Antonina Makarova was born in a small village in Smolensk Governorate as Antonina Parfenova. On her first day at school, Parfenova's name was written down as Makarova, from her father's first name, Makar, as the shy girl had forgotten her last name. Later, Makarova studied in Moscow, and when the war broke out she joined the Red Army as a volunteer nurse. Makarova also took courses to learn how to use a machine gun.
In the Autumn of 1941, Makarova was separated from her troops. Three months later, in January 1942, she was recruited by the local authorities at the town of Lokot, which was the capital of the Lokot Autonomy, an collaborationist statelet established by the Nazis in October 1941. Makarova was hired as a machine gun shooter. Her job was to execute Russian POWs and partisans including their families. Usually Makarova was ordered to execute a group of 27 people, which was the number of prisoners the local jailhouse could hold. In the evenings Makarova spent time with German officers along with local women who were working as prostitutes. In the summer of 1943 Germans found out that Makarova and the other women had a sexually transmitted disease and they were sent to a hospital in the rearguard.
Post-war life
As the Red Army entered the Lokot region they found remains of about 1,500 people whom Antonina had executed. Soviet troops captured and killed many Nazi collaborators, but Makarova, who was at a remote hospital, was not among them. In 1945, Makarova married a Russian war veteran named Viktor Ginsburg. They settled in Lepiel, a town in Soviet Belarus, and had two daughters. Antonina and her husband lived as respected citizens enjoying all the privileges granted to war veterans.
Discovery and execution
The KGB kept the case open for many years but could not find the right Antonina Makarova. In 1976, a Soviet Army officer named Parfenov was registering some documents of his relatives in order to get a visa. He found out that everyone in his family had the last name Parfenov save one: a woman named Antonina Makarova. She was later recognized by several witnesses who had known Makarova during the war. The KGB arrested Makarova and the court sentenced her to capital punishment in November 1978. Antonina Makarova was executed by shooting on 11 August 1979. She was one of only three women legally executed by the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin.
