Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 (1)
Part 5 (2)
In the previous articles of this series I refuted Mattogno’s arguments against the authenticity and reliability of the 2nd Jäger Report in the first volume of his work about the Einsatzgruppen.
This article and the next one will be dedicated to presenting and discussing some documentary evidence associated to the mass killings reported by Jäger, which is mostly ignored by Mattogno and largely shown for the first time, as far as I know, in a publication written in the English language.
The documents were made available to me by the LCVA (Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybės Archyvas - Lithuanian Central State Archives) in Vilnius, Lithuania. I am authorized to publish these documents under condition that I mention the full name of the institution and the respective archival reference. I am not authorized, and do not intend to, grant anyone else an authorization to publish these documents in any form. Whoever wishes to publish these documents themselves should obtain an authorization to do so from the LCVA. Or better, they should obtain color copies of the documents themselves. The LCVA are quick in responding to requests according to my experience, and they charge only € 1.80 per color copy.
The German conquest of Lithuania in June 1941 caused relatively few military and civilian casualties, due to its briefness. Within 2 days after 22 June 1941 the Germans had already taken Kaunas and Vilnius, and a week later all of Lithuania was in their hands. Soviet troops fought some minor rearguard actions here and there, but mostly retreated as soon as possible behind the old Soviet borders, where they organized a firm resistance. [131] German military killed or missing in action on the whole Eastern Front between 22 and 30 June 1941 amounted to 11,593, [132] so it seems reasonable, considering the scale and period of military operations, to assume that several hundred of these were killed on Lithuanian territory. Soviet military fatalities were certainly much higher, but cannot have exceeded a number in the lower thousands considering the speedy Soviet retreat. Civilian collateral casualties from bombing numbered in the hundreds, [133] and additionally hundreds were killed in reprisals by overly nervous German troops who believed they were being attacked by partisans, [134] or by the Soviet NKVD. [135] All in all, the week of the German conquest caused comparatively little harm to the country and its non-Jewish inhabitants. The Kaunas public pogroms and massacres of Jews starting 25 June 1941 probably claimed more lives than all other violence of the German conquest period together.[136]
What followed, however, was one of the worst horrors of World War II. Between 1941 and 1944 this small country became a graveyard for about 420,000 people – ca. 200,000 Jews, 170,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 50,000 civilian evacuees from other occupied territories and other civilians. [137] The overwhelming majority of the Jews and Soviet POWs perished in 1941/42. The Soviet PoWs mostly perished in camps in or close to the country’s larger cities – about 35,000 in Kaunas, 20,000 in Alytus, 22,000 in Šiauliai, 43,000 in the Vilnius region, 25,000 in the Marijampolė and Vilkaviškis districts, 22,500 – 26,500 in the German-Lithuanian border area and the Klaipėda region.[138] The overwhelming majority of those buried in mass graves littering the Lithuanian countryside, on the other hand, were Jews murdered by Lithuanians on their own initiative or by German mobile killing units and their Lithuanian auxiliaries and collaborators, mainly Jäger’s EK3.
Some of the administrative correspondence related to the 1941 massacres has been recovered and is now held in the LCVA. Most of this correspondence is about public health matters concerning mass graves, which were considered a threat to public health due to leachate that might pollute nearby waters, and it was also seen as undesirable from a public health perspective that the graves should be dug up or the grave areas used as agricultural or pasture land.
In the following tour of Lithuania by mass grave sites, the mentions thereof in administrative correspondence will be correlated with information in the 2nd Jäger Report and other evidence about mass killings that occurred at these sites. For better orientation, here is again the map already shown in Part 1 of this series, where one can see the administrative division of the Generalkommissariat Litauen as of April 1942:
- Stadtkommissariate (City Commissariats) Kaunas(Kauen)-Stadt and Vilnius(Wilna)-Stadt;
- Gebietskommissariat (GBK) Kaunas(Kauen)-Land, consisting of the Kreise (districts or counties; the latter term will be used hereafter) whose Lithuanian names were Kėdainiai, Šakiai, Kaunas, Marijampolė, Vilkaviškis, Lazdijai and Alytus;
- GBK Panevėžys(Ponewesch), consisting of the districts Panevėžys, Biržai, Rokiškis, Ukmergė, Utena and Zarasai.
- GBK Šiauliai (Schaulen), consisting of the districts Tauragė, Kretinga, Mažeikiai, Telšiai, Šiauliai and Raseiniai;
- GBK Vilnius(Wilna)-Land, consisting of the districts Trakai, Vilnius, Švenčionys, Svyriai, Ašmena and Eišiškės. [139]
With one exception the mentioned surviving documentation pertains to the civilian administration and was issued at various administrative levels: the Generalbezirk Litauen, the Stadtkommissariate, the Gebietskommissariate (GBK), the head of each district subordinated to a GBK, and those reporting to these officials. Most of the documents are from the sub-fond R-627-1-150 of the fond R-627, which contains documents pertaining to the Vyriausioji sveikatos valdyba/Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung, the Central/Main Health Administration or Main Health Board (the latter being the term used in the translations) of the Lithuania General District. In these letters the medical officers responsible for the respective districts, and in one case a head of district, responded to inquests from the Main Health Board (or from the respective GBK’s "consulting medical officer", an official of the Main Health Board) about, sometimes among other public health matters, the mass graves located in the respective district, whether these represented a risk to public health and what measures had been taken to avoid or mitigate such risk. The R-627-1-150 collection consists of 73 documents, most of which contain a mention of mass graves. However, I had translated only 15 documents that contain some particulars about the mass graves, like their number, size and/or precise location. Therefore not all of the aforementioned districts are "represented" in the documents that will be shown. In addition to the R-627-1-150 documents I translated or had translated documents from the collections LCVA R500-1-4t.1, LCVA R613-1-10, LCVA R678-1-3 and LCVA R685-5-10.
The documents will be presented according to the administrative subdivision of Lithuania under German occupation (Generalbezirk » city or GBK » districts subordinated to the GBK). Due to the volume of the documentation and related information the presentation will be split in two. In this article I’ll present documents at the administrative levels of the Generalbezirk Litauen, the City Commissariat Kauen-Stadt and the districts pertaining to the GBK Kauen-Land. In the next article, the last of this series, documentation regarding the districts pertaining to the GBK’s Panevėžys(Ponewesch), Šiauliai (Schaulen) and Wilna-Land will be presented.
