The Ochota Massacre was a wave of war crimes committed in the Warsaw district of Ochota by the Nazi collaborationist SS Sturmbrigade RONA (Russian National Liberation Army).
On 4 August, RONA entered Ochota to attack AK positions but instead set most of Opaczewska St on fire & proceeded to rob, rape & murder its residents. So many people lost their homes that the Germans had to set up a transitional camp where they could be gathered prior to evacuation from Warsaw. By 5 Aug 10-20,000 inhabitants of Ochota & neighbouring areas had been rounded up.
RONA troops beat & shot prisoners while herding them towards the camp, pulled women out of the crowd to rape them, & frequently killed them afterwards. Any valuables & money the victims had were taken at the gate. Inside, the prisoners had no sanitary facilities, medical aid or even water. Food consisted of meagre, sporadic portions of mouldy bread. RONA even shot at the prisoners for fun. Yet when Erich von dem Bach, commander of German forces in Warsaw, inspected the camp he concluded ‘everything was in order’.
By 7 Aug piles of corpses festered beside the camp walls. During its 2-week existence some 1,000 inmates died of hunger, thirst & extreme exhaustion, or were shot to death.
On 5 August, RONA units broke into the Marie Curie Radium Institute & after robbing the staff & patients, set the library on fire, destroying the food supplies, pharmacy & much equipment. That night, nurses who had bravely stayed behind were gang-raped. The next day the building was set on fire, burning alive several patients. When survivors were discovered a few days later, RONA set the building on fire again. On 19 Aug, RONA troops pulled out all remaining survivors & killed them. About 170 patients & staff lost their lives.
Some 10,000 people were killed in the Ochota massacre & the district is now dotted with memorial plaques commemorating the victims of mass against-the-wall executions.
RONA finally withdrew from Ochota on 25 Aug, but wholesale looting, organised by the German administration, continued. Trains were piled high with booty & sent to Germany, after which Vernichtungskommando units levelled the entire district.
