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Lithuania after the NAZIS seized Memel (1939) was annexed by the Soviets (1940) under the terms of secret protocols in the NAZI-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Sempo Sugihara, the Japanese Consul in Kaunaus (the inter-war capital of Lithuania), issued over 1,600 transit visas to Jewsish refugees fleeing Poland, allowing them to transit the Soviet Union. The NAZIs occupied Lithuania in June 1941 in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa--the invasion of the Soviet Union. The specialized killing units the Eizenstazgrupen were deployed with chilling effiency. Almost at the inception of NAZI occupation ther were mass executions of Jews.
The first was the killing of about 1,000 Jews at Vilijampole (June 25-26, 1941). Lithuanian collaborators enthusiastically embraced NAZI anti-Semitic propaganda. The attempted to identify Jews with Communism and the attrocities committed by Stalin during the Soviet occupation (1940-41). Many insisted that undoing Soviet rule and Communism required liquidating Jews. They began the same process persued in Poland by the NAZIs. While the NAZIs were unavle to find collaborators in Polnd, they were able to do so in Lithusnia. The local authorities subjected the Jews to a series of repressive measure designed to humiliate them, marginalize them. steal their propery, and ultimately kill them. Those not likked immeiately after the NAZI invssion were hearded into gettos like those formed in Poland. Most of the country's 240,000 Jews were killed. This was 90-95v percent, the highest mortality rate in NAZI occupied Europe.
Jes appeared in Lithuania during the late medieval era. Jews are noted during the reign of Grand Duke Gedeyminus, who founded the first Lithuanian state (14th century). Historians note many thriving Jewish communities (late 15th century). Vilnius became the center of Jewish life in Lithuania. Lithuanian Jews developed a vibrant community with a destinct, highly developed culture. Many Lithuanian Jews spke a destinctive dialect of the Yiddish language. We note some separate Jewish schools. Although by the 20th century, Lithuania was only a small Baltic country, the country's Jewish community was one of the most notable in Europe. Some like rabbi Israel Meir Lau, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, saw Lithuanian Jews as the "spiritual leaders of the entire Jewry". There were many notable Jewish institutions in Lithuania: the Gaon of Vilnius, the famous Lithuanian yeshivas, the YIVO, the Romm publishers, the Strashun library, the Department of Semitic languages at the University of Vytautas the Great in Kaunas. Lithuanian Jews were involved in major schools of Jewish religious thought as well as secular movements like the Jewish workers' movement and Zionism. I am unsure to what extent the Jewish population in Lithuania had assimilated into the larger Lithuanian population. I think that a substantial part of the population lived as a separate community. The country had a pre-World War II population of 0.2 million. One source estimates the Lithuanian Jewish population at about 160,000 people, about 7 percent of the country's total population. After the NAZI and Soviet invasions of Poland (September 1939), refugees fled into still independent Lithuania. The Soviet Union also transferred Vilinus, which Poland had seized in 1938, back to LituniaThia. Lithuania's Jewish population thus swelled the Jewish population to about 240,000 people. Much of Lithuania's Jewish population was concentrated in Vilnius. The city was known as the Jerusalem of the North or the Jerusalem of Diaspora. Jews all over Europe adminred the city's Yiddish-language theaters, libraries, schools and its Talmudic scholars. Jewish Lithuanians referred to themselves as "Litwakes. Abraham Mapu, Abraham Sutzkever, and Eisik Meir Dick were noted Jewish authors. There were also artists and musiscians. Violinist Jascha Heifetz and artist Mark Chagall were among the most famous.
The portrait here is of a family in Kovno, southern
Lithuania, a city which, during World War II, had a famous Jewish ghetto into
which the Jews of the city were forced to move after the German invasion of
the Soviet Union in 1941. The photograph was taken in 1935 when Lithuania was still an independent country. They look to be a prosperous, largely assismilated middle-class family. The children in the photograph wear typical northern European dress (similar to that of Germany and Poland in the 1930s). Notice that two of the children (the boy and girl in the center of the front row) wear sailor outfits. They look as though they might be 7 or 8 years old. The boy at the extreme right, probably about 10 or 11, wears a sweater with the white collar of his shirt outside it, short trousers, and brown long stockings. The gender of the child in the front row at the left would appear to be a girl (note the strap shoes and longer hair style), but it looks as though he/she is wearing short pants rather than a skirt. All the children are wearing long stockings. Note the variety of colors--tan, white, black, and brown. The man with the white beard in the second row is a rabbi and is possibly the father of the children.
