Shootings

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.

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.”

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”

This document, dated 31 August 1941 and issued by the Trakai district administration in Lithuania, reports that “in Kaišiadorys, Žasliai, and Žiežmariai there is not a single person of Jewish nationality remaining,” and proceeds to request instructions on how “to deal with the movable and immovable property that belonged to the Jews.”

Telex from the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Russia South, Friedrich Jeckeln, to the Kommando Stab RF-SS, dated 26 August 1941. The situation report records that the 1st SS Brigade reported “82 Jews shot,” Police Regiment South reported “549 Jews shot,” Police Battalion 314 recorded “69 Jews shot,” and the staff company of the HSSPF reported “546 Jews shot.” Taken together, the figures in the telex amount to the reported shooting of 1,269 Jews.

Radio message from the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Russia South, Friedrich Jeckeln, to the Kommando Stab RF-SS, dated 28 August 1941. The situation report records that Police Regiment South reported “369 Jews shot,” while Police Battalion 320 stated that, “approximately 5,000 Jews were shot” during the “special action” in Kamenets-Podolsky (Kamianets-Podilskyi).

Dated 10 November 1941 and issued by the Wehrmacht commander in occupied Belarus, this monthly report records that of 10,940 prisoners taken, 10,431 were executed, and that in a single “cleansing operation” near Sluzk, 5,900 Jews were shot by Reserve Police Battalion 11.

Telex from the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Russia South, Friedrich Jeckeln, to the Command Staff RF-SS, dated 25 August 1941. The situation report states that the 1st SS Brigade recorded “283 Jews shot,” while Police Regiment South recorded “1,342 Jews shot.”

Telex (copy) from the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Russia South, Friedrich Jeckeln, to the Kommando Stab RF-SS, dated 22 August 1941. The situation report records that Police Bataillon 45 “shot 5 prisoners, among them 3 armed women, 19 further bandits, and 66 Jews. Furthermore, in Sudylkuw 471 Jews.”