Historical Context
Dr. Arūnas Bubnys
In terms of size and significance, Kaunas Jewish community was only surpassed by that of Vilnius. Kaunas Jews were famous in the whole Europe for their Slobodka (now Vilijampolė) yeshiva, Hebrew education system and active Zionist movement. According to unofficial data of the Department of Statistics published on 1 January 1941, 32,595 Jews were living in Kaunas at that time (20,84 percent of the city’s population). (1)
The history of the Kaunas Jewish community during the period of the Nazi occupation could be divided into several stages: 1) the period before the foundation of the ghetto (23 June 1941 – 15 August 1941); 2) the period of mass killings (“actions”) in the ghetto (15 August 1941 – October); 3) the period of stabilisation (November of 1941 – September of 1943); 4) the period of the reorganisation of the ghetto into a concentration camp (October 1943 – middle of July 1944); 5) the liquidation of the Kaunas Ghetto (concentration camp) and the imprisonment of Kaunas Jews in German concentration camps (middle of July 1944 – April 1945).
The discrimination and persecution of the Jews residing in Kaunas city started on the very first days of the war. As early as 23 June 1941, anti-Soviet Lithuanian insurgents (partisans) de facto took over Kaunas. The first units of German army entered Kaunas 24 June 1941. Before the coming of the Germans, several thousands of Jews moved from the city to the countryside or fled to the Soviet Union. After the arrival of SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker – the German security police officer and commander of the SD Einsatzgruppe A – in Kaunas in the end of June 1941, the most extensive pogroms against the Jews were carried out by the Nazis. Considerable pogroms were organised in Vilijampolė – the suburban neighbourhood of Kaunas. During this outbreak of violence, the killings were carried out by Lithuanian squads controlled by the Gestapo (so called partisans – prisoners released from the Soviet jails and criminal deviants). Several hundred or maybe even thousands of Jews, including women and children, are thought to have been killed during the pogroms.
In the beginning of July 1941, the systematic mass killings of Jews started taking place in the 7th Fort in Kaunas. The killings were carried out by German Gestapo officers and soldiers of the National Labour Protection Battalion (TDA). From the beginning of the war until the foundation of the ghetto (15 August 1941), around 8,000 may have been killed in Kaunas. (2) The mass killings continued after the creation of the ghetto. Jews were being killed in Kaunas 4th and 9th Forts. The most extensive killing action was organised on 29 October 1941 in the 9th Fort when 9,200 people were shot. (3) It was the largest action of killing throughout the period of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania. Not only men, but also women, children and the elderly were killed during these actions. The killings were carried out by German Gestapo officers and policemen of the 1st Lithuanian battalion (ex-TDA), 3rd company. Alongside the arrests and shootings of Jews, came legal and proprietary discrimination and expropriation.
After the Great Action (29 October 1941) came the period of stabilisation, which lasted until September 1943. Around 17,000 Jews remained in the ghetto at the time (less than half of the number that lived in Kaunas before the Nazi-Soviet war). (4) In terms of the Nazis, the ghetto was “cleaned of the unnecessary”, in other words, the Jews who were unable to work for the German war effort. During this period mass killings of Jews were not organised. During the stabilisation period a wide administrational structure was created in the ghetto. It was governed by the Council of Elders (chairman Elchanan Elkes). The ghetto became somewhat of a microstate with its own government, economy and forms of spiritual and cultural life. The authority of the ghetto gave its exceptional attention to exploiting the Jewish work force and to increasing the intensity of work and the number of workers as well as the institutions providing labour. The Council of Elders held on to the idea that the Nazis would not liquidate the ghetto as long as its work force was economically viable to the Germans. The most important departments of the internal administration of the ghetto were those of labour, economy, healthcare and welfare, institutions responsible for food, the Jewish police, court and the bureau of statistics.
