulls for their rituals.

One could understand who the executioner was by his position when he came to church. Like any other Christian, he was allowed into it, but had to stand at the very entrance and be the last to receive communion.

Bloody Dynasty

Who would have thought to start doing such a craft? The profession of executioner in the Middle Ages was inherited - from father to son. As a result, entire clans were formed. Almost all executioners living in one region were related to each other. After all, representatives of other classes would never give up their beloved daughter for such a man.

The lowly position of the executioner was capable of tarnishing the entire family of the bride. Their wives could only be the same daughters of executioners, gravediggers, flayers, or even prostitutes.

People called the executioners “sons of whores” and they were right, because they often became the wives of the executioners. In Tsarist Russia, no dynasties of executioners were created. They were chosen from former criminals. They agreed to do “dirty” work in exchange for food and clothing.

Subtleties of craftsmanship

At first glance, this may seem like a fairly simple job. In fact, it took a lot of knowledge and training to behead criminals. It is not easy to cut off a head on the first try, but when the executioner was able to do it, it was considered that he had reached a high level of skill.

What is a professional executioner? This is the one who understands the structure of the human body, knows how to use all kinds of torture devices, and has sufficient physical strength to wield an ax and dig graves.

Curse of the Executioner

There was a legend among the people that the executioner was cursed. Those who knew this understood that there was nothing to do with magic or the supernatural. This was due to society’s view of the lives of people engaged in ignoble crafts. According to tradition, having become an executioner, it was no longer possible to refuse this work, and if a person refused, he himself was recognized as a criminal and executed.

This is how, having become a torturer-executioner by birth, a person was forced to engage in “dirty” labor all his life. No free will. Living away from people, the inability to change jobs and a limited choice of life partner. For centuries, more and more hereditary killers were born in the dynasties of executioners.

The justice system employs police officers, investigators, and judges. Like a relay baton, they pass the criminal to each other. The last one in this chain is executioner.

ONE OF THE OLDEST PROFESSIONS

As soon as they formed a flock, people began to establish certain rules of life within the community. Not everyone liked it. When violators were caught, they were dragged to trial and punished. For a long time, people knew only one type of punishment - death. It was considered quite fair to cut off a head for a stolen bunch of radishes.

Every man was a warrior, knew how to wield a sword or, in extreme cases, a club, and could always personally execute a thief who encroached on the most sacred thing - property. If it was a case of murder, then the sentence was carried out with pleasure by the relatives of the murdered person.

As society developed, legal proceedings also improved; the punishment had to correspond to the gravity of the crime; for a broken arm, the arm should also be carefully broken, and this is much more difficult than killing.

Fantasy awoke in man, he experienced the torment of creativity, types of punishment appeared such as scourging, branding, cutting off limbs and all kinds of torture, for the implementation of which specialists were already needed. And they appeared.

There were executioners in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. This is, if not the oldest profession (let’s not encroach on the sacred), then one of the oldest, that’s for sure. And in the Middle Ages, not a single European city could do without an executioner.

Execute a criminal, interrogate with passion a suspect of high treason, carry out a demonstrative execution in the central square - you can’t do it without an executioner!

MAGISTRATE OFFICER

Officially, the executioner was an employee of the city magistrate. A contract was concluded with him, he took an oath, received a salary, the magistrate provided the worker with “working tools.”

The executioner was given a uniform and allocated official housing. The executioners never put any robe with slits for the eyes on their heads. They were paid by the piece for each execution or torture.

Invoice dated March 25, 1594 from the executioner Martin Gukleven to the Riga magistrate: executed Gertrude Gufner with a sword - 6 marks; hanged the thief Martin - 5 marks; burned a criminal for false weight of firewood - 1 mark 4 shillings, nailed 2 posters to the pillory - 2 marks.

As you can see, the most expensive thing was cutting off the head (this required the highest qualifications), hanging was cheaper, and for burning they paid sheer nonsense, like for nailing 1 poster to a bulletin board.

