The Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941, also known as the Great Action, was the largest

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

Lithuanian Jews Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas ...

.Kovno 1940-1944 Timeline
By the order of SS-''

Standartenführer __NOTOC__ ''Standartenführer'' (short: ''Staf'', , ) was a Nazi Party (NSDAP) paramilitary rank that was used in several NSDAP organizations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. First founded as a title in 1925, in 1928 it became one of ...

Karl Jäger Karl Jäger (; 20 September 1888 – 22 June 1959) was a German mid-ranking official in the '' SS'' of Nazi Germany and ''Einsatzkommando'' leader who perpetrated acts of genocide during the Holocaust. Early life and career Jäger was born in Sch ...

and SS-''

Rottenführer ''Rottenführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in the year 1932. The rank of ''Rottenführer'' was used by several Nazi paramilitary groups, among them the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) an ...

Helmut Rauca Helmut Rauca (3 November 1908 – 29 October 1983) was a Holocaust perpetrator instrumental in the murder of more than 10,000 Jews from the Kaunas Ghetto, Lithuania, during World War II. He was a member of ''Einsatzgruppe A'' in the rank of ''Haup ...

, the ''

Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber vict ...

'' under the leadership of SS-''

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expa ...

Joachim Hamann Joachim Hamann (18 May 1913 in Kiel – 13 July 1945 in Heikendorf) was an officer of the ''Einsatzkommando 3'', a killing unit of '' Einsatzgruppe A'', responsible for tens of thousands of Jewish deaths in Lithuania. Hamann organized and commande ...

, and 8 to 10 men from ''

Einsatzkommando 3 During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellect ...

'', murdered 2,007 Jewish men, 2,920 women, and 4,273 children in a single day at the

Ninth Fort The Ninth Fort ( lt, Devintas Fortas) is a stronghold in the northern part of Šilainiai elderate, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is a part of the Kaunas Fortress, which was constructed in the late 19th century. During the occupation of Kaunas and th ...

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

, ''

Generalbezirk Litauen Generalbezirk Litauen ( lt, Lietuvos generalinė sritis, ) was one of the four administrative subdivisions of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'', the 1941-1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three ...

'', as German occupied

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

was then known. The

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

destroyed the small ghetto on October 4, 1941, and killed almost all of its inhabitants at the

. Later that same month, on October 28, SS-''Rottenführer'' Helmut Rauca of the Kaunas

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

(secret state police) conducted the selection in the

Kaunas Ghetto The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were sh ...

. All ghetto inhabitants were forced to assemble in the central square of the ghetto. Rauca selected 9,200 Jewish men, women, and children, about one-third of the ghetto's population. The next day, October 29, all of these people were shot at the Ninth Fort in huge pits dug in advance.

References

Jews and Judaism in Kaunas Massacres in 1941 Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany History of Kaunas Military history of Lithuania during World War II Einsatzgruppen Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Lithuania 1941 in Lithuania World War II massacres October 1941 events 20th century in Kaunas {{Holocaust-stub

See also

References