The pigeons could have been homing pigeons, used to carry information from spies in Rostov-on-Don back to Soviet-controlled territory. Banning pigeon-keeping in occupied territory was fairly normal for the time; murdering children for disobeying the occupier's decrees was sadly normal for Nazi-occupied territory.

There's a lot of information about homing pigeons in wartime in the book Secret Pigeon Service: Operation Columba, Resistance and the Struggle to Liberate Europe by Gordon Corera, published by Collins in 2018.

The pigeons could have been homing pigeons, used to carry information from spies in Rostov-on-Don back to Soviet-controlled territory. There's no way for ordinary police or soldiers to tell if pigeons are homers: there's nothing obvious about them. Banning pigeon-keeping in occupied territory was fairly normal for the time; murdering children for disobeying the occupier's decrees was sadly normal for Nazi-occupied territory.

There's a lot of information about homing pigeons in wartime in the book Secret Pigeon Service: Operation Columba, Resistance and the Struggle to Liberate Europe by Gordon Corera, published by Collins in 2018.