As in any craft, among the executioners there were their masters and virtuosos. A skilled executioner mastered several dozen types of torture, was a good psychologist (quickly determined what the victim feared most), drew up a qualified torture scenario and knew how to conduct it so that the interrogated person did not lose consciousness and did not die before the end of the investigation (this was already considered a defect in the work ).

Both young and old gathered at the execution in the medieval city, just like at a show. There were no cinemas, no televisions, visits from traveling actors were rare, the only entertainment was executions. In the morning, heralds walked around the city and called people.

The poor crowded the square, the nobility bought places in houses with windows on the block. A separate box was built for the high-born. The executioner, like a real artist, gave his best to please the audience with the heart-rending cries of the condemned man and make the spectacle unforgettable, so that it would be remembered for a long time.

Such a highly qualified specialist was very rare, so the executioners were paid well and their salaries were not delayed. There were also a kind of “premium”: the clothes of the executed person belonged to the master of the axe. Receiving a high-born gentleman sentenced to death on the scaffold, the executioner assessed whether his trousers were strong and whether his shoes were too worn out.

However, the “axe workers” also had additional sources of income.

SIDE PRODUCTS

The executioner was not only involved in executions and torture. Initially, he supervised the city's prostitutes from the magistrate. The disgraceful position of brothel keeper was very lucrative. City officials soon realized what a fool they had made by entrusting the city's sex industry to the wrong hands, and by the early 16th century the practice had been widely discontinued.

Until the 18th century, the executioner was responsible for cleaning the city's public latrines, that is, he performed the functions of a goldsmith. In many cities, the executioner also performed the functions of a flayer: he was engaged in catching stray dogs. The executioner also removed carrion from the streets and drove out lepers.

However, as the cities grew, the executioners began to have more and more main work, and gradually they began to be freed from functions unusual for them, so as not to be distracted.

In private, many executioners practiced healing. By the nature of their work, they knew anatomy very well. While city doctors were forced to steal corpses from cemeteries for their research, executioners had no problems with “visual aids.”

There were no better traumatologists and chiropractors in Europe than the masters of torture. Catherine II mentioned in her memoirs that her spine was treated by a famous specialist - an executioner from Danzig.

The executioners did not disdain illegal earnings. For their studies, warlocks and alchemists needed either a hand cut off from a criminal or a rope on which he was hanged. Well, where can you get all this if not from the executioner?

And the executioners also took bribes. The relatives of those sentenced to painful execution gave: “For the sake of all that is holy, give him a quick death.” The executioner took the money, strangled the poor fellow and burned the corpse at the stake.

The executioner could kill someone sentenced to scourging: carry out the execution in such a way that the poor fellow died on the third or fourth day after execution (this is how scores were settled). And, on the contrary, he could only rip open the skin on the condemned person’s back with a whip. There was a sea of ​​blood, the spectators were happy, and only the executioner and the executed man tied to the post knew that the main force of the blow of the whip was taken by the post.

Even those sentenced to death paid so that the executioner would try and cut off the head with one blow, and not bale it 3-4 times.

In Germany and France, executioners were very wealthy people. But, despite this, the work of an executioner was considered a low-respect occupation, they were not loved, they were feared and were bypassed by a third road.

CASTE OF THE OUTRAGED

The social status of the executioners was at the level of prostitutes and actors. Their houses were usually located outside the city limits. No one ever settled near them. The executioners had the privilege of taking food from the market for free, because many refused to accept money from them. In church they had to stand at the very door, behind everyone else, and be the last to approach communion.

They were not accepted in decent houses, so the executioners communicated with the same pariahs - gravediggers, flayers and executioners from neighboring cities. In the same circle they were looking for a companion or life partner. Therefore, entire dynasties of executioners practiced in Europe.

The work was dangerous. The executioners were attacked, the executioners were killed. This could have been done either by the accomplices of the executed person or by the crowd dissatisfied with the execution. The Duke of Monmouth was beheaded by the inexperienced executioner John Ketch with the 5th blow. The crowd roared with indignation, the executioner was taken away from the place of execution under guard and put in prison to save him from popular reprisals.

