The men and women had been sentenced to death in secret trials for ‘espionage,’ ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda,’ or ‘illegal possession of weapons’ under Section 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. After the trial, the convicts were taken to Berlin-Lichtenberg prison and then transported to Moscow in camouflaged railway carriages. After their appeals for clemency were rejected, they were shot in Butyrka prison. That same night, the Soviet secret service had the bodies cremated in Moscow’s only crematorium at the Donskoye Cemetery. Their ashes were buried in mass grave No. 3 at the cemetery. Memorial estimates the total number of NKVD/MGB victims buried at the Donskoye Cemetery to be over 7,000.

The biographies were researched and compiled between 2004 and 2008 as part of an international research project funded by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, Berlin , jointly by Facts & Files Historical Research Institute Berlin and Memorial International Society for Human Rights, Moscow. The printed book of the dead was first published in 2005 and in 2020 in its fourth edition. The digital book of the dead Donskoje1950-1953.de continues this work. The website was made possible by funding from the Berlin Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.

The accompanying travelling exhibition has been presented at 25 locations in Germany and Austria since 2006 and can now be viewed here as an online exhibition. It was funded by the Berlin Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.