1. Generalbezirk Litauen
Document no. 1: Letter dated 22.8.1942 sent by the General Commissioner in Kaunas to the City Commissioners and Regional Commissioners in the Generalbezirk Litauen (LCVA R-613-1-10-58).[140]
Having received "very extensive and excellent reports from the Regional Commissioners" about the mass graves in their respective regions, the General Commissioner for Lithuania noted that, while "a large number of mass graves complies with all requirements as concerns the hygienic control of epidemics", another part "doesn’t have the required safety, as the covering soil layer is only very thin". He requested the Regional Commissioners to instruct the Heads of District that measures be taken to remove the problem, and to make sure that the graves were duly marked. In parallel he would also instruct the District Medical Officers through the respective administrative channels, presumably to supervise the process and report about the results. This document suggests a vast amount of preceding correspondence about mass graves in the Lithuania General District, which were obviously a subject of much attention and concern up the highest level of Lithuania’s civil administration under German rule.
2. Stadtkommissariat Kaunas(Kauen)-Stadt
Document no. 2: Letter dated 30 January 1942 from the Kaunas City Sanitary Inspector to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 10-11).[141]
The graveyards mentioned in this letter include one in the Šančiai eldership, where German soldiers and Soviet prisoners of war were buried, and which was mostly overfilled. The largest POW camp in or close to Šančiai was Fort VI, aka the "hospital" ("Lazarett") due to its enormous mortality rate. [142] As the Fort VI camp was soon overfilled, further camps were installed in Kaunas, including two (jointly known as camp "G") in Šančiai. [143] After Soviet POWs had died like flies and their labor force thus been lost, Jewish workers from the Kaunas ghetto had to take their place. One of these, Meir Yelin, described camp "G" as worse than Dante´s Inferno, with numerous prisoners lying in coffins but still alive, endless rows of prisoners looking like living dead, the prisoners sleeping on straw in cold barracks and corpses piled up beside each barrack because the ground was too frozen to dig graves.[144]
The sanitary inspector also mentioned Jewish graves "on the Žaliasis Kalnas", some of whose leachate ended up in a flow-pipe leading to a ditch on Radvilenų street (gatvė). "Žaliasis Kalnas" means "green mountain" and was one of the names by which the Kaunas neighborhood Žaliakalnis was known. In this neighborhood the former fortification known as Fort VII, mentioned as a killing site in the 2nd Jäger Report, was located. However, there is a Jewish cemetery closer than Fort VII to the Radvilėnų plentas, [145] so this is likelier to have been the problematic cemetery.
Also mentioned in the sanitary inspector’s letter is the transfer of an unspecified number of Jewish corpses from one or more graves that apparently did not comply with sanitary requirements, to a "safer" grave near the Vilijampolė bridge. Vilijampolė is the Kaunas eldership where the Kaunas ghetto (initially divided into a larger and a smaller ghetto) was located. [146]
The mass graves at the other killing sites in Kaunas, Fort IV and Fort IX, are not mentioned as a public health hazard in the City Sanitary Inspector's letter. The reason for this may have been that they were outside the CSI's area of competence. Fort IX is currently located in the Šilainiai eldership of Kaunas. The current Šilainiai, which took its name from the former Šilainiai village district, did not exist in the 1940s. It was developed in Soviet times, starting in the 1980s. [147] Šilainiai doesn’t appear on Kaunas maps from the 1930s and 1940s. [148] So it is possible that the area of Fort IX (like that of Forts IV and VI, which also don’t appear within the city limits on these maps) was at the time part of the GBK Kaunas and not of the Kaunas City Commissariat.
3. GBK Kaunas(Kauen)-Land
3.1 Alytus District
Document no.3: Letter dated 31 January 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Alytus District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 2-3).[149]
In the Alytus District of the GBK Kaunas Land the German and Lithuanian killers of the Rollkommando Hamann (RKH) and/or their local assistants[150] killed a total of 6,321 persons, all but one of whom were Jews, according to the 2nd Jäger Report.[151] When the District Medical Officer inspected the graves of "war victims" and "others" in the district, he found only two of the graves to be problematic under public heath aspects. The graves at Jieznai (144 Jews killed on 2.9.1941) were found to be too close to a local brook and lake. The Head of the Alytus District was notified and he instructed the Jieznas community provost to put a layer of stones, 20 cm high, on the graves, in order to reduce the danger of flooding in the spring. Inspection of the "Jewish graves" at Seirijai (953 Jews killed on 11.9.1941) revealed that too little soil had been laid in some places. Bearing in mind the natural subsidence of soil in the spring, it would be necessary to lay ½ m of soil on the graves of "the Jews and the war victims", and this layer should be put not only on the graves, but it also ½ m from the edges of the graves. It would also be attempted to get some lime and chloride of lime that should be poured together with soil on the graves.
3.2 Kaunas District
Document no. 4: Letter by the Head of Kaunas District to the Kaunas Chief of Police, 5 September 1941(LCVA R-1534-1-191-264).[152]
The contents and purpose of this document are mentioned as follows by Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys: [153]
Remarks in square brackets are mine and mainly meant to adapt Bubnys’ terminology for the administrative entities to the terminology I use.