The most important object, which required the largest work force, was the Aleksotas airport. In 1943 of the approximately 17,000 prisoners of the Kaunas Ghetto, around 9,600 worked in 140 different workplaces every day. Most of them took care of jobs that were required by the Wehrmacht and filled military orders. (5)
In autumn of 1943, the Kaunas Ghetto was reorganised into an SS concentration camp. The SS took over command from the civil government. The Jews became even more strictly controlled. Jews could only work in isolated camps and labour teams were removed from civil institutions. (6) Around 4,000 prisoners of the ghetto were transferred to isolated labour camps in the neighbourhoods of Aleksotas and Šančiai. (7) The peaceful period in the ghetto ended on 26–27 March 1944, when the extremely cruel action of Jewish child abductions took place. Around 1,700 children and elderly people were taken away from the ghetto in two days and transported to Auschwitz for annihilation. The action was carried out by SS and ROA officers. The Gestapo also dissolved the Jewish police (34 policemen were shot in the 9th Fort) and suspended the Council of Elders. (8) The self-government of the ghetto was essentially voided and the control of the SS over the ghetto became even stricter.
On the 12 of July, 1944 Kaunas Ghetto was set on fire. The Gestapo started setting the ghetto houses on fire. People trying to escape the fire were shot. Almost all houses and the ghetto workshops were burnt down. Hundreds of people died in the fire or were shot and killed. About 6,000–7,000 people were evacuated from the Kaunas Ghetto; about 1,000 Jews were killed during the liquidation of the ghetto and about 300–400 survived the liquidation. (9) Only a few thousand Kaunas Jews saw the end of the war.
Communist and Zionist anti-fascist resistance organisations were founded in the Kaunas Ghetto. The foundation of the Antifascist Struggle Organisation (AKO) was initiated by Chaim Yellin. The members of this organisation (around 500) accumulated weapons and tried to make connections with the Soviet partisans functioning in the forests. (10) In the end of 1943, the AKO began sending its members to the partisans. A total of around 250 AKO members joined the Soviet partisan forces. (11) They formed a separate squad called “Death to the invaders”.
Due to poorer conditions to organise partisan actions compared to the district of Vilnius, a smaller number of members of the anti-fascist resistance escaped from the Kaunas Ghetto to the forest. Kaunas was the administrational centre of Nazi occupied Lithuania. The Nazis believed that Jews in such cities had to be a primary target in order to ensure the safety of the occupation government and the conditions for the Germans to perform colonisation and Germanisation. All of these were the reasons that determined the extremely large loss of the Kaunas Jewish community and the very slim chances to survive.
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(1) Data of the Department of Statistics on the ethnical composition of residents of Lithuania dated 1 January 1941, Lithuanian Central State Archives, f. R-743, ap. 5, b. 46, l. 172.
(2) “Kowno”, Enzyklopedie des Holocaust: die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, München-Zürich, 1995, Bd. 2, p. 804.
(3) Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje (Mass Murders in Lithuania) 1941–1944, collection of documents, V., 1965, Vol. 1, p. 135.
(4) Paper “Shoah: Annihilation of Lithuanian Jews” read by Prof. I. Arad in the international conference “Lithuanian Jewish community from 19th century to 1941” which took place in Telšiai 19–24 September 2001, p. 13.
(5) Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje, Vol. 1, p. 243.
(6) Ch. Dieckmann, “Das Ghetto und das Konzentrationslager in Kaunas 1941–1944”, Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager – Entwicklung und Struktur, S. 455.
(7) Ch. Dieckmann..., S. 456.
(8) Report of LSSR KGB dated 8 August 1944 on the murders of Jews carried out by Nazi occupants in Kaunas, Lithuanian Special Archives (hereinafter referred to as LSA), f. K–1, ap. 10, b. 16, l. 94.
(9) LSA, f. K-1, ap. 10, b. 102, l. 217; Evidence of Ch. Gordon dated 12 August 1944, Department of Manuscripts of the Library of Academy of Sciences, f. 159–25, l. 5 a. p.
(10) S. Ginaitė-Rubinsonienė, Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas 1941–1944, V., 1999, p. 101; Report on the Party and Komsomol organisations operating in the Kaunas Ghetto in 1941–1944, 1958 m., LSA, f. 15409, ap. 1, b. 1, l. 25.
(11) M. Yellin, D. Gelpern, Kaunas Ghetto and It's Fighters, V., 1969, p. 52–95.
