Kaunas pogrom

]

In the October 15th report, Stahlecker wrote that they had succeeded in covering up their vanguard unit (Vorkommando) actions, and it was made to look like it was the initiative of the local population. [http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/13/bubnys.htm lt icon Arūnas Bubnys. "Lithuanian Security Police and the Holocaust (1941–1944)"] F. W. Stahleckeris, pasitelkęs žurnalisto A. Klimaičio tariamą partizanų būrį (iš tikrųjų A. Klimaičio būrys nebuvo pavaldus nei LAF’ui, nei Lietuvos laikinajai vyriausybei), birželio 25 d. Kaune pradėjo kelti žydų pogromus. Tame pačiame 1941 m. spalio 15 d. raporte generolas atvirai ir išsamiai aprašė savo suorganizuotas žydų žudynes: „ […] Netikėtai paaiškėjo, kad suorganizuoti didesnio masto žydų pogromą išsyk gana nelengva. Čia visų pirma pasitelkėme anksčiau minėtų partizanų vadą A. Klimaitį, kurį tuo reikalu instruktavo veikęs Kaune mūsų nedidelis priešakinis būrys. A. Klimaičiui pavyko taip parengti pogromą, kad aikštėn neiškilo nei mūsų duoti nurodymai, nei mūsų iniciatyva. Pirmojo pogromo metu, naktį iš birželio 25-osios į 26-ąją, lietuvių partizanai likvidavo daugiau kaip 1500 žydų, padegė arba kitaip sunaikino keletą sinagogų ir sudegino žydų kvartalą, kuriame buvo apie 60 namų. Sekančiomis naktimis tuo pačiu būdu buvo padaryti nekenksmingais 2300 žydų. Kauno pavyzdžiu panašios akcijos, tik mažesnio masto, vyko ir kituose Lietuvos miestuose, jos palietė ir likusius tose vietose komunistus“] Starting on June 25, Nazi organized Vorkommando attacked Jewish civilians in the Kaunas suburb of Slobodka (known to Lithuanians as Viljampolė, a Jewish suburb hosting the world-famous Slobodka yeshiva). SS Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, who arrived in Kaunas on June 25, later reported that he had trouble instigating pogroms against Jews by Lithuanian partisans initially, but succeeded after much effort and under supervision of Einsatzkommandos. Eyewitnesses reportFact|date=August 2008 earlier killings, that opinion is supported by scholar Dov Levin and othersFact|date=August 2008. The exact number of victims pogrom varies by different authors between 600 and 1200. [cite book |title=The Lithuanian National Revolt |last=Budreckis |first=Algirdas Martin |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1968 |publisher=Lithuanian Encyclopedia Press |location=Boston |isbn= |pages=62,63|quote=Again for some unknown reason, Stahlecker exaggerates his statistics. The account by L. Shauss to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission stated that in "the first pogrom on June 25-26, in the Kaunas suburb of Slobodka (Vilijampole), 600 Jews were killed on Arbarski, Paverski, Vilyuski, Irogalski streets.]

As of June 28, 1941, according to SS Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, 3800 people had been killed in Kaunas and a further 1200 in other towns in the immediate region . According to Rabbi Ephraim Oshry and otherwho? eyewitnesses, there were Germans present on the bridge to Slobodka, but it was the Lithuanian volunteers who killed 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." Oshry, Ephraim, "Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry", ISBN 1-880582-18-X. Judaica Press, Inc., New York, 1995, pg. 3.]

References

Further reading

*Vladas Sirutavičius, "Catholic church and the origins of the modern Lithuanian anti-Semitism"
*Dangiras Mačiulis, "Anatomy of a pogrom in Lithuania: Leipalingi, 18 June 1939"
*Algis Kasperavičius, "Lithuanian-Jewish relations in 1935-1944"
*Dov Levin, "Why Lithuanians killed their Jewish neighbors"
*Arūnas Bubnys, "Historiography of Holocaust in Independent Lithuania (1990-2003)"

ee also

*Elchonon Wasserman
*Aharon Kotler
*Nosson Tzvi Finkel (Slabodka)
*Moshe Mordechai Epstein
*Isser Zalman Meltzer
*Lithuanian Activist Front
*Lithuanian 1941 independence

External links

* [http://www.lituanus.org/2001/01_4_04.htm Saulius Sužiedėlis, The burden of 1941]