Document no. 5: Letter dated 2 October 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Kaunas District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 21). [154]
The District Medical Officer informed the Main Health Board that the Head of Kaunas District had collected information from all subordinated communities about the "graves from the war period" in their areas. According to this information there were 330 graves in the district, containing between 1 and 30,000 people (330 kapų, kuriuose palaidota nuo 1 ligi 30.000 asmenų). So every known grave from the "war period", from single graves to mass graves containing up to 30,000 corpses, had been counted.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the victims of hostilities on all Lithuanian territory during the German conquest must have numbered in the lower thousands at most, and the number of "war victims" proper in a single district must have been even lower. The DMO was obviously being discrete, counting as "war victims" also Soviet POWs in German camps (insofar as the local community provosts could obtain information about them) as well as the Jewish victims of pogroms and organized mass extermination in the DMO’s area of competence. As concerns the latter the number is far too high, at least if one considers only mass killings performed in areas outside the city of Kaunas and its immediate surroundings. The RKH and/or its local assistants accounted for 4,355 murder victims in these areas, thereof 4,298 Jews, according to the 2nd Jäger Report.[155]
The number becomes more realistic if one assumes that, as mentioned regarding Document no. 2, the area of Kaunas Fort IX, which was outside the Kaunas city limits, pertained to the Kaunas District and not to the Kaunas City administration, and that the Kaunas Head of District had also obtained information about this place and passed it on to the DMO. At Kaunas Fort IX, according to the 2nd Jäger Report, a total of 16,013 people (thereof 15,997 Jews) were shot until the end of November 1941. This is still little more than half the maximum mass grave occupancy mentioned in the DMO’s report to the Main Health Board, thus the number for that place reported to the Head of District would have been somewhat exaggerated. Anyway, it would show (if the above assumption regarding Fort IX holds true) that the community provost(s) in that area were aware of the magnitude of the killing.
Another possibility is that the largest reported grave or grave site was at a prison camp for Soviet PoWs, assuming that civilian authorities had access to or information about such area in the domain of the Wehrmacht. Estimates of the number of PoWs who perished at the Fort VI PoW camp (which was also outside the Kaunas city limits) go as high as 35,000. [156]
3.3 Kėdainiai District
Document no.6: Letter dated 21 September 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Kėdainiai District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 24). [157]
In the 2nd Jäger Report 6 mass killings in the Kėdainiai District are mentioned, in which a total of 4,308 people (4,267 Jews, 41 non-Jews) were killed.[158] The overwhelming majority of these deaths occurred at the cities of Kėdainiai (2,171 Jews, 30 non-Jews) and Krakės (1,125 Jews).
At Kėdainiai, according to the DMO’s letter, the corpses were buried 1.5 meters below the surface. This must have been the site of the large massacre on 28.8.1941 (2,076 Jews).[159] The victims of the earlier, smaller massacre recorded under 23.7.1941 (95 Jews, 30 non-Jews) were killed near the village Babėnai, which is about 3 km away from the center of Kėdainiai.[160] There the layer of soil above the corpses was only 90-100 cm, according to the DMO’s letter.
At Krakės, the place of the second largest mass killing in the Kėdainiai District (1,125 Jews),[161] the soil layer covering the bodies was 20-100 cm.
Not mentioned in the DMO’s letter are the grave or graves containing the Jews of Ariogala and Josvainiai (which at present are 26.6 to 36 km by car away from each other depending on the route). [162] These were killed on the same day, 1 September 1941, at one same place, on the bank of the Dubysa river, [163] which flows through Ariogala.
Why this site is not mentioned in the DMO’s letter dated 21 September 1942 is not known. It may have been mentioned in other correspondence that was not recovered. Or then the DMO overlooked this site. Yet another possibility is that the Ariogala killing site is included in the information for Krakės. The present distance by car between Krakės and Ariogala is 29.9 km by the shortest route.[164]
3.4 Lazdijai District
Document no. 7: Letter dated 14 September 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Lazdijai District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 31).[165]
The District Medical Officer mentioned two sites of mass graves in the Lazdijai District, one in in Lazdijai and the other in Leipalingis. Both sites are also mentioned in the 2nd Jäger Report:
- 11.09.1941, Leipalingis, 155 Jews killed.
- 3.11.1941, Lazdijai, 1,535 Jews killed.
3.5 Marijampolė District
- Document no. 8: Report by the Sanitation Department of the Wehrmacht Local Headquarters in Marijampolė dated 3.4.1942 (LCVA R-678-1-3-42).[166]
- Document no. 9: Letter dated 26 October 1942 from the Head of Marijampolė District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 35).[167]
In the first of these two documents, it was pointed out that the "Jew graves" by the "barracks area" on the banks of the Šešupę river posed a public health threat because rainwater and flooding from the river washed away the soil cover of these graves and laid bare the corpses contained therein. The second letter addressed the same problem, and how it had been solved: the mass graves, which were located at the bottom of a dried brook leading to the Šešupę river, had been moved to another place (that is, obviously, the corpses in these mass graves had been unearthed and transferred to one or more other graves where they would not be flooded by water from the river).
Both documents, which have already been addressed in an earlier article,[168] obviously referred to mass graves from the massacre mentioned under 1 September 1941 in the 2nd Jäger Report, in which a total of 5,090 people (1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 1,404 Jewish children, 109 mentally ill, 1 female German national who was married to a Jew, 1 female Russian, in Jäger’s terminology) had been murdered.
Below are facsimiles of the documents mentioned in this article.
In the next article I will present similar documents regarding mass graves in districts of the GBK’s Panevėžys(Ponewesch), Šiauliai (Schaulen) and Vilnius(Wilna)-Land.
Documents
Document no. 1 (LCVA R-613-1-10-58)
Document no. 2 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 10-11)
Document no. 3 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 2-3)
Document no. 4 (LCVA R-1534-1-191-264)
Document no. 5 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 21)
Document no. 6 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 24)
Document no. 7 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 31)
Document no. 8 (LCVA LCVA R-678-1-3-42)
Document no. 9 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 35)
Notes
[131] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 268-270.
[132] Robert Kershaw, War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-42, Appendix 1 on p.613 (8,886 killed, 2,707 missing).
[133] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 299.
[134] About 200-300 non-Jewish civilians.
[135] About 400 prison inmates and 700 other civilians (Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 301-302). Regarding Soviet murders see also my article Mattogno’s Marijampolė Mass Graves Controversy.
[136] See note 41. According to Stahlecker, 3,800 Jews were killed in public pogroms. These and the subsequent executions in Fort VII are described in detail in Dieckmann, as above, pp. 313-331. Dieckmann considers Stahlecker’s figure for the public killings to be much too high. The subsequent executions in Fort VII claimed far more lives. According to a 1942 statistic of the Jewish council about 6,000 Jews fell victim to the first wave of murder in Kaunas. Assuming about 1,000 victims of public pogroms this would mean that 5,000 Jews were shot in Fort VII (p. 331). The number 6,000 is also mentioned in the letter dated 22.9.1941 by the Navy Liaison Officer at Army Group North.
