Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  Russian and Russian territory, the great majority of Jews had already been

  murdered in 1941. According to an official census, 22,267 Jews still lived in the

  territory at the beginning of 1942, mostly in labour camps and remote towns. In

  this military administrative area the murders were continued throughout the

  whole of the winter and during the spring. By around the middle of the year

  almost all the ghettos had been liquidated; the last ghetto to be exterminated in

  this way was probably the one in Smolensk, where around 2,000 people were

  killed on 15 July 1942. After this date, in the military administrative area Centre,

  there were only a few thousand Jews who lived in camps or were hiding in the

  woods. These murders were carried out in particular by Einsatzkommandos 8 and

  9, supported by the Order Police and Wehrmacht units. Thus in February alone,

  according to a report, Wehrmacht troops killed 2,200 ‘Jews (Bolsheviks)’. The

  sequence of actions was generally agreed with the leaders of the army rear area

  and the local garrisons. 182

  In the rear area of Army Group South, that is eastern Ukraine, there was a

  similar picture. Here too the mass murders continued throughout the winter of

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  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  1941/2, in Charkov, for example, where on 16 December the liquidation of

  12,000–15,000 Jews began, in Stalino (now Donetsk) on 9 January, or in Zaporozhe

  at the end of March. Early in the spring the majority of the Jews living in this

  territory had been shot. The murders were substantially carried out by Sonder-

  kommandos 4 and 5 of Einsatzgruppe C, again supported by the Order Police.

  In the Ukraine, too, the mass executions were generally carried out in agreement

  with the local Wehrmacht authorities, and in this territory too Wehrmacht units,

  particularly the Secret Field Police, engaged independently in the shooting of

  Jews. 183 Little is known about the murder of Jews in the rear area of Army Group North, Russian territory south of Leningrad. Here, the Security Police were present

  in relatively low numbers (sub-units of Commandos 1a and 1b). 184

  To the west, in the General Commissariat of White Ruthenia, abutting the

  military administrative area Centre, the murder actions proceeded in a different

  manner. Here the murder campaigns almost came to a standstill around the turn

  of 1941/2. This had variously to do with the frozen ground that made it impossible

  to dig pits to bury the victims—an explanation that is plainly not sound, as the

  continuation of the shootings in the military administrative area during the winter

  shows: either the ground was blown up, or already existing pits were used.

  A second reason repeatedly given for the decline in shooting actions appears

  more plausible; the civil administration did not want to lose the specialist workers,

  who were urgently needed.

  In spite of these difficulties, the KdS (Commander of the Security Police) for

  Minsk stressed at a meeting of the administrative heads of the General Commis-

  sariat of White Ruthenia on 23 January 1942 that the goal of the ‘complete

  liquidation’ of the Jews was still being pursued. He thus promised, in the following

  spring, to ‘relaunch the large-scale executions’. 185 At this point the KdS of White Ruthenia believed there was a realistic prospect of ‘liquidating’ the ‘Jewish question’ within his area of responsibility within two months. 186

  For the months of January and February there are only—somewhat dubious—

  references to two actions in Minsk in which up to 3,000 people may have been

  shot. 187 In March there were mass executions above all in the area of Vileyka, namely in Vileyka itself, in Ilya, Krasne, Rakov, and Radoschkowicze (Radoszyce),

  and also—outside this area—in Lida, Baranowicze, and Slutzk as well as in Kopyl.

  In this way more than 8,000 people were murdered in March. 188

  In the large ghettos that had been set up after the murder of the majority of the

  Jewish population in the General Commissariats of Lithuania and Latvia, the

  situation remained relatively quiet in 1942. There were few large massacres. This

  did not apply, however, to the area around Riga. Between February and April 1942,

  in the Riga ghetto and the Jungfernhof camp, some 5,000 people were selected in a

  number of actions as ‘unfit for work’ and transported out in motor vehicles—

  supposedly to a new camp near Dünamünde, actually to the Bikernieki Forest,

  where they were shot. 189

  Extermination on a European Scale, 1942

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  At a meeting of the General Commissars held by Reichskommissar Ostland

  (Baltic states) on 26 March, a certain perplexity was expressed about the future

  course of the anti-Jewish policy. There was general agreement that ‘the Jewish

  question must be resolved clearly and urgently’. However, the following sentence

  in the minutes suggests that in the meantime mass executions were no longer seen

  as the solution: ‘It is felt to be regrettable that the method employed hitherto,

  however much it might represent a political liability for us, has for the time being

  been abandoned.’ However, Generalkommissar Kube’s following suggestion

  that the liquidation should be effected ‘in accordance with correct procedures

  [korrekter]’ shows that they did not generally wish to abandon this means. It

  was agreed that the solution did not lie in ceasing to distribute food to the Jews, as

  was happening at the time. 190

  In April the occupying forces in the area of Vileyka carried out two further

  mass executions in Dohyno with 800 and 1,200 victims respectively, another in

  Krzywicze (Krzeszowice) (400 fatalities), and on 1 April 1,200 Jews were mur-

  dered in Kopyl, 191 as well as various murders in Minsk with at least 500

  fatalities. 192 The KdS Minsk reported that his department had killed 1,894 Jews in April alone. 193 In spite of these mass murders, however, in April 1942 the number of massacres and murder victims in White Ruthenia declined in

  comparison with the previous months.