I WANT TO BECOME AN EXECUTIONER

There were few highly qualified executioners. Each city that had its own “specialist” valued him, and almost always a clause was included in the employment contract that the executioner must prepare a successor for himself. How did you become professional executioners?

Most often, executioners became inherited. The executioner's son actually had no choice but to become an executioner, and the daughter had no choice but to become the executioner's wife. The eldest son took over his father's position, and the younger son left for another city.

Finding a place as an executioner was not difficult; in many cities this vacancy was empty for many years. In the 15th century, many Polish cities did not have their own master and were forced to hire a specialist from Poznan.

Often those sentenced to death became executioners, buying their own lives at such a price. The candidate became an apprentice and, under the supervision of a master, mastered the craft, gradually getting used to the screams of the tortured and blood.

DECLINE OF THE PROFESSION

In the 18th century, European enlighteners regarded the usual medieval executions as savagery. However, the death blow to the executioner’s profession was dealt not by humanists, but by the leaders of the Great French Revolution, who put executions on stream and introduced the guillotine into the process.

If wielding a sword or an ax required skill, then any butcher could handle the guillotine. The executioner is no longer a unique specialist.

Public executions gradually became a thing of the past. The last public execution in Europe took place in France in 1939.

Serial killer Eugene Weidman was executed on the guillotine with the sounds of jazz rushing from open windows. The lever of the machine was turned by the hereditary executioner Jules Henri Defourneau.

Today, more than 60 countries still practice death sentences, and they also have professional executioners who work in the old fashioned way with a sword and an ax.

Mohammed Saad al-Beshi, executioner in Saudi Arabia (working experience since 1998), works with a sword, cutting off an arm, leg or head with one blow. When asked how he sleeps, he answers: “Sound.”

Klim PODKOVA

The Great Patriotic War became a severe test for all Soviet people. And people were not always on the side of heroism and courage.
In the service of the Nazis, this woman personally executed one and a half thousand soldiers and partisans, and then became an exemplary Soviet woman
In the series “The Executioner,” which was just shown on Channel One, Soviet investigators are looking for the mysterious Tonka the Machine Gunner. During the Great Patriotic War, she collaborated with the Nazis and shot captured Soviet soldiers and partisans. For the most part, this series is a figment of the writer's imagination. However, the main character of “The Executioner” had a real prototype. After the war, the traitor skillfully covered her tracks and calmly got married, gave birth to children, and became a leader in production.

On November 20, 1978, 59-year-old Antonina Ginzburg (nee Makarova*) was sentenced to capital punishment - execution. She listened to the judge calmly. At the same time, I sincerely did not understand why the sentence was so cruel.
“There was a war...” she sighed. - And now my eyes are sore, I need surgery - will they really not have mercy?
During the investigation, the woman did not deny it, did not play around, and immediately admitted her guilt. But, it seems, she never understood the scale of this guilt. It seems that in the understanding of the venerable mother of the family, her own crimes occupied a place somewhere between stealing candy from a store and adultery.
During her service with the German occupation authorities, Antonina Makarova shot, according to some sources, about 1,500 people with a machine gun. Petitions for clemency were rejected, and a year after the trial the sentence was carried out.

Confrontation: a witness to the bloody events in the village of Lokot identified Antonina Makarova (far right of those sitting). Photo: archive of the FSB Directorate for the Bryansk Region.

Tonya Makarova went to the front voluntarily, wanting to help wounded Soviet soldiers, but became a killer. “Life turned out this way...” she will say during interrogation. Photo: archive of the FSB Directorate for the Bryansk Region.

In “The Executioner,” the heroine is still tormented by some spiritual doubts, and before the executions she puts on a bunny mask. In fact, Makarova did not hide her face. It’s necessary, it’s necessary, she reasoned, firmly deciding to prove herself from the best side in order to survive. In the series, she finishes off the wounded with shots in the eyes with a revolver - believing that her image is fixed in the pupils of the victims. In reality, the machine gunner was not superstitious: “It happened that you would shoot, come closer, and someone else would twitch. Then she shot him in the head again so that the person would not suffer.”
There were also disappointments in her work. For example, Makarova was very worried that bullets and blood greatly damaged clothes and shoes - after the executions, she took for herself all the good stuff. Sometimes she looked at those sentenced to prison in advance, looking for new clothes. In her free time, Tonka had fun with German soldiers in a music club.