[137] Dieckmann, as above, pp. 11-12.
[138] As above, pp. 1370-1371.
[139] The Svyriai, Ašmena districts and part of the Eišiškės district were made up of territory that had before April 1942 been part of the Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (see the page Generalbezirk Litauen).
[140] Facsimile, transcription and translation.
[141] Facsimile and partial translation.
[142] According to the page Gedenkorte Europas 1939-1945 – Kaunas VI. Fort, about 14,000 Soviet PoWs died in Fort VI between September 1941 and July 1942, and 35,000 died in all Kaunas camps between September 1941 and October 1943. The latter number is in line with Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 1347-48 and 1370-71. According to a Russian memorial set up at Fort VI, about 35,000 PoWs died in that camp alone (Kaunas VI. Fort). The Soviet Extraordinary Commission estimated that 45,000 Soviet POWs had perished in camps in the Kaunas area (Dieckmann).
[143] Dieckmann, as above, p. 1343.
[144] As above, p. 1347.
[145] Žydų kapinės, shown on Google Maps. In 2012, according to this article, an Israeli archaeologist found a mass grave in the area of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery, which is presumed to be the place where the victims of the 1941 Lietūkis Garage Massacre were buried.
[146] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 930 ff.
[147] Mindaugas Balkus, Kauno istorija (30): Šilainių rajono raida sovietmečiu.
[148] Plan of city Kaunas 1932; Plan of city Kaunas, 1935; Plan of city Kaunas (Stadt und Verkehrsplan von Kowno), 1941, publisher Ab. Mil.- Geo; Plan of city Kaunas (Stadtplan von Kowno (Kaunas)), 1:15000, 1941, publisher Generalstab der Luftwaffe The maps also don’t show Fort IV and Fort VI within the city limits.
[149] Facsimile and partial translation.
[150] See Part 3 of this series.
[151] Alytus, 13.8.1941, 718 killed, thereof 717 Jews; Alytus and surroundings, 31.8.1941, 233 Jews; Jieznas, 2.9.41, 144 Jews; Alytus, 9.9.41, 1,279 Jews; Butrimonys, same day, 740 Jews; Merkinė, 10.9.1941, 854 Jews; Varėna, same day, 831 Jews; Leipalingis, 11.9.1941, 155 Jews; Seirijai, 11.9.41, 953 Jews; Simnas, 12.9.41, 414 Jews.
[152] Facsimile and translation.
[153] Province, p. 34.
[154] Facsimile and translation.
[155] Girkalinei (Girkalnis), 8.7.1941, 6 non-Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), 9.7.1941, 34 Jews and 4 non-Jews; Babtei (Babtai), 17.7.1941, 6 Jews and 2 non-Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), 31.7.1941, 13 Jews and 2 non-Jews; Jonava, 14.8.1941, 552 Jews; Wilkia (Vilkija), 28.8.1941, 402 Jews; Darsuniskis (Darsūniškis), 2.9.1941, 99 Jews; Carliava (Garliava), same day, 247 Jews; Jonava, same day, 1,556 Jews; Petrasiunai (Petrašiūnai), same day, 125 Jews; Babtei (Babtai), same day, 83 Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), same day, 252 Jews; Pravenischkis (Pravieniškės), 4.9.1941, 253 Jews; Cekiske (Čekiškė), same day, 146 Jews; Seredsius (Seredžius),same day, 193 Jews; Velinona (Veliuona), same day, 159 Jews; Zapiskis (Zapyškis), same day, 178 Jews; Uzusalis (Užusaliai), 12.9.1941, 43 non-Jews. The 784 Jews of Rumsiskis u. Ziezmariai (Rumšiškės and Žiežmariai) whose killing is recorded under 29.8.1941 are counted among the victims in the Trakai District of the GBK Wilna-Land, given that Žiežmariai was located in the district and Rumsiskis at the border between the two districts.
[156] See note 142.
[157] Facsimile and translation.
[158] Kedainiai (Kėdainiai), 23.7.1941, 95 Jews and 30 non-Jews killed; Ariogala, 30.7.1941, 27 Jews and 11 non-Jews; Kedainiai (Kėdainiai), 2,076 Jews; Ariogala (Ariogala), 2.9.1941, 662 Jews; Jasvainai (Josvainiai), same day, 282 Jews; Krakes (Krakės), same day, 1,125 Jews. Jäger’s numbers of Jews killed are very much in line with those established by Soviet investigation commission following the re-conquest of Lithuania: Kėdainiai city – 2,500; Krakės – 1,300; Ariogala – 700 ("Information on Executions of Soviet Citizens Committed by the German Fascist Aggressors in the Territory of the Kedainiai Uyezd, the Lithuanian SSR, for the Period of Temporary Occupation", about November 1944, in: The Tragedy of Lithuania: 1941−1944. New documents on crimes of Lithuanian collaborators during the Second World War / Трагедия Литвы: 1941−1944. Сборник архивных документов. − М: Алексей Яковлев, 2008. − 288 с. − Англ. ISBN 978-5903588-01-5, Document 103, p. 253).
[159] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, first entry for Kėdainiai.
[160] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, second entry for Kėdainiai.
[161] For a narrative of this massacre see the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, entry for Krakės.
[162] According to Google Maps.
[163] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, entry for Ariogala or Josvainiai. While the 2nd Jäger Report mentions a total of 944 Jews killed from both places, most perpetrators and witnesses estimated about 700 victims.
[164] According to Google Maps.
[165] Fascimile and translation.
[166] Fascimile, transcription, translation.
[167] Fascimile and translation.
[168] Mattogno’s Marijampolė Mass Graves Controversy
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 (1)
Part 5 (2)
In the previous articles of this series I refuted Mattogno’s arguments against the authenticity and reliability of the 2nd Jäger Report in the first volume of his work about the Einsatzgruppen.
This article and the next one will be dedicated to presenting and discussing some documentary evidence associated to the mass killings reported by Jäger, which is mostly ignored by Mattogno and largely shown for the first time, as far as I know, in a publication written in the English language.