In terms of size and significance, Kaunas Jewish community was only surpassed by that of Vilnius. Kaunas Jews were famous in the whole Europe for their Slobodka (now Vilijampolė) yeshiva, Hebrew education system and active Zionist movement. According to unofficial data of the Department of Statistics published on 1 January 1941, 32,595 Jews were living in Kaunas at that time (20,84 percent of the city’s population). (1)
The history of the Kaunas Jewish community during the period of the Nazi occupation could be divided into several stages: 1) the period before the foundation of the ghetto (23 June 1941 – 15 August 1941); 2) the period of mass killings (“actions”) in the ghetto (15 August 1941 – October); 3) the period of stabilisation (November of 1941 – September of 1943); 4) the period of the reorganisation of the ghetto into a concentration camp (October 1943 – middle of July 1944); 5) the liquidation of the Kaunas Ghetto (concentration camp) and the imprisonment of Kaunas Jews in German concentration camps (middle of July 1944 – April 1945).
The discrimination and persecution of the Jews residing in Kaunas city started on the very first days of the war. As early as 23 June 1941, anti-Soviet Lithuanian insurgents (partisans) de facto took over Kaunas. The first units of German army entered Kaunas 24 June 1941. Before the coming of the Germans, several thousands of Jews moved from the city to the countryside or fled to the Soviet Union. After the arrival of SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker – the German security police officer and commander of the SD Einsatzgruppe A – in Kaunas in the end of June 1941, the most extensive pogroms against the Jews were carried out by the Nazis. Considerable pogroms were organised in Vilijampolė – the suburban neighbourhood of Kaunas. During this outbreak of violence, the killings were carried out by Lithuanian squads controlled by the Gestapo (so called partisans – prisoners released from the Soviet jails and criminal deviants). Several hundred or maybe even thousands of Jews, including women and children, are thought to have been killed during the pogroms.
In the beginning of July 1941, the systematic mass killings of Jews started taking place in the 7th Fort in Kaunas. The killings were carried out by German Gestapo officers and soldiers of the National Labour Protection Battalion (TDA). From the beginning of the war until the foundation of the ghetto (15 August 1941), around 8,000 may have been killed in Kaunas. (2) The mass killings continued after the creation of the ghetto. Jews were being killed in Kaunas 4th and 9th Forts. The most extensive killing action was organised on 29 October 1941 in the 9th Fort when 9,200 people were shot. (3) It was the largest action of killing throughout the period of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania. Not only men, but also women, children and the elderly were killed during these actions. The killings were carried out by German Gestapo officers and policemen of the 1st Lithuanian battalion (ex-TDA), 3rd company. Alongside the arrests and shootings of Jews, came legal and proprietary discrimination and expropriation.
After the Great Action (29 October 1941) came the period of stabilisation, which lasted until September 1943. Around 17,000 Jews remained in the ghetto at the time (less than half of the number that lived in Kaunas before the Nazi-Soviet war). (4) In terms of the Nazis, the ghetto was “cleaned of the unnecessary”, in other words, the Jews who were unable to work for the German war effort. During this period mass killings of Jews were not organised. During the stabilisation period a wide administrational structure was created in the ghetto. It was governed by the Council of Elders (chairman Elchanan Elkes). The ghetto became somewhat of a microstate with its own government, economy and forms of spiritual and cultural life. The authority of the ghetto gave its exceptional attention to exploiting the Jewish work force and to increasing the intensity of work and the number of workers as well as the institutions providing labour. The Council of Elders held on to the idea that the Nazis would not liquidate the ghetto as long as its work force was economically viable to the Germans. The most important departments of the internal administration of the ghetto were those of labour, economy, healthcare and welfare, institutions responsible for food, the Jewish police, court and the bureau of statistics.