Memel at the time of World War I was largely German, perhaps 80 percent. (Throughout the Baltics, the major port cities had substantial German populations heras the Baltic people dominated in the surrounding rural areas.)
The Treaty of Versailles ending Worldc War I separated Memel and the surrounding area from Germany. This was done without any plebiscite or approvall from the inhabitants. French troops occupied under a League of Nations mandate. After the War, an Allied commission suggested making Memel a "Free City" overseen by the League of Nations (1922). Memel's substantial German and Polish communities supported this proposal but Lithuanians formed a Committee for
the Salvation of Lithuania Minor. While a crisis in the Ruhr, Lithuania seizred the city. Local Lithuanians aided by the Lithuanian Army seized Memel from the small French garrison (January 1923). The Allies decided not to respond militarily and Lithuanian sovereignty over Memel (Klaipeda) was subsequently recognized with the signing of the Memel Statute (France, Britain, Italy and Japan) (March 8, 1924). Memel was given some autonomy within Lithuania. The local legislature (Landtag) was given authority over internal affairs but its actions had to approved by a approval of a governor appointed by the Lithuanian President. The German community never accepted Lithuanian rule. The Lithuanians had to declare martial law twice (1926 and 1938). The Germans in Mememel with the rise of the NAZIs in Germany saw the possibilitybof rejoining Germany. The local Germans thus became highly politicized and strog supporters of the NAZIs. The local NAZIs won 26 of 29 seats on the Landtag (December 1938) The NAZIs seized Memel from Lithuania even before World War II began with the invasion of Poland. Under threat of German invasion, the Lithuanian government was forced to return the Memel District to the Reich (March 22, 1939). A German naval force prepared to attacke Memel, but Lithuanian acquienese allowed it to sail into Memel harbor without opposition (March 23). Hitler was aboard and delivered an address broadcast throughout the Reich. Wilhelm Frick (1877-1946) as Minister of Interior oversaw the process of brining Memel (and other areas annexed by the Reich) under German law. He oversaw a racial egister of people of German ancestry. (Memel had been a part of the German Empire before World war I.) German citizenship was also conferred on some foreigners. Fick overv saw the implementation of German law, German courts, German education, German police security, and compulsory military service. The annexation of the city also brought Memel Jews there under the NAZI anti-Semetic laws. We have no details yet on what happened to the Jews in Memel. As support for the NAZIs grew in the 1930s there was increasing ant-Semitism. Many saw what was coming and there was a mass exodous after the local NAZIs won the Landtag election (December 1938). During World War II, Hitler ordered that Memel be defended. The German civilian populated was evacuated west (October 1944). After heavy fighting the Red Army took the city which was largely destroyed (January 28, 1945). Memel is now Klaipeda in Lithuanian. The Soviets did not allow the Germans to return, but few Germans wanted to return to Soviet dominated Memel.
Lithuanians have always looked on Vilnius as their capital. Vilnius had an especially important Jewish community. Poland also claimed Vilnius as this area of Eastern Europe has a mixed Lithuania, White Russian, and Polish population. Poland while the world's attention was on Muich, demanded that Lithuania ceed Vilnius. Without a sizeable army, Lithuania was forced to do so (1938). After the Soviet invasion (1939), the Soviets transferred Vilinus back to Lithuania. I'm not entirely sure why Stalin did this. Nor do I know how these shifts affected the Jewish community in Vilinus.
