have settled there, then all those who are suspected of supporting partisans are to
be shot, women and children are to be transported, cattle and provisions confis-
cated and secured. The villages are then to be burned to the ground. ’2
Shortly afterwards, on a visit to Baranowicze on 30 July at which he briefed
Bach-Zelewski, Himmler toughened that order still further. He now ordered the
shooting of all Jewish men and in addition demanded that violent measures were
to be taken against women. He deliberately avoided making explicit a requirement
to shoot women, as is indicated by a radio message from the 2nd Cavalry
Regiment on 1 August: ‘Explicit order from the Reichsführer SS. All Jews must
be shot. Drive Jewish women into the marshes.’3 There was a similarly brutal order given by the commander of the mounted unit of the 1st Cavalry Regiment on 1
August to his men, albeit one that was not wholly clear with regard to the
treatment of women: ‘No male Jews are to be left alive, no families left over in
the towns and villages.’4
Further developments show that Himmler’s order was understood in various
different ways. The 1st Cavalry Regiment assumed that it had been ordered to
murder all Jews without distinction and, from 3 August onwards, the SS Cavalry
(and in particular members of the mounted unit) therefore shot thousands of Jews
in Chomsk, Motol, Telechany, Svyataya Volya, Hancewicze, and other places—
men, women, and children. The net in these ‘operations’ was usually cast so wide
that they were effectively aiming at the total annihilation of the Jewish inhabitants of
each place. 5 On 11 August the mounted unit reported that it had shot 6,504 people, although the full total can be estimated at about 11,000 victims. 6
Between 5 and 11 August the mounted unit of the 2nd SS Cavalry Regiment also
shot thousands of Jewish civilians, 6,526 people according to the regiment’s own
reports, but in total probably nearer 14,000. 7 The murder of at least 4,500 (in fact probably 6,500) in Pinsk was the ‘high point’ of this ‘operation’. 8 The victims in Pinsk were almost all Jewish men, as they were in all the other massacres carried
out by the 2nd Regiment. The Regiment reported that ‘Jewish looters’ had been
shot, some urgently needed craftsmen excepted; the report goes on to say that
‘driving the women and children into the marshes was not as successful as it ought
to have been because the marshes were not deep enough for them to sink all the
way in’. 9 The final report made by the Brigade on 18 September 1941, covering both phases of their ‘cleansing operation’, lists altogether ‘14,178 looters shot, 1,001
partisans shot and 699 Red Army supporters shot’. 10 In fact the total number of Jews murdered in August by the Brigade will have exceeded 25,000. 11
Extension of Shootings to Whole Jewish Population
221
In the following weeks the Cavalry Brigade pursued their ‘cleansing operation’
almost uninterruptedly and shot thousands more Jews, chiefly under the pretext
of combating ‘partisans’. From the beginning of September on members of the
2nd Regiment also shot women and children. 12 The mass murder of Jewish civilians that the Cavalry Brigade began so terribly in the first half of August,
and which claimed the lives of thousands of women and children, had a radical-
izing effect on all the units that were under the command of the Higher SS and
Police Commander Russia Centre, Bach-Zelewski. It is true that the total of those
murdered by Einsatzgruppe B in those weeks was lower than in July, but the
decisive shift was that shooting women and children was now the norm across the
whole Einsatzgruppe. 13
In the first half of August members of Einsatzkommando 9 in Vileyka shot at
least 320 Jews in various ‘operations’, including women and children; 14 a few weeks previously Sonderkommando 7a had already ‘liquidated all the male Jews’
in that area. 15 The leader of Einsatzkommando 9, Alfred Filbert, indicated whilst being interrogated that the command to shoot women and children had been
given to him by Nebe, the leader of Einsatzgruppe B, at the beginning of August. 16
After the murders in the area around Vileyka, Einsatzkommando 9 marched to
Vitebsk in August and murdered thousands more people in a series of ‘operations’
carried out from then until October. 17
According to his testimony after the war, 18 the leader of Einsatzkommando 8, Otto Bradfisch, also heard from Nebe in the first half of August that ‘there is an
order from the Führer in place according to which all the Jews, women and
children included, are to be destroyed’. Bradfisch further testified that a short
while later, when Himmler was in Minsk on 15 August19 viewing a shooting by Bradfisch’s commando, he also told him that ‘there is an order from the Führer in
place for the shooting of all Jews. This order must be followed, however difficult
that may be for us.’20
The indiscriminate shooting of women and children can be proved to have been
the practice of Einsatzkommando 8 from August onwards, but in an intensified
form in September and October. One section of Einsatzkommando 8 stationed in
Bobruisk carried out at least seven shootings and in a single one of the ‘operations’
that must have taken place in the first half of September at least 400 men, women,
and children were killed. 21 Another section of Einsatzkommando 8 (this one stationed in Borisov) murdered all 700 inhabitants of the Sembin ghetto in
August, 22 and thereafter, probably in the first half of September, a further
‘major operation’ was carried out in Lahoisk in which, according to an incident
