|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
|
|
|
|
|
| 1941: Mass Murder |
|
pg. 267 |
|
|
|
|
| |
From an illegal radio that's hidden in a large book, a member of the Dutch Resistance listens probably to a BBC broadcast. Such broadcasts not only maintained the spirits of those in the occupied countries but also provided coded instructions for underground actions against the Germans. Many individual Dutch were sympathetic to, and risked their lives to help hide, Jews from the Germans. However, the Dutch government and police generally cooperated with the German occupation forces in rounding up Jews to be transported to their deaths in Poland.
Photo: Archiv Cas Oorthuys / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
|
As the Germans conquered Eastern Europe, they encouraged ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) to join Nazi organizations. Many of these ethnic Germans participated in the crimes committed by the Nazi regime. In this photograph, uniformed Volksdeutsche pose with a group of Serbs and Jews they have executed in Petrovgrad, Yugoslavia, on September 17, 1941.
Photo: Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
|
|
Slaughter at Ejszyszki During the autumn of 1941, advancing Einsatzkommando units systematically annihilated Jewish communities in villages and small towns in the Baltic states. On September 22, the beginning of the Jewish New Year, the squads swept into the Lithuanian town of Ejszyszki, ready to murder each of the 4000 Jews who lived there. Some 500 Ejszyszki Jews fled into the countryside, only to be captured by the Germans and their Lithuanian police helpers. Those unable to escape were locked inside three buildings, without food or water. The next day and night, still denied food and water, the Jews were made to stand in the cattle market. Finally, at daybreak of September 25, the healthiest men were taken away. Those remaining were told to not be afraid, that the men were working and preparing a ghetto for the community. But there was no ghetto, only burial pits where the Jews were taken in groups of 250 and shot. A survivor recalled hearing the Lithuanian executioners celebrate with boisterous singing and drinking. About 300 Lithuanians voluntarily participated in the killing "actions" undertaken by Einsatzgruppe A in the Baltic region, which annihilated about 90 percent of the Jewish population. Only 30 Jews from Ejszyszki survived the war.
|
|
|
|
|
|
September 22, 1941: Nearly 500 Jews escape from Ejszyszki, Lithuania, after being alerted to an impending Nazi sweep; See September 23, 1941.
|
|
September 23, 1941: Gassing tests are conducted at Auschwitz.
|
|
September 23, 1941: 3500 Jews unable to escape from Ejszyszki, Lithuania, are locked in a synagogue and then moved to a cattle market, where they are denied food and water; See September 27, 1941.
|
|
September 24-28, 1941: Soviet troops in Kiev, Ukraine, booby-trap two hotels, the post office, a radio station, and other major buildings, which are exploded via wireless radio after German troops have settled in. About 1000 Germans are killed. The Germans immediately plot a reprisal; See September 29-30, 1941.
|
|
September 26, 1941: Jews of Swieciany, Lithuania, are massacred in the nearby Polygon Woods. Several hundred young Jewish men manage to escape.
|
|
|
|
|
| 1941: Mass Murder |
|
|
pg. 267 |
|
|
The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
|
|