The Germans more than any other military, correctly assessed the lessons of World War II. The War in Europe began in 1939 when the German blitzkrieg smashed
Poland in only a few weeks. The invasion was made possible the preceeding week when Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler. The Panzers crossed the
Polish frontier on September 1 along with a devestating strike by the Luftwaffe. The Polish Army and Air Force was shattered. Over 1 million German soldiers
surged into Poland. Hitler emerged from the Reich Chancellery in a new grey uniform with his World War I Iron Cross. In a speech at the Reichstag before cheering NAZIs he declared, "I myself am today, and will be from now on, nothing but the soldier of the German Reich." Whithin 6 days Cracow, the center of Polish
nationhood, fell. Pincer movements began on September 9 to encirle the major remaining Polish forces. Once certain of Polish defeat, Stalin ordered the Red Army to attack from the East. German and Russian forces met at Brest-Litovsk on September 18. Warsaw fell a few days later after a ruthless bombing assault. The
Blitzkrieg tactics that were to prove so devestaing in the West during 1940 were all on display in 1939. Neither the British or French showed much attention,
abscribing Polish defeat to military incompetance. The French had promissed the Poles an offensive in the West. It never came. [Fest, pp. 602-603.]
Lituania was allocated to the Soviet sphere of influence under the terms of secret protocols in the NAZI-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (August 1939). The Soviets after coopperating with the NAZIs to destroy Poland, returned Vilnius to Lithuania (October 1939). Lithuania considered Vilnus to be its capital, but he city was seized by Poland after World war I. I am not sure why Stalin decided to return it to Lithuania, but he was already planning the seizue of Lithuania and the other Baltic Republics. Vilnus had a Jewish population of about 80,000 which substantially increased the Jewish population of Lithuania.
Combined with the Jews who managed to flee NAZI-occupied Poland, there were about 250,000 Jews in Lithuania (1940). The Soviet invasion significantly affected Jewish life in the country. There was no racial persecution, but anything associated with the Hebrew language was banned. The Soviets banned the lanuage. Books in Hebrew were removed from libraries. They closed Hebrew institutions (yeshivas, schools, and public organizations, all parties. The Soviets did no ban Yiddish schools so the children in the Hebrew schools transferred to Yiddish schools. The Soviets banned all political parties except the Communist Party and closed newsapers, except one which published the apptroved party line. Books considered anti-Communist were removed. Leading citizens, scientists, politicians, public officials, army and police officers were arrested. Some were executed or died in prison but most were deported. The families of those arrested were also deported. While Jews were among those arrested and deported there were also Jews among the Communists who assisted in the Soviet operatioins in Lithuania. There was considerable anti-semitism in Lithuania before the Soviet invasion and many Lithanians felt that the Jews were cooperating with the attrovcities the Soviets perpetrated in Lithiania during 1940-41.
Lithiania during World war II was in the unenviable position of being located between NAZI Germany and Soviet Russia. The country was a bone of contention between the NAZIs and Soviets as they discussed how to divide Eastern Europe. At first Lithuania was to be in the NAZI zone, but eventually Stalin got possession of the country. Apparently Hitler did not want to push the issue as he had decided to invade the Soviet Union anyway. Stalin desired to Russify Lithuania and began a program of deporting ethnuc Lithuanians. This program had only begun when the NAZIs invaded (June 1941). The Jews were the people targeted by the NAZIs. Mass mirder began from the moment the NAZIs crossed the Lithuanian frontier. As a resilt of the brief but brital Soviet occupation, there was considerable support for the NAZIs when they entered Lithuania. THe German invasion was so swift, that relatively little damage was done. After stunning victories in the East, the Red Army reached the bordrs of Lithuania (1944). Enormous damage was done as the Red Army frove west to Poland and Germany.
Sempo Sugihara, the Japanese Consul in Kaunaus (the inter-war capital of Lithuania), issued over 1,600 transit visas to Jewsish refugees fleeing Poland, allowing them to transit the Soviet Union. He issued these visas after the invasion of Poland and before being releaved of his duties. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was embarassed at his actions as they were at the time negotiating with the Germans. The Soviets who were also negotiating with the Japanese, honored the visas and allowed the Jews to transit the Soviet Union. Most wound up in Shanghai. The Japanese maintained a kind of Jewsish ghetto there, but not under the harsh conditions that Allied civilians were held in concentration camps. The Japanese were NAZI Germany's most powerful ally, but were mistified about about yth NAZI onsessioins with the Jews. To the Japanese they just looked like nd behaved like other Europeans. Most of the Jews receiving the Japanes visas managed to survive the War. Sugihara and his family survived the War and eventually made it back to Japan. There the Japanese Foreign Ministry refused to give him his job back. Officials claim that it was because of staff cut backs. Most believe it was because he defied orders and issued the visas.
