The bodies of six civilians hang from the balcony of a school on Sverdlov Street where they were executed by German troops of the 50th Army Corps. The signs around their necks read "punishment for blowing up an explosives storehouse."

The bodies of six civilians hang from the balcony of a school on Sverdlov Street where they were executed by German troops of the 50th Army Corps. The signs around their necks read "punishment for blowing up an explosives storehouse."

The city of Kharkov was captured by the German Sixth Army at the end of October 1941. Just prior to its fall, the commander of the Sixth Army, General Walther von Reichenau, ordered the commanding officer of the 50th Army Corps to act mercilessly against "hostile elements," particularly Jews and Bolsheviks. These segments of the local population were to be subject to collective measures in reprisal for attacks on German personnel or materiel. Saboteurs in particular were to be publicly hanged as examples. Thus instructed, the commander of the 50th AK acted vigorously against the local population after a store of explosives blew up in November. Male Jews, especially, were the target of the wave of arrests and hangings that followed the explosion. Altogether 200 "Communists" were either shot or hanged and 1000 hostages were taken by the men of the 50th Army Corps.