report of 23 September, 920 Jews were killed with the support of a commando of
the SS Division ‘Das Reich’. 23 This ‘operation’ also involved the murder of all the Jewish women and children in the town since it was thenceforth described as ‘free
of Jews’. At about the same time, this commando murdered another 640 Jews in
Nevel and 1,025 in Yanovichi, and in both cases the reason given was the need to
222
Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941
prevent the spread of contagious diseases. 24 Further massacres, each with several hundred victims, were carried out by the same commando in various places before
the end of September. 25
According to incident reports, 26 at around the end of September the section of Einsatzkommando 8 stationed in Borisov and parts of the commando that had
remained behind in Minsk together shot ‘1,401 Jews in a major operation in
Smolowicze [Smolevichi]’, men, women, and children. The relevant report goes
on to say, ‘now that this cleansing operation has been carried out there are no Jews
remaining in the north, south, or west of Borisov’. Police Battalion 322 shot a total
of 257 Jews on 28 August in Antopol—this was part of a major ‘special operation’
in which the Higher SS and Police Commander Russia Centre reported 1,170 Jews
murdered in the areas around Antopol and Bereza-Kartuska. 27
On 1 September Police Battalion 322 had shot ‘914 Jews, including 64 women’ in
Minsk after a discussion between Bach-Zelewski and Daluege on 29 August. 28 The reason given in the battalion’s war diary for shooting so large a number of Jewish
women was that they were ‘picked up during a raid for not wearing the Star of
David’. 29 This execution
was in fact part of a series of raids and shootings that claimed approximately 5,000 victims in the Minsk ghetto between 14 August and 1
September. 30
On 25 September Battalion 322 performed the ‘lock-down’ and search of a
village as part of a ‘demonstration exercise’ for representatives of the Wehrmacht
(including divisional and regimental commanders), the police, and the SD. The
unit’s war diary reports that during this ‘exercise’ it had not been possible to arrest
any partisans but that ‘a check performed on the population showed the presence
of 13 Jews and 27 Jewesses as well as 11 Jewish children. Of these, 13 Jews and 19
Jewesses were executed in cooperation with the SD. ’31 Only when this bloody demonstration had been completed did Einsatzgruppe B set about the indiscriminate murder of members of the Jewish population within its sphere of operations.
This involved the massacre of thousands of Jews on each occasion, including
women and children.
On 2 October a company of Police Battalion 322 in Mogilev (which is where
Bach-Zelewski had his headquarters) undertook a ‘special operation on the orders
of the Higher SS and Police Commander’ and picked up ‘2,208 Jews of both sexes’
(a formulation that implies the inclusion of children). These people were all shot
in an operation also involving members of the Ukrainian militia. 32 On 19 October, four days before Himmler arrived for an inspection of Bach’s new headquarters in
Mogilev, the incident reports confirm that ‘a large-scale anti-Jewish operation was
carried out in which 3,726 Jews of both sexes and all ages were liquidated’, which is
a clear indication that children were once more amongst the victims. 33 This operation involved Einsatzkommando 8 and Police Battalion 316. These two
massacres in Mogilev heralded a whole series of similar ‘major operations’ in
the east of Belarus under Bach-Zelewski’s command.
Extension of Shootings to Whole Jewish Population
223
From then on, city by city, town by town, district by district the whole of the
Jewish population, except a few remaining members of the workforce, was shot.
These ‘operations’ involved Einsatzkommandos, the Order Police, the civilian
administration, and indigenous auxiliary police officers. The focus lay on major
cities with large Jewish populations in the eastern portion of the occupation zone.
Thus, to name only the most significant places, the Vitebsk ghetto was cleared
between 8 and 10 October and 4,090 Jews were shot (according to reports by
Einsatzkommando 9); 34 when the Borisov ghetto was cleared on 20 and 21
October, at least 6,500 Jews were shot after 1,500 people with specialist training
had been filtered out; 35 in Gomel Einsatzkommando 8 shot 2,500 inhabitants of the ghetto on 3 and 4 November; 36 in Bobruisk November saw the deaths of 5,281
Jews at the hands of Einsatzkommando 8 and Police Battalion 316 during their
‘special operation’ to make the city ‘free of Jews’. 37 Other cities saw further mass executions, although exact dating and precise figures are not always easy to
establish. 38
Executions evidently progressed without let or hindrance during the winter of
1941–2. Einsatzgruppe B had already reported 45,467 liquidations by the end of
October, in which Einsatzkommandos 8 and 9 were able to demonstrate particu-
larly high figures (28,218 and 11,452 respectively). 39 By the end of February 1942, that Einsatzgruppe had reported a total of 91,012 victims. 40
Higher SS and Police Commander Russia
South and Einsatzgruppe C
Higher SS and Police Commander Jeckeln and the 1st SS Brigade played key roles
in extending the range of murders in the southern section of the front. The 1st
Brigade, which was under Jeckeln’s command, was already including Jewish
women in the murders by the end of July 1941, which was the point at which (at
the request of the 6th Army) it conducted a ‘cleansing operation’ in the area