The documents were made available to me by the LCVA (Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybės Archyvas - Lithuanian Central State Archives) in Vilnius, Lithuania. I am authorized to publish these documents under condition that I mention the full name of the institution and the respective archival reference. I am not authorized, and do not intend to, grant anyone else an authorization to publish these documents in any form. Whoever wishes to publish these documents themselves should obtain an authorization to do so from the LCVA. Or better, they should obtain color copies of the documents themselves. The LCVA are quick in responding to requests according to my experience, and they charge only € 1.80 per color copy.
The German conquest of Lithuania in June 1941 caused relatively few military and civilian casualties, due to its briefness. Within 2 days after 22 June 1941 the Germans had already taken Kaunas and Vilnius, and a week later all of Lithuania was in their hands. Soviet troops fought some minor rearguard actions here and there, but mostly retreated as soon as possible behind the old Soviet borders, where they organized a firm resistance. [131] German military killed or missing in action on the whole Eastern Front between 22 and 30 June 1941 amounted to 11,593, [132] so it seems reasonable, considering the scale and period of military operations, to assume that several hundred of these were killed on Lithuanian territory. Soviet military fatalities were certainly much higher, but cannot have exceeded a number in the lower thousands considering the speedy Soviet retreat. Civilian collateral casualties from bombing numbered in the hundreds, [133] and additionally hundreds were killed in reprisals by overly nervous German troops who believed they were being attacked by partisans, [134] or by the Soviet NKVD. [135] All in all, the week of the German conquest caused comparatively little harm to the country and its non-Jewish inhabitants. The Kaunas public pogroms and massacres of Jews starting 25 June 1941 probably claimed more lives than all other violence of the German conquest period together.[136]
What followed, however, was one of the worst horrors of World War II. Between 1941 and 1944 this small country became a graveyard for about 420,000 people – ca. 200,000 Jews, 170,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 50,000 civilian evacuees from other occupied territories and other civilians. [137] The overwhelming majority of the Jews and Soviet POWs perished in 1941/42. The Soviet PoWs mostly perished in camps in or close to the country’s larger cities – about 35,000 in Kaunas, 20,000 in Alytus, 22,000 in Šiauliai, 43,000 in the Vilnius region, 25,000 in the Marijampolė and Vilkaviškis districts, 22,500 – 26,500 in the German-Lithuanian border area and the Klaipėda region.[138] The overwhelming majority of those buried in mass graves littering the Lithuanian countryside, on the other hand, were Jews murdered by Lithuanians on their own initiative or by German mobile killing units and their Lithuanian auxiliaries and collaborators, mainly Jäger’s EK3.
Some of the administrative correspondence related to the 1941 massacres has been recovered and is now held in the LCVA. Most of this correspondence is about public health matters concerning mass graves, which were considered a threat to public health due to leachate that might pollute nearby waters, and it was also seen as undesirable from a public health perspective that the graves should be dug up or the grave areas used as agricultural or pasture land.
In the following tour of Lithuania by mass grave sites, the mentions thereof in administrative correspondence will be correlated with information in the 2nd Jäger Report and other evidence about mass killings that occurred at these sites. For better orientation, here is again the map already shown in Part 1 of this series, where one can see the administrative division of the Generalkommissariat Litauen as of April 1942:
- Stadtkommissariate (City Commissariats) Kaunas(Kauen)-Stadt and Vilnius(Wilna)-Stadt;
- Gebietskommissariat (GBK) Kaunas(Kauen)-Land, consisting of the Kreise (districts or counties; the latter term will be used hereafter) whose Lithuanian names were Kėdainiai, Šakiai, Kaunas, Marijampolė, Vilkaviškis, Lazdijai and Alytus;
- GBK Panevėžys(Ponewesch), consisting of the districts Panevėžys, Biržai, Rokiškis, Ukmergė, Utena and Zarasai.
- GBK Šiauliai (Schaulen), consisting of the districts Tauragė, Kretinga, Mažeikiai, Telšiai, Šiauliai and Raseiniai;
- GBK Vilnius(Wilna)-Land, consisting of the districts Trakai, Vilnius, Švenčionys, Svyriai, Ašmena and Eišiškės. [139]
With one exception the mentioned surviving documentation pertains to the civilian administration and was issued at various administrative levels: the Generalbezirk Litauen, the Stadtkommissariate, the Gebietskommissariate (GBK), the head of each district subordinated to a GBK, and those reporting to these officials. Most of the documents are from the sub-fond R-627-1-150 of the fond R-627, which contains documents pertaining to the Vyriausioji sveikatos valdyba/Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung, the Central/Main Health Administration or Main Health Board (the latter being the term used in the translations) of the Lithuania General District. In these letters the medical officers responsible for the respective districts, and in one case a head of district, responded to inquests from the Main Health Board (or from the respective GBK’s "consulting medical officer", an official of the Main Health Board) about, sometimes among other public health matters, the mass graves located in the respective district, whether these represented a risk to public health and what measures had been taken to avoid or mitigate such risk. The R-627-1-150 collection consists of 73 documents, most of which contain a mention of mass graves. However, I had translated only 15 documents that contain some particulars about the mass graves, like their number, size and/or precise location. Therefore not all of the aforementioned districts are "represented" in the documents that will be shown. In addition to the R-627-1-150 documents I translated or had translated documents from the collections LCVA R500-1-4t.1, LCVA R613-1-10, LCVA R678-1-3 and LCVA R685-5-10.
The documents will be presented according to the administrative subdivision of Lithuania under German occupation (Generalbezirk » city or GBK » districts subordinated to the GBK). Due to the volume of the documentation and related information the presentation will be split in two. In this article I’ll present documents at the administrative levels of the Generalbezirk Litauen, the City Commissariat Kauen-Stadt and the districts pertaining to the GBK Kauen-Land. In the next article, the last of this series, documentation regarding the districts pertaining to the GBK’s Panevėžys(Ponewesch), Šiauliai (Schaulen) and Wilna-Land will be presented.