The NAZIs occupied Lithuania in June 1941 in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa--the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Battle of Britain in many ways changed the course of the War. An invasion of Britain was impossible without air superiority. Hitler, fearing a cross-Channel invasion, decided that the only way to force the British to seek terms was to destroy the Soviet Union. He began shifting the Wehrmacht eastward to face the enemy that he had longed to fight from
the onset--Soviet Russia. The nature of the War changed decisevely in the second half of 1941. The Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, launching the most sweeping military campaign in history. It is estimated that on the eve of battle,
6.25 million men faced each other in the East. The Soviets were surprised and devestated. Stalin ignored warnings from the British who as a result of Ultra had details on the German preparations. Stalin was convinced that they were trying to
draw him into the War and until the actual attack could not believe that Hitle would attack him. The attack was an enormous tactical success. The Soviets were surprised and devestated. The Soviet Air Force was destoyed, largely on the
ground. The Germans captured 3.8 million Soviet soldiers in the first few months of the campaign. No not knowing the true size of the Red Army, they thought they had essentally won the War. German columns seized the major cities of western
Russia and drove toward Leningrad and Moscow.
Almost at the inception of NAZI occupation ther were mass executions of Jews.
The first was the killing of about 1,000 Jews at Vilijampole (June 25-26, 1941). Lithuanian collaborators enthusiastically embraced NAZI anti-Semitic propaganda ad ctions. The attempted to identify Jews with Communism and the attrocities committed by Stalin during the Soviet occupation (1940-41). Many insisted that undoing Soviet rule and Communism required liquidating Jews. They began the same process persued in Poland by the NAZIs. While the NAZIs were unable to find collaborators in Poland, they were able to do so in Lithusnia. The local authorities subjected the Jews to a series of repressive measure designed to humiliate them, marginalize them. steal their propery, and ultimately kill them. The Germans encouraged Lithuanian participation because it supported the idea that the persecution of the Jews was not a purely German effort. Most of the killing was done by Germans, but Lithuanians were involved in some actions. Primarily the Lithuanian help identify and concentgrate their Jewish countrymen. Within a few months, most of Lithuania's Jews were either murdered or confined in ghettos. Unknown to the Litunians was the fate the Germans were preparing fotr them under Generaplan Ost was hidiously similr to tht of the Jews.
NAZI actions in the East were much more draconian than in the West and begun the moment German trrops arrived. Pogroms erupted throughout Lithuania. After the Germans arrived, pogroms began immediately. In many cases these were conducted by Lithuanians. I am not sure to what extent the Germans were involved. Anti-semitic orders were issued. Again both Lithuanian and NAZI officials issued these orders. Jews were prohibited from frequenting public places or using public transport. Bicycles and cars were seized. They had to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing. Jews were even prohibited from walking on sidewalks. A Jewish girl who kept a dairy writes, "At first, I felt not so much afraid as ashamed to go out onto the street. My classmates and teacher walked on the sidewalk and I had to walk on the street like a horse." [Muhm]
Many Lithuanians were active supporters in the Holocaust. The roots of anti-Semtism in Lithuania were deep and historic. Much of it was associated with Lithuania's strong Catholocism. Clerics in the Catholic Church had for many years portrayed Jews in very negative terms, describing them as Christ killers. The size of the Jewish community was another factor. A key factor was the Soviet Occupation (1940-41). The Soviets arrested large numbers of Litthuanians abnd deported many more to central Asia and Siberia where many died. Many Lithuanians, as did the NAZIs, associated the Soviets and Communism with the Jews
The NAZIs within weeks established ghettos at Vilnius, Kaunas, Kovno, and Shiauliai.
The Jews tried to create a semblance of normality within these ghettos. They opened libraries and attempted to organize a cultural life.