The search for Antonina Makarova began immediately after the fall of the Lokot Republic. There were plenty of eyewitnesses to the atrocities, but she brilliantly burned the bridges leading to her. New name, new life. In Belarusian Lepel, she got a job as a seamstress in a factory.
She was respected at work, her photo was constantly hung on the honor board. The woman gave birth to two daughters. True, I tried not to drink at parties - apparently, I was afraid of letting it slip. So, sobriety only makes a lady beautiful.
Retribution overtook her only 30 years after the executions. An ominous irony of fate: they came for her when she had completely disappeared among millions of middle-aged Soviet women. I was just applying for my pension. She had just been called to the security service: supposedly something needed to be counted. Behind the window, under the guise of an employee of the institution, sat a witness to the events in Lokte.
The security officers worked day and night, but they found her by accident. The machine gunner’s brother filled out a form to travel abroad and indicated the surname of his married sister. She really adored her family: having seemingly provided for everything, Makarova-Ginzburg never found the strength not to communicate with her relatives.
The sentence was carried out in 1979. Her husband, having finally learned why his wife was arrested, left Lepel with his daughters forever.
*Her name at birth is Antonina Makarovna Parfenova. But at school the girl was mistakenly registered as Makarova, having confused her last name with her patronymic.

The death penalty, around which debates among human rights activists and the public are raging today, is a punishment that appeared in ancient times and has survived to this day. In some periods of human history, the death penalty was almost the predominant punishment in the law enforcement system of various states. To deal with criminals, executioners were required - tireless and ready to “work” from dawn to dusk. This profession is shrouded in sinister myths and mysticism. Who is the executioner really?

The executioners did not wear masks
Medieval executioners, and even executioners in later periods of history, very rarely hid their faces, so the image of an executioner in a hooded mask that has taken root in modern culture has no basis in reality. Until the end of the 18th century there were no masks at all. Everyone in his hometown knew the executioner by sight. And there was no need for the executioner to hide his identity, because in ancient times no one even thought about taking revenge on the executor of the sentence. The executioner was seen as just a tool.

The executioners had dynasties
“My grandfather was an executioner. My father was an executioner. Now here I am - the executioner. My son and his son will also be executioners,” this is probably what any medieval kat could have said, answering the question of what influenced his choice of such an “unusual” profession. Traditionally, the position of executioner was inherited. All executioners living in the same region knew each other, and were often even relatives, since executioners often chose the daughters of other executioners, flayers or gravediggers to create families. The reason for this is not at all professional solidarity, but the position of the executioner in society: according to their social status, the executioners were at the bottom of the city.
In Tsarist Russia, executioners were chosen from former criminals, who were guaranteed “clothing and food” for this.

"The Executioner's Curse" Really Existed
In medieval Europe, there was a concept of the “executioner’s curse.” It had nothing to do with magic or witchcraft, but reflected society’s view of this craft. According to medieval traditions, a person who became an executioner remained one for the rest of his life and could not change his profession of his own free will. In case of refusal to fulfill his duties, the executioner was considered a criminal.

The executioners did not pay for purchases
At all times, executioners were paid little. In Russia, for example, according to the Code of 1649, the executioners’ salaries were paid from the sovereign’s treasury - “an annual salary of 4 rubles each, from labial unsalary income.” However, this was compensated by a kind of “social package”. Since the executioner was widely known in his area, he could, when he came to the market, take everything he needed completely free of charge. Literally, the executioner could eat the same as the one he served. However, this tradition did not arise out of favor towards executioners, but quite the opposite: not a single merchant wanted to take “blood” money from the hands of a murderer, but since the state needed the executioner, everyone was obliged to feed him.
However, over time, the tradition has changed, and a rather amusing fact is known about the inglorious departure from the profession of the French Sanson dynasty of executioners, which existed for more than 150 years. In Paris, no one was executed for a long time, so the executioner Clemont-Henri Sanson sat without money and got into debt. The best thing the executioner came up with was to lay the guillotine. And as soon as he did this, ironically, an “order” immediately appeared. Sanson begged the moneylender to give him the guillotine for a while, but he was unshakable. Clemont-Henri Sanson was fired. And if not for this misunderstanding, then his descendants could have chopped off heads for another century, because the death penalty in France was abolished only in 1981.

