Einsatzgruppen

Mobile Killing Squads

Contemporary Source

1943-08-31 / KdS Kauen Situation Report on the Ghetto Vilna: “Some Were Shot Together With Their Family Members”

Extract from a situation report issued by the Commander of the Security Police and SD (KdS) in Kauen (Kaunas) on 31 August 1943. The document describes the planned clearing of the Ghettos in Lithuania, which “triggered a mood of panic, as they assume they will be shot”. On the Ghetto in Vilna, the report notes that “this led to an attempted escape by several hundred Jews. Some were shot together with their family members”.

Contemporary Source

1944-03-22 / Jewish Prisoners Escaped from Panevėžys: “were recaptured and could be given special treatment”

On March 22, 1944, State Police office in Tilsit sent a report to the Commander of the Security Police and SD in Kaunas. The report concerns a group of Jewish forced laborers in Ponevezh who had escaped from a work detail of District Commissioner in Ponevezh. According to the document, “approximately 50 Jews in Ponevezys fled from external labor, and that all but 15 Jews were recaptured and could be given special treatment”, i.e. they were killed.

Kamenets-Podolsky massacre 1941
Contemporary Source

1941-08-27 / Radio Message on the Massacre at Kamenets-Podolsky: “Special Action Staff with Police Battalion 320 shot 4,200 Jews”

On 27 August 1941, a radio message from the Higher SS and Police Leader South recorded the on-set of one of the largest mass shootings of Jews during the early phase of the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet territories. Under “activities,” the notes that Police Battalion 320, together with a detachment of the staff company, was in Kamenets-Podolsky carrying out a “Sonderaktion,” or “special action.” Under “successes, the report states that the “Special Action Staff with Police Battalion 320 shot 4,200 Jews.”

Report dated April 5, 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-04-05 / German Army in Mariampol (Lithuania): Reinforce “Jewish Graves With an Additional Covering of Earth”

Medical Services Report issued by the Ortskommandantur in Mariampol (Lithuania) on 5 April 1942. the report notes the need to reinforce “the Jewish graves at the edge of the barracks grounds with an additional covering of earth, because runoff from precipitation and flooding (the graves are located directly on the bank of the Sesupe River and are covered only by a 50 cm layer of earth) have washed away the covering layer and exposed the corpses”.

Situation report dated January 13, 1944
Contemporary Source

1944-01-13 / Security Police Kovno Situation Report: “64 Laborers Deployed At Fort IX As Part Of Operation 1005 B Broke Out”

Situation report dated 13 January 1944 from the Commander of the Security Police and SD in Kovno. According to the report, on 25 December 1943, “64 laborers deployed at Fort IX as part of Operation 1005 B broke out”. Subsequent search operations resulted in the recapture of “37 of the escapees” of whom “5 were shot while fleeing”. The escape involved Jewish prisoners assigned to the Sonderkommando 1005 body-disposal site at Fort IX. The incident was later reported up the chain of command to Himmler, including discussion of how to deal with the guards held responsible.

Report dated November 11, 1943 Vilna Ghetto executions
Contemporary Source

1943-11-11 / The Security Police in Vilna: “8,019 Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish Children Have Been Executed”

On 9 November 1943, the Commander of the Security Police and SD in Lithuania sent a telex to the Vilna office and ordered the preparation of a report on the “executive/security situation in all of Lithuania for the year 1943 up to the present”. The Security Police office in Vilna submitted its report two days later, on 11 November 1943. On the Jews, the report stated that the Vilna Ghetto and the smaller rural ghettos together had contained “24,180 Jews”. Of these, “8,019 Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish children have been executed”, while a further “14,000 Jews were registered and dispatched in collective transports” for forced labor in the Vaivara oil shale region. According to the report, only “2,382 Jews in the city district of Vilna and 1,720 in the rural district” remained.

Guidelines on the Treatment of the Jewish Question 29 January 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-01-29 / Guidelines for the Occupied Eastern Territories: “Elimination of Jewry […] Fairly Rapid Solution of the Jewish Question”

On 29 January 1942, the office of the Reichsführer-SS forwarded to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories a proposed version of guidelines for the “Jewish question.” The guideline states that “the Jewish question must be solved generally for all of Europe” and that “measures in the occupied eastern territories which serve the final solution of the Jewish question and thereby the elimination of Jewry are in no way to be hindered”. The guidelines added that, especially in the occupied eastern territories “a fairly rapid solution of the Jewish question is to be sought”. They also remarked that “any “actions by the local civilian population against the Jews” were not “to be prevented”.

Report dated September 4, 1941 Jews liquidated Lithuania
Contemporary Source

1941-09-04 / “All Jews Were liquidated” – A Lithuanian Police Report During Nazi Occupation

Report dated September 4, 1941, from the Kaišiadorys police precinct (Trakai district, Lithuania) to the head of the Trakai district. The document records that “on August 27 … all citizens of Jewish nationality were liquidated – shot by members of the auxiliary police who had arrived from Kaunas and by German soldiers.” The author then turns to administrative matters and requested “instructions on how to proceed with the remaining movable and immovable property of the Jews.”

Telex dated 9 February 1942 Jäger report
Contemporary Source

1942-02-09 / “138,272, of Which Women 55,556, Children 34,464” – Executions Reported By EK 3 Commander Karl Jäger

On February 6, 1942, the BdS Ostland in Riga (head of Einsatzgruppe A) telexed its Einsatzkommandos in Reval, Minsk and Kaunas to receive a break-down of “the number of executions carried out” and specifically asked “how many were women and children?” Three days later, the commander of Einsatzkommando 3 in Kaunas, Karl Jäger, telexed to Riga the “Executions up to 1 February 1942 by EK 3”: “Jews 136,421, Communists 1,064, Partisans 56, Mentally ill 653, Poles 44, Russian prisoners of war 28, Gypsies 5, Armenians 1”. Jäger summarized the total figures: “138,272, of which women 55,556, children 34,464”

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