Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941

The Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941, also known as the Great Action, was the largest mass murder of Lithuanian Jews.[1]

Ninth Fort.

By the order of SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger and SS-Rottenführer Helmut Rauca, the Sonderkommando under the leadership of SS-Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann, and 8 to 10 men from Einsatzkommando 3, murdered 2,007 Jewish men, 2,920 women, and 4,273 children in a single day at the Ninth Fort, Kaunas, Lithuania.[2]

The Nazis destroyed the small ghetto on October 4, 1941, and killed almost all of its inhabitants at the Ninth Fort. Later that same month, on October 28, SS-Rottenführer Helmut Rauca of the Kaunas Gestapo (secret state police) conducted the selection in the Kaunas Ghetto.[3] All ghetto inhabitants were forced to assemble in the central square of the ghetto. Rauca selected 9,200 Jewish men, women, and children, about one-third of the ghetto's population.[1] The next day, October 29, all of these people were shot at the Ninth Fort in huge pits dug in advance.[2]

See also

References
  1. Kovno 1940-1944 Timeline Archived January 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  2. The Vanished World of Lithuanian Jews By Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Stefan Schreiner, Darius Staliūnas, Leonidas Donskis. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2014-01-03.
  3. Eilat Gordin Levitan. "Elchanan Elkes, Kovno Stories". Eilatgordinlevitan.com. Retrieved 2014-01-03.

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