Update: The Extermination of Entire Communities in Ukraine in 1941

It is often assumed that no Axis orders were issued before the invasion to kill women and children in any part of the USSR, but this assumption is false. The General Inspector of the Romanian Gendarmerie, Constantin Vasiliu, issued an order on June 17 or 18, 1941, mandating "the extermination on the spot of all Jews in rural areas, enclosing them in ghettos in urban areas, and the arrest of all those suspected of being Communist party members or of having held important functions under Soviet rule [cited by Ancel, here, note 21, and by Deletant, p.143]." However, it is correct that in the area under the authority of HSSPF Jeckeln, the killing of women and children only became systematic in late August. Prior to the Kamenets-Podolsky massacre of 27.8.41, 40,000 Jews had been killed, but from 27.8.41 to 30.9.41, 100,000 were murdered [Dieter Pohl, here, p.32]. This article examines how the German policy escalated from one of primarily shooting male Jews (as a "security measure" or in reprisal) to one of exterminating whole Jewish population centres.

Rumanian Jews and Aktion Reinhard

The attempted extermination of Rumanian Jews began as an ad-hoc series of killings in summer 1941. By September 1942, it was folded into a plan to send 200,000 of them to the Aktion Reinhard camps [documented in T/1284 here.). This plan only failed because Antonescu got cold feet and reneged on his promises. Most of the relevant documentation was known by the time of the Eichmann trial and is discussed below.