Vilnius Jews were forced to move into a Ghetto (September 1941). There were in fact at first two ghetto separated by Deutsche Gasse (German Lane). Ghetto 1 was designated for craftsmen and productive workers who had been issued work permits. Ghetto 2 was for those without work permits. This included the elderly, orphans. scholars and teachers without mannual skills, and others. The NAZIs were especially interested in eliminating any one they saw as non productive. Only 6 weeks after it was established, Ghetto 2 was liquidated and the Jews shot. Getto 1 was made up of 72 dilapidated buildings. Conditions were unbearable. Food was severly restricted. Hygiene was primitive. Living space was calculated at only 1.5 to 2 square meters per person. Even worse, while Ghetto 1 eacaped the immediate liquidation og Ghetto 2, killing also occurred at Gello 1 and went on continuously. The NAZIs and thdir Lithuanian collaborators conducted nightly Aktionen (raids), German Einsatzkommando (task force) units hunted Jews without the required yellow certificates (work permits). Jews found without these permits were arrested and marched in groups to the Ponar forest located about 8 kilometers from Vilnius where there were shot at the side of mass graves. An estimated 70,000 Lithuanian Jews, mostly from Vilnius, were killed in the Ponar forest. Much of this killing was done by Lithuanian collaborators. A Jewish girl in the Ghetto wrote, " Lithuanians worked as guards. In general, the Germans only gave orders. Lithuanians did the shootings. They got a work permit and were allowed to keep money and other valuables they found on the dead bodies."
[Note: These Actions were conducted variously. Often the Jews were forced to undress before they were shot to make the process of looting any valuables easier as well as enabling their clothes to be sold.] There were attempts to resist the NAZIs. Itzik Witenberg organized the United Partisans Organization (FPO). They spread leaflets which read "All the roads of the Gestapo lead to Ponar. And Ponar is death! Let us not go as sheep to the slaughter!" Real resistance was not possible. Even Witenberg had to surrender to the SS (July 16, 1943).
While this went on, the Jews in the Ghetto attempted to establish a semblance of normality. A Jewish girl in the Ghetto explains that there were efforts to use art as a form of resistance.
"At the beginning of 1942, some intellectuals gathered to found a choir, a theater, dancing classes and an orchestra. "It was difficult to run the choir. After every Aktion some singers were missing and they had to be replaced by new ones. People were tired after their hard work, and many were in mourning and did not want to sing. There was also a library, and people would read. I used to sit on the staircase of our house and read. I just wanted to escape from this nightmarish reality." [Muhm] Herman Kruk also kept a diary to chronicle life in the Vilnius ghetto. Lectures on the a wide range of cultural and scientific topics were conducted. Concerts and art exhibiytions were held. Schools were organized for the children surviving the mass executions.The surviving Jews in the Vilnius Ghetto were incouraged by NAZI reversals on the Eastern Front. The NAZis, however, attempted to destroy evidence of their crimes as the Red Army moved west. They destroyed buildings and killed are evacuated survivors. The NAZIs evacuated the Vilnius Ghetto (September 23-24, 1943). One survivor was separated from her mother and younger siblings. Her mother's parting words were, ""Goodbye, my child! At least you will live! Take revenge for our babies!" She and others considered suitable for work moved to the camp Kaiserwald concentration camp north of Riga. As the NAZIs continued to retreat she was again moved to the Stutthof extermination camp near Danzig (modern Gdansk). This wa followed by a punishing 3-week march to keep ahead of the Red Army. Finally she was rescued by Soviet soldiers just as the SS guards were about to burn a barn into which she and others had been quartered. [Mulm]
Some Jews attempted to continue their lives as best they could. Dr. Nachman Shapira confined in the Kaunas ghetto wrote a paper on how to teach children to think about death. Almost none of those confined in the Lithuanian gettos survived the War. Sid Shacknow was 10 years old when the Germans arrived in Kaunas. He remembers an idelic life in Kaunas. He describes a oictuesque river-side town of about 160,000 people, about 40,000 of whom were Jewish. He does not recall seeious anti-Semitsm, but rather people amicaly going about their daily lives. The Soviet Union invaded and incorporated Lithuania (1940). The Germans invaded the next year (June 1941). Within a week the Germand reached Konos. Local Lithuanians in the first 30 days of the German occupation killed about 10,000 of the city's Jews. (This does not mean the population as whole did this. With the Germans in control, no effort to oppose the killing openly was possible.) The remaining Jew were ordered into a getto that was set up with barbed wire. It was eventually turned into the Kovno concentration concentration camp. It was not a death camp in that gas chambers and crematoria were built. Jews in the ghetto and lader the KZ were taken out at shot little by little. Trenches were dug. The people lined up and shot. When the trnches were anout two-thirds filled, they were covered over with dirt and another trench dug. Of the 40,000 Jews in Kaunas during 1941, only about 2,000 survived. Some survived in Kaunas. Sid survived because he was taken in and hidden, at great risk, by Lithuanian families. Some Jews escaped from Kaunas. Some survived at other camps. Tragically 95 percent of the town's Jews perished. [Shacknow]
The specialized killing units the Eizenstazgrupen were deployed with chilling effiency.