The most important object, which required the largest work force, was the Aleksotas airport. In 1943 of the approximately 17,000 prisoners of the Kaunas Ghetto, around 9,600 worked in 140 different workplaces every day. Most of them took care of jobs that were required by the Wehrmacht and filled military orders. (5)
In autumn of 1943, the Kaunas Ghetto was reorganised into an SS concentration camp. The SS took over command from the civil government. The Jews became even more strictly controlled. Jews could only work in isolated camps and labour teams were removed from civil institutions. (6) Around 4,000 prisoners of the ghetto were transferred to isolated labour camps in the neighbourhoods of Aleksotas and Šančiai. (7) The peaceful period in the ghetto ended on 26–27 March 1944, when the extremely cruel action of Jewish child abductions took place. Around 1,700 children and elderly people were taken away from the ghetto in two days and transported to Auschwitz for annihilation. The action was carried out by SS and ROA officers. The Gestapo also dissolved the Jewish police (34 policemen were shot in the 9th Fort) and suspended the Council of Elders. (8) The self-government of the ghetto was essentially voided and the control of the SS over the ghetto became even stricter.
On the 12 of July, 1944 Kaunas Ghetto was set on fire. The Gestapo started setting the ghetto houses on fire. People trying to escape the fire were shot. Almost all houses and the ghetto workshops were burnt down. Hundreds of people died in the fire or were shot and killed. About 6,000–7,000 people were evacuated from the Kaunas Ghetto; about 1,000 Jews were killed during the liquidation of the ghetto and about 300–400 survived the liquidation. (9) Only a few thousand Kaunas Jews saw the end of the war.
Communist and Zionist anti-fascist resistance organisations were founded in the Kaunas Ghetto. The foundation of the Antifascist Struggle Organisation (AKO) was initiated by Chaim Yellin. The members of this organisation (around 500) accumulated weapons and tried to make connections with the Soviet partisans functioning in the forests. (10) In the end of 1943, the AKO began sending its members to the partisans. A total of around 250 AKO members joined the Soviet partisan forces. (11) They formed a separate squad called “Death to the invaders”.
Due to poorer conditions to organise partisan actions compared to the district of Vilnius, a smaller number of members of the anti-fascist resistance escaped from the Kaunas Ghetto to the forest. Kaunas was the administrational centre of Nazi occupied Lithuania. The Nazis believed that Jews in such cities had to be a primary target in order to ensure the safety of the occupation government and the conditions for the Germans to perform colonisation and Germanisation. All of these were the reasons that determined the extremely large loss of the Kaunas Jewish community and the very slim chances to survive.
_________________
(1) Data of the Department of Statistics on the ethnical composition of residents of Lithuania dated 1 January 1941, Lithuanian Central State Archives, f. R-743, ap. 5, b. 46, l. 172.
(2) “Kowno”, Enzyklopedie des Holocaust: die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, München-Zürich, 1995, Bd. 2, p. 804.
(3) Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje (Mass Murders in Lithuania) 1941–1944, collection of documents, V., 1965, Vol. 1, p. 135.
(4) Paper “Shoah: Annihilation of Lithuanian Jews” read by Prof. I. Arad in the international conference “Lithuanian Jewish community from 19th century to 1941” which took place in Telšiai 19–24 September 2001, p. 13.
(5) Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje, Vol. 1, p. 243.
(6) Ch. Dieckmann, “Das Ghetto und das Konzentrationslager in Kaunas 1941–1944”, Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager – Entwicklung und Struktur, S. 455.
(7) Ch. Dieckmann..., S. 456.
(8) Report of LSSR KGB dated 8 August 1944 on the murders of Jews carried out by Nazi occupants in Kaunas, Lithuanian Special Archives (hereinafter referred to as LSA), f. K–1, ap. 10, b. 16, l. 94.
(9) LSA, f. K-1, ap. 10, b. 102, l. 217; Evidence of Ch. Gordon dated 12 August 1944, Department of Manuscripts of the Library of Academy of Sciences, f. 159–25, l. 5 a. p.
(10) S. Ginaitė-Rubinsonienė, Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas 1941–1944, V., 1999, p. 101; Report on the Party and Komsomol organisations operating in the Kaunas Ghetto in 1941–1944, 1958 m., LSA, f. 15409, ap. 1, b. 1, l. 25.
(11) M. Yellin, D. Gelpern, Kaunas Ghetto and It's Fighters, V., 1969, p. 52–95.