The executioner received the executed person's belongings
There is an opinion that the executioners always removed the boots from the body of the executed person; in fact, this is only partly true. According to medieval tradition, the executioner was allowed to take from the corpse everything that was on it below the waist. Over time, the executioners were allowed to take away all the property of the criminal.

The executioners moonlighted as exorcists
In medieval Europe, executioners, like all Christians, were allowed into the church. However, they had to be the last to arrive for communion, and during the service they had to stand at the very entrance to the temple. However, despite this, they had the right to conduct wedding ceremonies and exorcism rites. The clergy of that time believed that the torment of the body made it possible to cast out demons.

The executioners sold souvenirs
Today it seems incredible, but executioners often sold souvenirs. And you shouldn’t flatter yourself with the hope that between executions they were engaged in wood carving or clay modeling. Executioners traded alchemical potions and body parts of executed people, their blood and skin. The thing is that, according to medieval alchemists, such reagents and potions had incredible alchemical properties. Others believed that the fragments of the criminal’s body were a talisman. The most harmless souvenir is the hanged man's rope, which supposedly brought good luck. It happened that corpses were secretly bought by medieval doctors to study the anatomical structure of the body.
Russia, as usual, has its own way: the severed parts of the bodies of the “dashing” people were used as a kind of “propaganda”. The royal decree of 1663 states: “ Nail the severed arms and legs on the main roads to the trees, and write guilt notes on those same arms and legs and stick them to the fact that those legs and arms are thieves and robbers and were cut off from them for theft, robbery and murder... so that all ranks people knew about their crimes».

The executioner's skill is the main thing in the profession
The profession of an executioner was not as simple as it might seem at first glance. In particular, this concerned the beheading procedure. It was not easy to cut off a man's head with one blow of an ax, and those executioners who could do it on the first try were especially valued. Such a requirement for the executioner was not put forward out of humanity towards the condemned, but because of entertainment, since executions, as a rule, were of a public nature. They learned the craft from their older comrades. In Russia, the process of training executioners was carried out on a wooden mare. They placed a dummy of a human back made of birch bark on it and practiced blows. Many executioners had something like signature professional techniques. It is known that the last British executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, carried out the execution in a record time of 17 seconds.

In Rus' they preferred to chop off legs and arms
In Rus' there were many ways to take a life, and they were very cruel. Criminals were wheeled around, molten metal poured down their throats (as a rule, counterfeiters had to fear this), and hung by their ribs. If for some reason the wife decided to kill her husband, she was buried in the ground. She died long and painfully, and compassionate passers-by could leave money for church candles and for the funeral.
If in Europe executioners had to cut off heads more often and set fires on fire, then in Russia court sentences more often indicated maiming rather than killing. According to the Code of 1649, an arm, hand or fingers were cut off for theft. One could lose limbs for murder in a drunken fight, stealing fish from a fish tank, counterfeiting copper money, and illegally selling vodka.

Modern executioners do not hide from society
Modern society, which declares the principles of humanism, has not been able to abandon executioners. Moreover, politicians often hide under their guise. Thus, in the summer of 2002, Condoleezza Rice, who at that time was the US President's national security adviser, personally gave verbal approval to the use of “waterboarding,” when a person is tied up and water is poured on his face, as was done to the terrorist Abu Zubaydah. There is evidence of much harsher CIA practices.

