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Kaunas pogrom
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The Kaunas pogrom was a massacre of Jewish people living in Kaunas, Lithuania that took place in from June 25 to June 29, 1941 – the first days of the Operation Barbarossa and of Nazi occupation of Lithuania. The most infamous incident occurred in the Lietukis garrage, where several Jews were publicly tortured and executed on June 26. After June organized and systematic executions took place at various forts of the Kaunas Fortress, especially the Seventh and Ninth Forts.
Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), a faction operating out of the Lithuanian embassy in Berlin and inside Soviet Lithuania, took control of the city and much of the Lithuanian countryside on the evening of June 23.
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Encyclopedia
The Kaunas pogrom was a massacre of Jewish people living in Kaunas, Lithuania that took place in from June 25 to June 29, 1941 – the first days of the Operation Barbarossa and of Nazi occupation of Lithuania. The most infamous incident occurred in the Lietukis garrage, where several Jews were publicly tortured and executed on June 26. After June organized and systematic executions took place at various forts of the Kaunas Fortress, especially the Seventh and Ninth Forts.
Background
The Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), a faction operating out of the Lithuanian embassy in Berlin and inside Soviet Lithuania, took control of the city and much of the Lithuanian countryside on the evening of June 23. Nazi SS Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker arrived in Kaunas on morning of June 25 and held agitation speeches in the city to instigate the murder of Jews, initially in the former State Security Department building, but officials there refused to take any action. Later, he gave speeches in the the city. He succeeded to convince Algirdas Klimaitis to start the pogrom. Algirdas Klimaitis controlled a paramilitary unit of roughly 600 men that was organized from Tilsit by SD and was not subordinate to the LAF.
Massacre
Starting on June 25, Nazi-organized units attacked Jewish civilians in the Kaunas suburb of Slobodka (known to Lithuanians as Vilijampole, a Jewish suburb hosting the world-famous Slobodka yeshiva). As of June 28, 1941, according to Stahlecker, 3,800 people had been killed in Kaunas and a further 1,200 in other towns in the immediate region. Some believe Stahlecker exaggerated his accomplishments. According to Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, there were Germans present on the bridge to Slobodka, but it was the Lithuanian volunteers who killed the Jews. The rabbi of Slobodka, Rav Zalman Osovsky, was tied hand and foot to a chair, "then his head was laid upon an open volume of gemora (volume of the Talmud) and [they] sawed his head off." Then they murdered his wife and son. His head was placed in a window of the residence with a sign: "This is what we'll do to all the Jews."
Controversy
There is much controversy over who is primarily responsible for the massacres: local Lithuanians or nazi officials. Lithuanians cite Stahlecker's report of October 15 to Heinrich Himmler. Stahlecker wrote that he had succeeded in covering up actions of German vanguard unit (Vorkommando) and made it look like an initiative of the local population. Stahlecker also reported that he had trouble instigating pogroms against Jews by Lithuanian partisans initially, but succeeded after much effort and under supervision of Einsatzkommandos. Jewish authors claim that massacres began even before Germans arrived. They also point out that executions took place in the coutryside and not just in the city of Kaunas.
See also
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