First Mass Actions (Joseph Gar, 2004)
On Monday June 23 , 1941, when there were practically no Soviet troops left, but prior to the entry of German troops, the city was at the mercy of armed anti Soviet partisan units that were springing up.
On the same day, the Lithuanian national leadership made a public announcement, stating that the country’s independence had been restored and that a national government had been formed with Colonel Skirpa, former Lithuanian minister to Germany at its head. It should be noted, however, that when the Germans took over, they failed to recognize the declaration and the self styled government that made it. They also prevented several Lithuanian ‘cabinet members’ resident in Berlin, from returning home. The German government was unwilling, from the outset, to recognize any Lithuanian state institutions, preferring instead to establish a local military command and judiciary directly answerable to Berlin.
To ingratiate themselves with the occupying power, local pro-Nazi elements embarked on the assassination of Jews, in the hope of convincing their masters that the Lithuanians could be counted on as reliable allies.
Led by their ‘supreme command,’ gangs of armed ruffians patrolled the town, attacking Jews at random, killing some on the spot and arresting others. Those arrested were taken to the headquarters of the recently formed Lithuanian security police and other holding centers. The point of assembly for the Jews in the old city was the square next to the town hall. Most of the prisoners were later transferred from several locations to the 7th fort (one of the military stockades situated outside the city) – the scene of the first mass-murder of Kaunas Jewry.
The event that accompanied attacks by blood thirsty Lithuanian thugs against the helpless Jewish population was horrendous. The anguished screams of frightened women and children, chased out of their homes could be heard everywhere. Groups of Jews arrested in the suburb of Slabodka, were demonstratively paraded through Leisves Allee, the main street of Kaunas. Many of them were wearing their prayer shawls and phylacteries and loudly recited psalms as they walked. Their captors walked alongside, shooting and beating people at random.
Close to Slabodka bridge on Jenever street, the Lithuanian hoodlums singled out around 25 Jews and forced them to dance, do physical exercises and chant Jewish prayers and Russian songs. Bystanders were invited to gloat at the predicament of the tortured Jews. When they had finally grown tired of their bloody form of amusement, the thugs ordered the Jews to kneel down, following which they then shot them in the back. Among the victims was the journalist Shmuel Matz, also known as “Shmulik,” one of the editors of the magazine “Folksblatt.”
While Jews were being murdered, many homes were looted and valuables stolen. This would be a fitting juncture to note the indifference of the Lithuanian people who watched these events as they occurred, yet voiced no protests or condemnation of the revolting atrocities committed by their fellow Lithuanians. The silence of their Christian neighbors soon convinced the distressed Jews of the hopelessness of their situation under the Germans and their local Nazi accomplices.
On the evening of June 24, as the first German units arrived in Kaunas, anti Jewish rioting intensified. Terrified by events and unable to escape, most Jews remained confined in their homes, helplessly awaiting the course of events. Local janitors played a singularly despicable role during those grim days, as the systematic killings continued. Many of them, blinded by greed, betrayed Jews to the ‘partisans’ and then looted personal effect from the victims’ homes once they had been arrested. Only a few protected their Jewish tenants, by informing the marauding gangs that there were no Jews living in the building., or that they had already been caught. Initially, Jewish residents could still be seen on the streets of Kaunas but these soon became almost ‘judenrein.’ As early as June 25, one could see terrified Jews running through the streets like hunted animals. By this point, every Jew was aware that he risked his life by showing himself in public. People only did so if they needed to contact relatives or friends living elsewhere and not feel so lonesome and miserable. ammunition and consequently many of the ransacked homes were littered with the dismembered body parts of their former owners.
One such case was that of the garage near Vytautas Prospekt. Here too, the killers tortured their victims until they lost consciousness. They were then doused with buckets of cold water and subjected to more torture until they finally lost the will to live.
The mass murders reached their first peak during the horrendous pogrom in Slabodka on the night of Wednesday June 25, 1941. Brutal killers, among them many uniformed students and ‘partisans’ armed with guns and knives, broke into Jewish homes under darkness and went on an orgy of shooting, stabbing and beheading. The bloody spree went on throughout the night. Some of the killers used hollow point
Zionist leader Mordechai Jatkonsky who lived on Jurburker street. His head was found in one corner of the room while his headless torso lay in the other. The corpse of his dentist wife lay elsewhere with both breasts cut off.
The dismembered body of Rabbi Ossowsky was found at his home, bent over a blood stained Talmud volume he had been studying, the night the killers surprised him. Rumors were rife that in some shop windows in Slabodka, heads of decapitated Jews were being exhibited.
On Kriksciukaicio street, opposite the post office, a Jewish owned home was set on fire, consuming the corpses of several Jewish families. These are but some of the events that took place during the widespread Slabodka pogrom, which claimed the lives of almost a thousand Jews in horrific circumstances. On Friday June 27, 1941, their corpses were heaped on garbage wagons and some were buried at the old Jewish cemetery while the rest were dumped in mass graves on the river banks outside Slabodka.
Later the same day, around sixty Jews were grabbed off Vytautas Prospekt and Gedimin St and herded into the compound of Lietukis garage where they were tortured to death. Eye witnesses watching the proceedings from neighboring buildings recalled later that dozens of Jews were clubbed to death with vehicle parts and blunt instruments. Some had hose pipes shoved down their mouths and the water turned on full pressure until their intestines burst. A shapeless mass of human offal lay strewn over the yard, after the horrific spectacle finally ended.
Unfortunately, the Slabodka pogrom and bloody excesses at the garages were but the prelude to further atrocities both in Kaunas and the provinces.
All sectors of Lithuanian society actively participated in the cold blooded killing of Jews. Farmers, workers, officials, and representatives of the intelligentsia all indulged themselves in an orgy of sadism against helpless Jews. Such was the desperate the plight of Lithuanian Jewry at the outset of German occupation.