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Константин Алексеевич Алисенок / Konstantin Alexeewitsch Alisenok 1901 - 1944 Edit

Born 2.1.1901 in Kemeschowzy
Died 25.9.1944 in Mauthausen

Biography

Konstantin Alexeevich Alisenok was born on 2 January 1901 into a peasant family in the village of Kemeshevtsy near Minsk. His father was Belorussian, his mother Sofia (Zosya), Polish. There were four children in the family: Vasily, Konstantin, Mariya and Anastasiya.

Konstantin worked as a day labourer for a local estate owner. After 1915, as a teenager, he went to join his older brother in what was then Petrograd, where he worked in various unskilled jobs, and after his return he talked about the events in pre-revolutionary Petrograd at village meetings. At that time there was a shortage of bread in the village and especially of salt. The young Konstantin explained that this was a temporary situation and that life would improve once victory had been secured over all the enemies of the Soviet government.

When the village was occupied by Poland in 1920, Konstantin was reported and arrested for his political activities. He was beaten unconscious with a birch whip and sentenced to death by firing squad. With the help of the estate owner, his mother was able to petition for Konstantin’s release by promising the former that Konstantin would continue to work on her estate. But after his recovery, Konstantin volunteered for the Red Army, graduating from the infantry school in Minsk and later the Kiev United Military School as well. And so his career in the army began. In 1928 he was posted to Archangelsk as an assistant to a company commander. There he met Mariya Platonovna Zyryankina; he travelled to his next posting already a married man. In 1931 their daughter Inessa was born in Fergana, and in 1936 their son Vadim in Belaya Tserkov (Bila Tserkva).

The Soviet file card detailing Alisenok’s career notes his promotions. It also gives a brief account of his participation in various campaigns: he was on the Polish front, took part in the battle against the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, and was in the Finnish war. Alisenok was awarded the Order of the Red Star, in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ‘On the Decoration of Squads and Officers of the Red Army with Orders and Medals of the USSR’ of 21 March 1940. Alisenok’s personnel file from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence contains service appraisals and statements. They show that my grandfather was strong-willed, active, decisive, tough and a little stubborn, and that he could keep military secrets. Like everyone he also had his faults, but according to the appraisals Alisenok was constantly looking for ways to further his education and always fulfilled his duties in the posts he held.

The Great Patriotic War came upon Alisenok when he was a first lieutenant working as Chief Supply Officer in the 124th Rifle Division and deputy to the Division Commander for Supply Services. On 21 September 1941 Alisenok was taken prisoner in Gorodishche. Until his transport to Germany he was held in Stalag 365 Vladimir-Volynsky. On 5 July 1942 he was transferred to Oflag XIII D (62) in Hammelburg, working from 27 September 1942 in work detachment 10113, which loaded and unloaded boats and ships at the Regensburg docks on the Danube. On 27 July 1944 he was handed over to the Würzburg Gestapo. Previously, this is where Alisenok’s trail had gone cold. We now know of his subsequent fate thanks to the International Tracing Service (ITS), who were contacted during our research. In answer to our enquiries we received a letter from Bad Arolsen, where the headquarters of the International Tracing Service are located, which reported in dry, bureaucratic language that Alisenok was executed in Mauthausen concentration camp (Austria) on 25 September 1944 at 5.15pm on the orders of the Reich Chief of the SS. Later we found out that Alisenok had been sent to Mauthausen after having been handed over to the Gestapo and was executed there for his involvement in resistance activities.

 

Natalya Ilyenko

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

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