1. Generalbezirk Litauen
Document no. 1: Letter dated 22.8.1942 sent by the General Commissioner in Kaunas to the City Commissioners and Regional Commissioners in the Generalbezirk Litauen (LCVA R-613-1-10-58).[140]
Having received "very extensive and excellent reports from the Regional Commissioners" about the mass graves in their respective regions, the General Commissioner for Lithuania noted that, while "a large number of mass graves complies with all requirements as concerns the hygienic control of epidemics", another part "doesn’t have the required safety, as the covering soil layer is only very thin". He requested the Regional Commissioners to instruct the Heads of District that measures be taken to remove the problem, and to make sure that the graves were duly marked. In parallel he would also instruct the District Medical Officers through the respective administrative channels, presumably to supervise the process and report about the results. This document suggests a vast amount of preceding correspondence about mass graves in the Lithuania General District, which were obviously a subject of much attention and concern up the highest level of Lithuania’s civil administration under German rule.
2. Stadtkommissariat Kaunas(Kauen)-Stadt
Document no. 2: Letter dated 30 January 1942 from the Kaunas City Sanitary Inspector to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 10-11).[141]
The graveyards mentioned in this letter include one in the Šančiai eldership, where German soldiers and Soviet prisoners of war were buried, and which was mostly overfilled. The largest POW camp in or close to Šančiai was Fort VI, aka the "hospital" ("Lazarett") due to its enormous mortality rate. [142] As the Fort VI camp was soon overfilled, further camps were installed in Kaunas, including two (jointly known as camp "G") in Šančiai. [143] After Soviet POWs had died like flies and their labor force thus been lost, Jewish workers from the Kaunas ghetto had to take their place. One of these, Meir Yelin, described camp "G" as worse than Dante´s Inferno, with numerous prisoners lying in coffins but still alive, endless rows of prisoners looking like living dead, the prisoners sleeping on straw in cold barracks and corpses piled up beside each barrack because the ground was too frozen to dig graves.[144]
The sanitary inspector also mentioned Jewish graves "on the Žaliasis Kalnas", some of whose leachate ended up in a flow-pipe leading to a ditch on Radvilenų street (gatvė). "Žaliasis Kalnas" means "green mountain" and was one of the names by which the Kaunas neighborhood Žaliakalnis was known. In this neighborhood the former fortification known as Fort VII, mentioned as a killing site in the 2nd Jäger Report, was located. However, there is a Jewish cemetery closer than Fort VII to the Radvilėnų plentas, [145] so this is likelier to have been the problematic cemetery.
Also mentioned in the sanitary inspector’s letter is the transfer of an unspecified number of Jewish corpses from one or more graves that apparently did not comply with sanitary requirements, to a "safer" grave near the Vilijampolė bridge. Vilijampolė is the Kaunas eldership where the Kaunas ghetto (initially divided into a larger and a smaller ghetto) was located. [146]
The mass graves at the other killing sites in Kaunas, Fort IV and Fort IX, are not mentioned as a public health hazard in the City Sanitary Inspector's letter. The reason for this may have been that they were outside the CSI's area of competence. Fort IX is currently located in the Šilainiai eldership of Kaunas. The current Šilainiai, which took its name from the former Šilainiai village district, did not exist in the 1940s. It was developed in Soviet times, starting in the 1980s. [147] Šilainiai doesn’t appear on Kaunas maps from the 1930s and 1940s. [148] So it is possible that the area of Fort IX (like that of Forts IV and VI, which also don’t appear within the city limits on these maps) was at the time part of the GBK Kaunas and not of the Kaunas City Commissariat.
3. GBK Kaunas(Kauen)-Land
3.1 Alytus District
Document no.3: Letter dated 31 January 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Alytus District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 2-3).[149]
In the Alytus District of the GBK Kaunas Land the German and Lithuanian killers of the Rollkommando Hamann (RKH) and/or their local assistants[150] killed a total of 6,321 persons, all but one of whom were Jews, according to the 2nd Jäger Report.[151] When the District Medical Officer inspected the graves of "war victims" and "others" in the district, he found only two of the graves to be problematic under public heath aspects. The graves at Jieznai (144 Jews killed on 2.9.1941) were found to be too close to a local brook and lake. The Head of the Alytus District was notified and he instructed the Jieznas community provost to put a layer of stones, 20 cm high, on the graves, in order to reduce the danger of flooding in the spring. Inspection of the "Jewish graves" at Seirijai (953 Jews killed on 11.9.1941) revealed that too little soil had been laid in some places. Bearing in mind the natural subsidence of soil in the spring, it would be necessary to lay ½ m of soil on the graves of "the Jews and the war victims", and this layer should be put not only on the graves, but it also ½ m from the edges of the graves. It would also be attempted to get some lime and chloride of lime that should be poured together with soil on the graves.
3.2 Kaunas District
Document no. 4: Letter by the Head of Kaunas District to the Kaunas Chief of Police, 5 September 1941(LCVA R-1534-1-191-264).[152]
The contents and purpose of this document are mentioned as follows by Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys: [153]
On the completion of the massacre, the issue of Jewish property was under further consideration. The German occupation government thought that the white-bands [= the Lithuanian "partisans", who wore white bands on their arms] , policemen and other persons, who participated in the massacre of the Jews, had taken too much of Jewish property. Thus, Commander of Kaunas district A. Lentzen [=Arnold Lentzen, the Gebietskommissar Kaunas –Land] ordered the governor of Kaunas County [= the Head of Kaunas District, GBK Kaunas-Land] to collect information on "how much treasure and money was taken by the officials of Kaunas County that were involved in the extermination of Jews". On 5 September 1941, the governor of Kaunas County [= the Head of Kaunas District, GBK Kaunas-Land] sent a letter to Chief of the Police of Kaunas Town and County [=the Kaunas City and District Commandant] Juozas Dženkaitis concerning Jewish property: "[…] If chiefs of police stations or yourself had any property or money of the said kind, information should also be provided and evidence submitted in relation to their use".
Remarks in square brackets are mine and mainly meant to adapt Bubnys’ terminology for the administrative entities to the terminology I use.