Actions against the Jews in Lithuania were conducted by SS Einsatzkommando unit A. The SS was able to very rapidly round up Lithuanian Jews because they received considerable support from the loval population. Because of the ruthless Soviet occupation, many Lithuanians looked on the NAZIs as liberators. Lithuanians played a major role in both the round up and killing of Lithuanian Jews. In Vilnius and other cities, squads of Lithuanians roamed the streets looking for Jews. Sometimes they were killed outfight, more commonly they were taken into custody. Many were killed within days, others were confined in the ghettos. These Lithuanian units were at first only loosly organized. Within weeks the NAZIs formed 20 local police battalions (July 1941). These battalions played a major role in the Lithuanian Holocaust. Estimates suggest that more than half of the Lithuanian Jews killed were murdered by these units. Some estimates are as high as two-thirds.
Lithuanian collaborators assissted the NAZIs with mass executions of Lithuanian Jews. Large numbers of Jews were killed at Paneriai (Vilnius), forts in Kaunas, especially the IXth, and many other locatuions. These killing took place before the death camps were operational and thus there are mass graves located at many sites in Lihuania. There are about 200 such mass graves.
Most inhabitants of the Kovno ghetto were sent to
NAZI death camps where they perished. Under German occupation Kovno lost
about 95 percent of its Jewish population. Out of a total of about 235,000
Jews in Soviet Lithuania, only a few thousand survived.
There were local people who tried to save Jew, especially Jewish children. Some notable individuals were Petras Bublys, Elena Kutorgien?, and priest Bronius Paukshtis. About 1,000 Jewish children were successfully hidden from the NAZIs. Some of the saviors were Wehrmacht soldiers. Sergeant Anton Schmidt helped smuggle Jews out of the Vilnus Ghetto. He hid Jews in the basement of a mattress workshop and then organized their escape in Wehrmacht military trucks. He is believed to have rescued about 300 Jews. He was executed by the NAZIs (Spring 1942).
[Emil Scherbreuner?] also at the Vilnus Ghetto issued work permits which prevented immediate deportment to the death camps.
One of the saviors who is now honored at [Vad Vasham?] in Israel was improbably a Wehrmacht officer--Major Karl Plagge, The Holocaust was conducted by the SS, but the Wehrmacht played an important support role. Therecwere, however, men of conscious and one of them was Major Karl Plagge. Improbable bevause Plagge was an early NAZI Party member and commnded a Jewish slave labor unit. He was placed in charge of a work unit from the Vilnus Ghetto. A SS unit seized some of his workers foan Estonian slate mine. Despite his best efforts, the SS prevailed. Jews in the occupied area essentially slaves that were the property of the SS. Thus they would prevail in any conflict with the Wehrmacht. Plagge in an effort to save the remaining Jews in his Hkp-562 unit mananaged to convince authorities that the Jews in his unit were performing a valuable service to the War effort. He managed to convince authorities to allow him to house his workers in the factory complex. He moved his Jews out just one week before the SS liquidated the Vilnus ghetto (September 16, 1943). Amazingly he even convinced authorities that the women and children were needed to maintain their morale. (Here obviously his immediate superiors were not fooled, but willing to support Plagge as long as it was not dangerous for them.) Saving Jews was difficult enough in NAI Germany, saving the dependant children was almost impossible. Here Plagge was astute enough to play on the one weakness in the SS--money. The Wehrmacht paid the SS for the use of the Jewish laborers. Plagge put the women and children to work repairing Wehrmact uniforms. Yhis was not totally successful. While Plagge was on leave, the SS conducted a Kinder Aktion where they seized all the children under 15 yeats of age. Another tactic that Plagge used was to try to form a unit that was not dominated by fervent NAZI supporters. Plagge like most of his men were from Darnstadt. Most knew each other and were not fervent NAZIs. New men who came into the unit were sometimes NAZIs who would abuse the Jews in the unit. Plagge would do his best to get them transferred out. As the transfers often went to the Eastern Front combat units, this affect attitudes in the unit. As the Red Army approached the Jews in HKP-562 began to hope that would survive. They also