Soprunenko, Petr Karpovich

(1908–1992)

   Soprunenko was transferred from the Red Army to the NKVD in November 1938 as Lavrenty Beria rebuilt the security service. In April 1940 he was assigned responsibility for the execution of 25,700 Polish military officers and civilians held at Katyn and other camps. Every day he submitted a report to Beria detailing the day’s killings. Soprunenko was rewarded and promoted for his work as an executioner. He was made a major general in 1945. Soprunenko continued to work as a commander of forced labor camps engaged in military work. He escaped arrest in the aftermath of Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 and retired in 1963.