  In May 1942, however, the murders resumed systematically and on a large scale;

  plainly the intensified murderous activities coincided with a visit by Heydrich to

  Minsk, which appears to have occurred in April. 194 While, on 11 May, the KdS Minsk demanded that the Gendarmerie throughout the whole of the General Commissariat

  supply summary statistical data about the Jewish communities, under the heading

  ‘Selection of Jewish specialist workers’, the murder of the great majority of the Jews

  still living there, organized according to a plan by the Security Police and the civil

  administration, had already begun on 8 May. Over the following five days more than

  16,000 Jews were shot in all the ghettos in the area. 195

  This action was the starting point for the extension of the murder actions to all

  areas of the occupied territory of White Russia. In the district of Glebokie an EK

  9 unit and other agencies murdered at least 12,000 Jews between 29 May and

  20 June. 196 From May onwards, the branch of the SD in Vileyka, which took part in numerous mass murders even outside its area of responsibility, intensified the

  programme of mass murders that had resumed in March, and had murdered

  more than 5,000 people there by the end of September. 197 At the begin
ning of 1943

  only 3,000 Jewish artisans were still living in the area of Vileyka. 198

  In the district of Slutzk, where two actions had been carried out in Slutzk and

  Kopyl as early as the end of March, further massacres took place between May and

  August. 199 In Slonim the ghetto was liquidated on 29 June, and 7,000 people were murdered. In the weeks that followed there were also further massacres in the area

  of Slonim with thousands of fatalities. In September the district commissar,

  348

  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  Gerhard Erren, stated that of 25,000 Jews originally living in his area only around

  500 remained. 200 In the district of Novogrodek, at least 2,900 Jews were shot in various places between April and June, and more than 8,000 in early August in

  Novogrodek and other localities. 201 In the district of Hansewitschi (Hancewicze) almost 2,000 people were shot in Lenin on 14 August. 202

  In the district of Baranowicze—after a first major ‘action’ in Mir in March or

  April—mass executions were carried out in July and August in the towns of

  Kletzk, Lachowicze, Gorodeya, Moltschad, in Mir again, and in various other

  places, killing at least 7,000 people. Further executions occurred in September

  and October in Baranowicze, Gorodicze, Polonka, and Stolpce. According to the

  district commissar, in 1942 a total of 23,000 people were murdered in this

  region. 203 In Minsk, between 28 and 31 July about 10,000 people were killed, apart from White Russian Jews also 3,500 ghetto inhabitants who had been

  transported from Central Europe. 204 In the last few weeks of the year further mass murders took place in the district of Glebokie, leading to over 7,000

  victims, in Baranawicze, Dvorzec, Slonim (where the last surviving 500 Jews

  were murdered), and in Novogrodek. 205

  At the end of July, Commissar General Wilhelm Kube drew up an initial record

  of the massacres, when he reported to Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse, ‘in the last

  10 weeks we have liquidated about 55,000 Jews’. 206 The ‘we’ makes clear the extent to which the civil administration had also shouldered the task of the mass

  murders.

  Between December 1941 and mid-May 1942, unlike the murders that con-

  tinued uninterrupted in the military administrative area of Army Group

  South, which abutted the Commissariat on the east, only relatively few mas-

  sacres are documented within the sphere of the Ukraine Reich Commissariat

  and most of those may be attributed to local initiatives. One exception to this

  was the area of Vinnitsa in the General District of Zhitomir, where it was

  planned to locate Hitler’s field headquarters. All the Jews were gradually

  murdered in a designated high-security area. By 10 January, 227 Jews from

  Strishavka had been shot, and on 10 April, according to the report of the Reich

  Security Service, which was responsible for cordoning off the new headquar-

  ters, ‘4,800 Jews were killed in Vinnitsa’. In July the remaining 1,000 unskilled

  workers were murdered. 207 The massacre of the Jews of Chmelnik, 120 km from Vinnitsa, to which we may assume that 8,000 people fell victim, may be

  connected to this development. 208

  In February and March 1942, the last surviving Jews in the General Commis-

  sariat of Nikolayev were murdered. The Commissar General reported on 1 April

  that there were ‘no Jews or half-Jews left’ in the district. 209 In April 1942, in the District Commissariat of Dunayevzny (General Commissariat of Volhynien-Podolien), according to a Soviet Commission report, 2,000 Jews are alleged to

  have been driven into a phosphorus mine that was then blown up. According to

  Extermination on a European Scale, 1942

  349

  these documents, mass shootings are also supposed to have taken place there in

  the spring of 1942. 210

  In the other areas of the Reich Commissariat Ukraine, however, the focus

  of Judenpolitik, as pursued by the civil administration between December and

  April, was on the formation of ghettos. At a meeting of the Reich East Ministry on