knew that the SS would kill them before the Red Army reached it. They began to prepare hiding places, but the question was when to go into hiding. This was critical, because the need for food and water and toilet facilities mean that they could only remain in hiding for at most a few days. Plagge solved this problem for them. He brought a SS officer into the camp, assessmbled the Jew and explained that because of the reverses in the War that he had to leave and could not bring them with him. He introduced the SS officer and explained that the next day the SS, who he explained were known for their protection of refugees (July 1, 1944), would take over the camp. Thus he had warned the Jews in the unit who knew what he meant and the SS could not accuse him of waning the JHews as they were involved in the nitification. That night half the camp hid or escaped into Vilnus. Only about half the camp showed up for the SS roll call the next day. They were shot. The SS succeeded in finding about half of the escapees who were also shot. But about 250 Jews survived. This was the largest group of Jews who survived the Vilnus Ghetto. [Good}
The NAZIs suceeded in killing almost all of the country's 240,000 Jews. This was about 10 percent of the country's population. Actions against the Jews were a priority of the Germans from the opening days of Operation Barbarossa (June 22, 1941). Even before the decession on the Endlösung (Final Solution) was reached in Berlin, NAZI authorities in Lithuania declared judenfrei (Jew free). This was a term that was used by quite a number of German towns. The coordinator of this operation was SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger who was very proud of his work and proudly reported his work to SS headquarters. His records provide a detailed daily record of the step-by-step annihilation of Lithuania's Jews. Jäger noted the place and date of death of all actions taken against the Jews. He reported the outright killing of 137,346 Jews and explained. "In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families. The distance between from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 kilometers to 5 kilometer." By workers and their families he was referring to Jews that had been confined into Ghettos. One concentrated in the Ghettos of course the chances of escaping were very limited. The 'Jäger Report' was a detailed daily account of the barbarous rampage fior a unit Einsatzgruppen 3--the vmurder of 137,346 Jews. Jäger managed to escape justice in the immediate post-War period. Then a copy of his report surfaced. He committed suiside before he could be tried (1959). The NAZIs and Lithuanian collaborators succeeded in killing some 90-95 percent of Lithuanian Jews. This is the highest level killed of any country in NAZI-occupied Europe. One of the reasons for this was the level of support that the NAZIs received from the local population. Unknown to these collaborators is that they also were on the NAZI target list for destruction--Generalplan Ost.
Atamukas, S. The Way of Lithuanian Jews (Vilnius, 1998).
Cohen, Rose Lerer and Saul Issroff., ed. The Holocaust in Lithuania, 1941-1945: A Book of Remembrance. This four volume work includes a detailed list of the Lithuanian Holocaust victims.
Fest, Joachim C. Hitler (Vintage Books: New York, 1974), 844p.
Good, Michael. The Search for Major Plagge: The NAZI Who Saved Jews (Fordham Univrsity Press, 2005).
Greenbaum, M. The Jews of Lithuania (Jerusalem, 1995).
Kruk. Herman.
Muhm, Manuela. "Holocaust Chronicler's Story Must Be Told" St. Petersburgh Times December 21, 2004. The article is the story of Masha Rolnikaite. Her mother and younger siblings were killed by te NAZIs, but her farher who had joined the Red Army and older sister survived. She returned to Vilnius. "It was very hard for me to get back to normal life. When I went out on the street, I unconsciously sought the yellow star. I had to force myself to walk on sidewalks. If a person gave me a menacing look, I got scared and thought what he might do to me". Masha worked on restoring her diary. She destroyed her notes when the NAZI Aktionen started in the Ghetto. Her mother explained hat if her notes had been found, the NAZIs would have likely kill the whole family. She did her best to remember the details, even in the concentration camps after the Ghetto was liquidated.
Schoenburg, N. and S. Schoenburg Lithuanian Jewish Communities (Northvale, 1996)
Shacknow, Sid. Hope and Honor ( Forge Books, 2004), 400p.
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