around Zwiahel between 27 and 30 July. 41 Jeckeln’s deployment order to the Brigade includes the instruction that, besides the commissars, suspicious ‘female
agents or Jews . . . are to be treated accordingly’. 42 The Brigade reported that as a result of this ‘operation’ it had arrested 1,658 Jews (allegedly people ‘who have
significantly aided and abetted the Bolshevist system’); 800 people, ‘Jews and
Jewesses between the ages of 16 and 60’, had been shot. 43 Following this, units from the Brigade carried out further ‘operations’ in August and shot 1,385 people
on the same pretext, including 275 Jewish women and 1,109 Jewish men. 44
In the following weeks Jeckeln gave further ‘cleansing assignments’ to the 1st SS
Brigade. Members of the Brigade shot 232 Jews in Tschernjachov (Chernyachov)
on 7 August; after Himmler had expressed his disquiet to Jeckeln about the
224
Mass Executions in Occupied Soviet Zones, 1941
inactivity of the 1st Brigade and had summoned him to a meeting, 45 it shot 300
Jewish men and 139 women on or around 20 August in Starokonstantinov;
between 2 and 7 September it murdered ‘1,009 Jews and Red Army supporters’. 46
In fact the Brigade almost certainly murdered more people between the end of July
and the middle of August than their own reports suggest. The total is probably
around 7,000 Jewish men, women, and children. 47 The activity reports of the 1st SS
Brigade for August and September and Jeckeln’s radio messages confirm that in
this period the Brigade was continuously shooting Jews. 48
At the end of August Jeckeln carried out a massacre in Kamenetsk-Podolsk that
far exceeded all the Brigade’s previous ‘operations’: according to the incident report
of 22 August, ‘a commando under orders from the Higher SS and Police Commander
[shot] 23,600 Jews in three days’, men, women, and children. 49 The victims in Kamenetsk-Podolsk were mostly Jews who had been deported as ‘burdensome
foreigners’ by the Hungarian authorities in July and August into the recently
occupied Galician areas. These were largely people who had come under Hungarian
rule when Karpato-Ukraine (formerly Slovakian) was annexed in 1939. It is evident
from the minutes of a meeting held on 25 August with the Quartermaster General of
the Army that this massacre was planned in advance. At that meeting an officer of
the Quartermaster General’s staff referred to Jeckeln’s commitment to complete the
liquidation of the Jews deported into Kamenetsk-Podolsk by 1 September. 50 Of the 18,000 Jews deported from Hungary some 14,000–16,000 were shot at the end of
August about 15 km from Kamenetsk-Podolsk by Jeckeln’s staff company and Police
Battalion 320 along with further thousands of Jews from the local area; the Ukrainian
militia and Hungarian soldiers helped seal off the area. 51
After ‘a total of 44,125 persons, mostly Jews’ had been shot by ‘formations under
the Higher SS and Police Commander’ in the month of August alone, according to
incident reports, 52 Jeckeln went on with his massacres. In the early days of September a commando under the Higher SS and Police Commander Russia
South executed ‘1,303 Jews, including 876 women over the age of 12’, again
according to incident reports. 53 The murder of more than 3,000 Jews still living in the Zhitomir ghetto that took place on 19 September with the participation of
Sonderkommando 4a is
also in all likelihood to be laid at Jeckeln’s door. 54 Jeckeln certainly played a leading role in the massacre of the Kiev Jews in Babi Yar, which
involved Sonderkommando 4a, Police Regiment South, Battalions 45 and 303 and
a company of Waffen-SS. This mass execution, which incident reports indicate
claimed the lives of 33,771 Jews, 55 was planned on 26 September in a meeting attended by Jeckeln, the head of Einsatzgruppe C, Otto Rasch, the leader of
Sonderkommando 4a, Paul Blobel, and the City Commandant of the Wehrmacht.
This massacre was ‘justified’ as a reprisal for a huge fire in the city that had
allegedly been started by Jews.
Jeckeln was also responsible for the massacre of the Jews in Dnepropetrovsk
on 13 October, where, according to the incident reports, of some 30,000 Jews
Extension of Shootings to Whole Jewish Population
225
remaining in the city, ‘approximately 10,000 were shot by a commando of the
Higher SS and Police Leader on 13 October 1941’. In this series of massacres,
personally supervised by Jeckeln up to October, 1941, more than 100,000 people
were murdered. This wave of mass murders provides the background for the
activities of Einsatzgruppe C and the Police Battalion deployed in the southern
parts of the occupied Soviet Union during the late summer and autumn. Some of
these units had already been directly involved in the major ‘operations’ initiated
by Jeckeln. Jeckeln was responsible for giving the decisive impetus that prompted
the commandos and police battalions to move towards the comprehensive anni-
hilation of the Jewish population. 56
Erwin Schulz, the leader of Einsatzkommando 5, testified that during his stay in
Berdichev (between 24 July and 17 August) Rasch, Commander of the Einsatz-
gruppe C, had summoned him to Zhitomir to explain that not only those Jews
who were not being used as labour but also their wives and children were to be
shot. Rasch claimed that this order came from Jeckeln. Schultz testified further to
the effect that, as a result, he went at once to Berlin to have this order confirmed by
Streckenbach, head of personnel at the Reich Security Head Office. Streckenbach, he
Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Page 40