Document no. 5: Letter dated 2 October 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Kaunas District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 21). [154]
The District Medical Officer informed the Main Health Board that the Head of Kaunas District had collected information from all subordinated communities about the "graves from the war period" in their areas. According to this information there were 330 graves in the district, containing between 1 and 30,000 people (330 kapų, kuriuose palaidota nuo 1 ligi 30.000 asmenų). So every known grave from the "war period", from single graves to mass graves containing up to 30,000 corpses, had been counted.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the victims of hostilities on all Lithuanian territory during the German conquest must have numbered in the lower thousands at most, and the number of "war victims" proper in a single district must have been even lower. The DMO was obviously being discrete, counting as "war victims" also Soviet POWs in German camps (insofar as the local community provosts could obtain information about them) as well as the Jewish victims of pogroms and organized mass extermination in the DMO’s area of competence. As concerns the latter the number is far too high, at least if one considers only mass killings performed in areas outside the city of Kaunas and its immediate surroundings. The RKH and/or its local assistants accounted for 4,355 murder victims in these areas, thereof 4,298 Jews, according to the 2nd Jäger Report.[155]
The number becomes more realistic if one assumes that, as mentioned regarding Document no. 2, the area of Kaunas Fort IX, which was outside the Kaunas city limits, pertained to the Kaunas District and not to the Kaunas City administration, and that the Kaunas Head of District had also obtained information about this place and passed it on to the DMO. At Kaunas Fort IX, according to the 2nd Jäger Report, a total of 16,013 people (thereof 15,997 Jews) were shot until the end of November 1941. This is still little more than half the maximum mass grave occupancy mentioned in the DMO’s report to the Main Health Board, thus the number for that place reported to the Head of District would have been somewhat exaggerated. Anyway, it would show (if the above assumption regarding Fort IX holds true) that the community provost(s) in that area were aware of the magnitude of the killing.
Another possibility is that the largest reported grave or grave site was at a prison camp for Soviet PoWs, assuming that civilian authorities had access to or information about such area in the domain of the Wehrmacht. Estimates of the number of PoWs who perished at the Fort VI PoW camp (which was also outside the Kaunas city limits) go as high as 35,000. [156]
3.3 Kėdainiai District
Document no.6: Letter dated 21 September 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Kėdainiai District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 24). [157]
In the 2nd Jäger Report 6 mass killings in the Kėdainiai District are mentioned, in which a total of 4,308 people (4,267 Jews, 41 non-Jews) were killed.[158] The overwhelming majority of these deaths occurred at the cities of Kėdainiai (2,171 Jews, 30 non-Jews) and Krakės (1,125 Jews).
At Kėdainiai, according to the DMO’s letter, the corpses were buried 1.5 meters below the surface. This must have been the site of the large massacre on 28.8.1941 (2,076 Jews).[159] The victims of the earlier, smaller massacre recorded under 23.7.1941 (95 Jews, 30 non-Jews) were killed near the village Babėnai, which is about 3 km away from the center of Kėdainiai.[160] There the layer of soil above the corpses was only 90-100 cm, according to the DMO’s letter.
At Krakės, the place of the second largest mass killing in the Kėdainiai District (1,125 Jews),[161] the soil layer covering the bodies was 20-100 cm.
Not mentioned in the DMO’s letter are the grave or graves containing the Jews of Ariogala and Josvainiai (which at present are 26.6 to 36 km by car away from each other depending on the route). [162] These were killed on the same day, 1 September 1941, at one same place, on the bank of the Dubysa river, [163] which flows through Ariogala.
Why this site is not mentioned in the DMO’s letter dated 21 September 1942 is not known. It may have been mentioned in other correspondence that was not recovered. Or then the DMO overlooked this site. Yet another possibility is that the Ariogala killing site is included in the information for Krakės. The present distance by car between Krakės and Ariogala is 29.9 km by the shortest route.[164]
3.4 Lazdijai District
Document no. 7: Letter dated 14 September 1942 from the District Medical Officer of the Lazdijai District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 31).[165]
The District Medical Officer mentioned two sites of mass graves in the Lazdijai District, one in in Lazdijai and the other in Leipalingis. Both sites are also mentioned in the 2nd Jäger Report:
- 11.09.1941, Leipalingis, 155 Jews killed.
- 3.11.1941, Lazdijai, 1,535 Jews killed.
3.5 Marijampolė District
- Document no. 8: Report by the Sanitation Department of the Wehrmacht Local Headquarters in Marijampolė dated 3.4.1942 (LCVA R-678-1-3-42).[166]
- Document no. 9: Letter dated 26 October 1942 from the Head of Marijampolė District to the Main Health Board (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 35).[167]
In the first of these two documents, it was pointed out that the "Jew graves" by the "barracks area" on the banks of the Šešupę river posed a public health threat because rainwater and flooding from the river washed away the soil cover of these graves and laid bare the corpses contained therein. The second letter addressed the same problem, and how it had been solved: the mass graves, which were located at the bottom of a dried brook leading to the Šešupę river, had been moved to another place (that is, obviously, the corpses in these mass graves had been unearthed and transferred to one or more other graves where they would not be flooded by water from the river).
Both documents, which have already been addressed in an earlier article,[168] obviously referred to mass graves from the massacre mentioned under 1 September 1941 in the 2nd Jäger Report, in which a total of 5,090 people (1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 1,404 Jewish children, 109 mentally ill, 1 female German national who was married to a Jew, 1 female Russian, in Jäger’s terminology) had been murdered.
Below are facsimiles of the documents mentioned in this article.
In the next article I will present similar documents regarding mass graves in districts of the GBK’s Panevėžys(Ponewesch), Šiauliai (Schaulen) and Vilnius(Wilna)-Land.
Documents
Document no. 1 (LCVA R-613-1-10-58)
Document no. 2 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 10-11)
Document no. 3 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 2-3)
Document no. 4 (LCVA R-1534-1-191-264)
Document no. 5 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 21)
Document no. 6 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 24)
Document no. 7 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 31)
Document no. 8 (LCVA LCVA R-678-1-3-42)
Document no. 9 (LCVA R627-1-150 fl. 35)
Notes
[131] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 268-270.
[132] Robert Kershaw, War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-42, Appendix 1 on p.613 (8,886 killed, 2,707 missing).
[133] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 299.
[134] About 200-300 non-Jewish civilians.
[135] About 400 prison inmates and 700 other civilians (Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 301-302). Regarding Soviet murders see also my article Mattogno’s Marijampolė Mass Graves Controversy.
