Петр Евдокимович Лукьянчиков / Petr Ewdokimowitsch Lukjantschnikow 1911 - 1944

Born 30.6.1911 in Gremjatschki
Died 16.8.1944 in Mauthausen

Biography

Petr Evdokimovich Lukyanchikov was born on 30 June 1911 in the village of Gremyachka in the Oboyansky district in the Kursk oblast of the Russian Empire. He came from a Russian peasant family and was the descendant of boyars from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who had entered the service of the Russian tsar, Ivan the Terrible, in 1563 and had been living in the Oboyansky district since the mid-seventeenth century.

In 1930 he completed his military service and worked afterwards as a miner in the town of Novoshakhtinsk in the Rostov-on-Don province. He had a wife – Mariya Nikiforovna Lukyanchikova – and three children, Vasily, Anatoly and Viktor (who is still alive today).

In 1941 Lukyanchikov was called up to serve at the front in the 965th Artillery Regiment of the 411th Rifle Division. On 25 October 1941, Chief Reconnaissance Officer Lukyanchikov and two comrades from his regiment, Sergeant Semen Ignatevich Semenov and Reconnaissance Officer Efim Sergeevich Garbuzov, were on a reconnaissance mission in the area around the village of Grushevo near Kharkov (Ukraine). On the way they ran into some Germans and did not return. All three were reported missing in action.

What happened to Semen Semonov remains unknown. Efim Garbuzov was taken prisoner and liberated by Soviet troops on 7 May 1945. Petr Lukyanchikov was able to escape from the Germans and returned on foot to his home in the Kursk province.

On the way he was stopped in the village of Rakitnoe (in today’s Belgorod oblast) by a German patrol. However, there was a man in the village who also came from the Oboyansky district. He testified to the fact that Petr was the son of a well-known resident of Oboyan, and Petr was released. And so he came to the village of Gremyachka.

In June 1942 Petr and other villagers were deported to Vienna as civilian workers. Among them was Vasily Razinkov, one of Petr’s relatives. (Vasily’s sister Alexandra was married to Petr’s brother).

These Ostarbeiter (‘eastern workers’) lived under harsh conditions and were guarded, but with the guards’ permission they were allowed to visit the city. They worked in factories and armaments plants, or were deployed on the land. Lukyanchikov and Razinkov became members of a resistance movement known as the ‘Anti-Hitler Movement of Ostarbeiter’. More than that: Petr Lukyanchikov was a member of this group’s central committee. For a long time the Gestapo was unable to discover them and the resistance fighters were able to carry out their activities under conditions which, in their level of difficulty, were comparable to those faced by the resistance in Germany. They recruited new members to the group, published Die Wahrheit (The Truth) newspaper, informed opponents of the Nazi regime about events at the front and stockpiled weapons for the Allies’ welcome arrival.

On 10 July 1943, Petr Lukyanchikov was arrested – a weapon was found under his mattress. Interrogation and torture followed. Six months later, ‘Rapport’ no. 20 of the Vienna Gestapo dated 10-13 March 1944 read: ‘The measures begun in mid-November against the Ostarbeiter organisation “Anti-Hitler-Movement” are now complete. All functionaries, including the central committee of the “Anti-Hitler-Movement” and all hitherto known members, a total of 58 persons (53 Ostarbeiter and 5 other foreign workers) have been arrested. The aims of the organisation were to bring together Ostarbeiter deployed in Vienna and Lower Danube, to train them for missions of sabotage and terror, to equip them with stolen weapons, and to organise armed actions against German law enforcement forces and the civilian population with the aim of provoking an uprising.’

Petr Lukyanchikov was transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was assigned prisoner number 50718. On 16 August 1944, at 2:34pm, he was shot.

Maxim Emelyanov-Lukyanchikov

 

Sources:

 

Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW), Geheime Staatspolizei Staatspolizeistelle Wien, Tagesbericht Nr. 20 vom 10.-13.III.1944 [Gestapo headquarters Vienna, Daily report No. 20 dated 10.-13.III.1944].

Translation into English: Joanna White

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