  10 March 1942 the temporary continuing engagement of Jewish artisans and

  skilled workers was confirmed. 211

  However, as in the General Commissariat of White Ruthenia, the Reich

  Commissariat of the Ukraine began a new wave of murders which led in the

  summer to the total extermination of the Jewish population in the Reich

  Commissariat. This wave of murders began around 20 May in the General

  Commissariat of Wolhynien-Podolien (Volhynia-Podolia), where massacres

  occurred in, among other places, Dubno (27 May, with at least 4,000 fatalities)

  Korec (21 May). 212 On 27 May, in the General Commissariat of Zhitomir, there were simultaneous massacres in several places in the district of Gaissin, namely

  in Teplick (769 victims), Ternovka (2,300), and Sobolevka (several hundred

  victims). The local garrison of Gaissin, the local police, the Vinnitsa branch of

  the KdS, and Hungarian soldiers were all involved in these massacres. 213 In Monastyrishch, also in the General Commissariat of Zhitomir, some 3,000 Jews

  were shot towards the end of May. 214

  At the beginning of June, in the General Commissariat of Volhynia-Podolia

  there followed massacres in Kovel (Kowel) with some 5,000 victims, 215 as well as, immediately afterwards, in Luck. 216 The murders were also extended to the General Commissariats of Kiev and Nikolayev. However, information for these

  two regions is sparse.

  We have the following information for the General Commissariat of Kiev: in

  June 1942 1,500 Jewish residents of Zvenigorodka (Swenigorodka) were mur-

  dered. 217 There are also reports from Schuma Batl. 117 about ‘a major “Jewish action” in Shpola (Schpola)’, also in the District Commissariat of Zvenigorodka,

  which lasted from 13 until 17 May 1942. This was evidently the liquidation of the

  ghetto. 218

  In the General Commissariat of Nikolyev (Nikolajew), in the village of Stalindorf

  (district of Kherson), the elderly Jewish men and women who had survived the first

  wave of murders were killed. 219 In Ingulec in the General Commissariat of Dnepropetrovsk, according to a Soviet Commission report, on the night of

  10 June some 1,800 people, mostly Jews, were shot. 220

  As in White Ruthenia the murders were intensified again in July. On 13 and

  14 July, the KdS of Rovno, who was responsible for Volhynia-Podolia, along

  with other units, murdered all the 5,000 Jews still living in the city. On 27 and

  28 July, 5,673 Jews from Olyka and the surrounding areas, the entire Jewish

  population, were shot. In Berdichev in the General Commissariat of Zhitomir

  the members of the KdS outstation murdered the last Jews living there, at least

  350

  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  300, on 15/16 July 1942.221 The escalation of the murders since July corresponded to developments in the General Government. On 19 July, Himmler had ordered

  the extermination of the Jewish population there by the end of the year, and

  after 22 July the deportations began from the Warsaw ghetto—5,000 people per

  day—to Treblinka extermination camp.

  From the end of August 1942 the murders in the Ukraine became even more

  widespread and systematized; the goal was now the complete extermination of the

  Jewish population.

  At the meeting of the district commissars in Luck, held between 28 and

  31
August, the representatives of the civil administration agreed with the KdS

  that, during the coming five weeks, they would kill all the Jews in the General

  Commissariat of Volhynia-Podolia with the exception of 500 skilled workers.

  During this meeting, Reichskommisar Koch’s deputy gave an assurance that

  these ‘hundred per cent cleansings’ were ‘also the emphatic wish of the Reichs-

  kommissar’. 222 This ‘wish’ on Koch’s part may also have had something to do with the fact that he had just had higher delivery quotas imposed upon him by

  Berlin. 223 Shortly before the conference, between 19 and 23 August, about 15,000

  Jews had been murdered in the city.

  After this massacre the occupying power systematically set to work on the

  General Commissariats of Volhynia-Podolia and Zhitomir murdering county by

  county almost all the Jews still living there.

  The murders in Volhynia-Podolia are comparatively well documented. The

  Pinsk out-station 9 of the SD played a considerable role in the destruction of the

  ghettos in the District Commissariats of Pinsk and Stolin, most of which had been

  set up in the spring of 1942. The shootings themselves were carried out by the

  SD. 224 They were supported by the district commissars, the Gendarmerie, local auxiliary police, as well as several police battalions. The biggest of these massacres

  took place in Pinsk in late October/early November and cost far more than 15,000

  people their lives, perhaps even more than 26,000. The destruction of the ghetto

  had been ordered by Himmler at short notice. 225

  After this the first ghetto to be destroyed in August was the one in Mokrov, in

  which 280–300 people were shot. On 3 September 1942 the ghettos in Kozan-

  grodek and Lakhva were destroyed. During the night of 2/3 September the 500

  inhabitants of the ghetto in Kozangrodek were shot. Then the execution com-

  mando squad of Pinsk SD travelled to the neighbouring town of Lakhva and

  murdered 500, possibly 2,000 people there.

  On 18 September, during the liquidation of the Luniniec ghetto between 1,000

  and 2,800 people were murdered. In the period between 9 and 12 September 1942,

  the ghettos in the department of Stolin were destroyed, with 8,000 to 10,000