The most famous executioner of the twentieth century is the Frenchman Fernand Meyssonnier. From 1953 to 1057, he personally executed 200 Algerian rebels. He is 77 years old, he still lives in France today, he does not hide his past and even receives a pension from the state. Meyssonnier has been in the profession since he was 16 years old, and it runs in the family. His father became an executioner because of the “benefits and benefits” provided: the right to have military weapons, high salaries, free travel and tax breaks for running a pub. He still keeps the tool of his grim work - the Model 48 guillotine - to this day.

Mohammed Saad al-Beshi is the current Chief Executioner of Saudi Arabia. He's 45 today." It doesn’t matter how many orders I have per day: two, four or ten. I am fulfilling God's mission and therefore I do not know fatigue"says the executioner, who started working in 1998. In not a single interview did he mention how many executions he had carried out or what fees he received, but he boasted that the authorities rewarded him with a sword for his high professionalism. Mohammed “keeps his sword razor sharp” and “cleans it regularly.” By the way, he is already teaching his 22-year-old son the craft.

One of the most famous executioners in the post-Soviet space is Oleg Alkaev, who in the 1990s was the head of the firing squad and headed the Minsk pre-trial detention center. He not only leads an active social life, but also published a book about his workdays, after which he was called a humanist executioner.

Maurice Hisen has nothing to do with executioners and did not write any books. But the topic of death did not leave him indifferent. He created a photo shoot dedicated to the death of a person and called it

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

So, with the light hand of the teacher, at that time perhaps 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 - a nurse from the Chapaev division Maria Popova, which once in battle actually had to replace a 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 an encirclement

19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova suffered all the horrors of the infamous “Vyazma Cauldron.”

After the heaviest battles, completely surrounded, of the entire unit, only a soldier was next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk. With him she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They didn’t look for partisans, they didn’t try to get through to their own people - they fed on whatever they had, and sometimes stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his “camp 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 expelled from the Red Well, but the local residents already had plenty of worries. But the strange girl did not try to go to the partisans, did not strive to make her way to ours, but strived to make love with one of the men remaining in the village. Having turned the locals against her, Tonya was forced to leave.

Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg. Photo: Public Domain

Salary killer

Tonya Makarova’s wanderings ended in the area of ​​the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious “Lokot Republic”, an administrative-territorial formation 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 they did not suspect her of being a partisan or underground woman. She attracted the attention of the police, who took her in, gave her drink, food and rape. 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 for the police for long - one day, drunk, she was taken out into the yard and put behind a Maxim machine gun. There were people standing in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk woman didn’t 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 ruthlessly fought 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 accommodated 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 policemen 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 go crazy, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot her enemies, but she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life finally got better.

1500 lives lost

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

As an incentive, she was allowed to take the belongings of the dead. So Tonya acquired a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes made it difficult to wear.

However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive because, due to their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by local residents who were burying the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, “Tonka the machine gunner”, “Tonka the Muscovite” spread throughout the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but were unable to reach her.

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, beginning the liberation of the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Greater Germany.

Honored veteran instead of a 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 the accomplices.

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

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

The guy proposed to Tonya, she agreed, and, having gotten married, after the end of the war, the young couple left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, her husband’s homeland.

This is how the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by an honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.

They searched for her for thirty years

Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous acts of “Tonka the 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 the identities of only two hundred could be established.

They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not get on the trail of the female punisher.

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 actions of “Tonka the Machine Gunner”.

The KGB spent more than three decades searching for her, but found her almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfyonov, going abroad, submitted forms with information about his relatives. There, among the solid Parfenovs, for some reason Antonina Makarova, after her husband Ginzburg, was listed as her sister.

Yes, how that teacher’s mistake helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!

The KGB operatives worked brilliantly - it was impossible to accuse an innocent person of such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, she was arrested.

She didn’t deny it, she talked about everything calmly, and said that nightmares didn’t torment her. She didn’t want to communicate with her daughters or her husband. And the front-line husband ran around the authorities, threatening to file 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 was accused of.

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

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 female punisher.

Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the passage of time, the punishment could not be too severe; she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. My only regret was that because of the shame I had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg’s exemplary post-war 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 in the murder of 168 of those whose identities could be established was documented. More than 1,300 more remained unknown victims of “Tonka the Machine Gunner.” There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.

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