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p September 26, 1942

p I slept on this bunk from 24/IX to 26/IX-42, in for interrogation.

p They haven’t passed sentence but to back up their accusations they confronted me with a stranger, Alexei Yuokhanov.

p He gave false testimony and began to lay into me as well, even though he doesn’t know me from Adam. Anyway he’s a swine and a traitor.

p Judging by their attitude at the interrogation and their prejudice I shall be shot.

p Farewell. I shall die honourably. 26/IX

V. Krivopustenko

p Vasily Krivopustenko was born in Taganrog in 1903 into a poor Don Cossack family. He started work at the age of seven. He became an apprentice to a cobbler, a cowherd and farm labourer.

p During the Great October Revolution he joined the Red Guard and then fought for the Red Army against the whiteguards on the Don.

p After Civil War he took up work at a shoe factory where he was much admired and respected. For many years he was in charge of deliveries, chairman of his local trade union council, chairman of a district Soviet, instructor at the Party regional committee and, lastly, vice-chairman of the Executive Committee of the Novocherkassk Soviet of Working People’s Deputies.

p When he went underground with other Communists he organised resistance forces, helped form partisan groups and led raids in the town and on the railway.

p While preparing one operation-on September 24, 1942-he was caught by the Gestapo and thrown into a cell.

The Germans knew whom they were dealing with and hardly expected to get anything out of him. So they cruelly beat him up. But he held his tongue. Realising he was doomed he wrote his last lines of farewell to the Soviet people on the plank serving as a cell bed.