[136] See note 41. According to Stahlecker, 3,800 Jews were killed in public pogroms. These and the subsequent executions in Fort VII are described in detail in Dieckmann, as above, pp. 313-331. Dieckmann considers Stahlecker’s figure for the public killings to be much too high. The subsequent executions in Fort VII claimed far more lives. According to a 1942 statistic of the Jewish council about 6,000 Jews fell victim to the first wave of murder in Kaunas. Assuming about 1,000 victims of public pogroms this would mean that 5,000 Jews were shot in Fort VII (p. 331). The number 6,000 is also mentioned in the letter dated 22.9.1941 by the Navy Liaison Officer at Army Group North.
[137] Dieckmann, as above, pp. 11-12.
[138] As above, pp. 1370-1371.
[139] The Svyriai, Ašmena districts and part of the Eišiškės district were made up of territory that had before April 1942 been part of the Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (see the page Generalbezirk Litauen).
[140] Facsimile, transcription and translation.
[141] Facsimile and partial translation.
[142] According to the page Gedenkorte Europas 1939-1945 – Kaunas VI. Fort, about 14,000 Soviet PoWs died in Fort VI between September 1941 and July 1942, and 35,000 died in all Kaunas camps between September 1941 and October 1943. The latter number is in line with Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 1347-48 and 1370-71. According to a Russian memorial set up at Fort VI, about 35,000 PoWs died in that camp alone (Kaunas VI. Fort). The Soviet Extraordinary Commission estimated that 45,000 Soviet POWs had perished in camps in the Kaunas area (Dieckmann).
[143] Dieckmann, as above, p. 1343.
[144] As above, p. 1347.
[145] Žydų kapinės, shown on Google Maps. In 2012, according to this article, an Israeli archaeologist found a mass grave in the area of the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery, which is presumed to be the place where the victims of the 1941 Lietūkis Garage Massacre were buried.
[146] Dieckmann, Besatzungspolitik, pp. 930 ff.
[147] Mindaugas Balkus, Kauno istorija (30): Šilainių rajono raida sovietmečiu.
[148] Plan of city Kaunas 1932; Plan of city Kaunas, 1935; Plan of city Kaunas (Stadt und Verkehrsplan von Kowno), 1941, publisher Ab. Mil.- Geo; Plan of city Kaunas (Stadtplan von Kowno (Kaunas)), 1:15000, 1941, publisher Generalstab der Luftwaffe The maps also don’t show Fort IV and Fort VI within the city limits.
[149] Facsimile and partial translation.
[150] See Part 3 of this series.
[151] Alytus, 13.8.1941, 718 killed, thereof 717 Jews; Alytus and surroundings, 31.8.1941, 233 Jews; Jieznas, 2.9.41, 144 Jews; Alytus, 9.9.41, 1,279 Jews; Butrimonys, same day, 740 Jews; Merkinė, 10.9.1941, 854 Jews; Varėna, same day, 831 Jews; Leipalingis, 11.9.1941, 155 Jews; Seirijai, 11.9.41, 953 Jews; Simnas, 12.9.41, 414 Jews.
[152] Facsimile and translation.
[153] Province, p. 34.
[154] Facsimile and translation.
[155] Girkalinei (Girkalnis), 8.7.1941, 6 non-Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), 9.7.1941, 34 Jews and 4 non-Jews; Babtei (Babtai), 17.7.1941, 6 Jews and 2 non-Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), 31.7.1941, 13 Jews and 2 non-Jews; Jonava, 14.8.1941, 552 Jews; Wilkia (Vilkija), 28.8.1941, 402 Jews; Darsuniskis (Darsūniškis), 2.9.1941, 99 Jews; Carliava (Garliava), same day, 247 Jews; Jonava, same day, 1,556 Jews; Petrasiunai (Petrašiūnai), same day, 125 Jews; Babtei (Babtai), same day, 83 Jews; Wendziogala (Vandžiogala), same day, 252 Jews; Pravenischkis (Pravieniškės), 4.9.1941, 253 Jews; Cekiske (Čekiškė), same day, 146 Jews; Seredsius (Seredžius),same day, 193 Jews; Velinona (Veliuona), same day, 159 Jews; Zapiskis (Zapyškis), same day, 178 Jews; Uzusalis (Užusaliai), 12.9.1941, 43 non-Jews. The 784 Jews of Rumsiskis u. Ziezmariai (Rumšiškės and Žiežmariai) whose killing is recorded under 29.8.1941 are counted among the victims in the Trakai District of the GBK Wilna-Land, given that Žiežmariai was located in the district and Rumsiskis at the border between the two districts.
[156] See note 142.
[157] Facsimile and translation.
[158] Kedainiai (Kėdainiai), 23.7.1941, 95 Jews and 30 non-Jews killed; Ariogala, 30.7.1941, 27 Jews and 11 non-Jews; Kedainiai (Kėdainiai), 2,076 Jews; Ariogala (Ariogala), 2.9.1941, 662 Jews; Jasvainai (Josvainiai), same day, 282 Jews; Krakes (Krakės), same day, 1,125 Jews. Jäger’s numbers of Jews killed are very much in line with those established by Soviet investigation commission following the re-conquest of Lithuania: Kėdainiai city – 2,500; Krakės – 1,300; Ariogala – 700 ("Information on Executions of Soviet Citizens Committed by the German Fascist Aggressors in the Territory of the Kedainiai Uyezd, the Lithuanian SSR, for the Period of Temporary Occupation", about November 1944, in: The Tragedy of Lithuania: 1941−1944. New documents on crimes of Lithuanian collaborators during the Second World War / Трагедия Литвы: 1941−1944. Сборник архивных документов. − М: Алексей Яковлев, 2008. − 288 с. − Англ. ISBN 978-5903588-01-5, Document 103, p. 253).
[159] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, first entry for Kėdainiai.
[160] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, second entry for Kėdainiai.
[161] For a narrative of this massacre see the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, entry for Krakės.
[162] According to Google Maps.
[163] According to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania, entry for Ariogala or Josvainiai. While the 2nd Jäger Report mentions a total of 944 Jews killed from both places, most perpetrators and witnesses estimated about 700 victims.
[164] According to Google Maps.
[165] Fascimile and translation.
[166] Fascimile, transcription, translation.
[167] Fascimile and translation.
[168] Mattogno’s Marijampolė Mass Graves Controversy
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