''Ypatingasis būrys'' (''Special Squad'') or Special SD and German Security Police Squad ( lt, Vokiečių Saugumo policijos ir SD ypatingasis būrys, pl, Specjalny Oddział SD i Niemieckiej Policji Bezpieczeństwa, also colloquially ''strzelcy ponarscy'' (" Ponary riflemen" in Polish)Wilno
on Diapositive. (1941–1944) was a Lithuanian, killing squad also known as the "Lithuanian, equivalent of

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 vi ...

", operating in the

Vilnius Region Vilnius Region is the territory in present-day Lithuania and Belarus that was originally inhabited by ethnic Baltic tribes and was a part of Lithuania proper, but came under East Slavic and Polish cultural influences over time. The territor ...

. The unit, primarily composed of Lithuanian volunteers,

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute ...

, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'', Yale University Press,
Google Books, p.84
/ref> was formed by the German occupational government and was subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9 and later to

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

(SD) and

Sicherheitspolizei The ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ( en, Security Police), often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Germany for security police. In the Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the ...

(Sipo). The unit was subordinated to German police, and had no official autonomy.

History

The name of the Vilnian Special Squad ( lt, Ypatingasis būrys) was first mentioned in documents dated 15 July 1941. The Special Squad (YB) began as police units formed after Lithuania was occupied by Germany in 1941. Bubnys notes that it is difficult to answer two questions: how many members YB had and how many people they killed. Bubnys argues that the number of 100,000 victims attributed to the organization is inflated.

Composition and size of the unit

Many members were volunteers, particularly recruited from the former members of the paramilitary

nationalistic Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: T ...

Kazimierz Sakowicz,

Yitzhak Arad Yitzhak Arad ( he, יצחק ארד; né Icchak Rudnicki; November 11, 1926 – May 6, 2021) was an Israeli historian, author, IDF brigadier general and Soviet partisan. He also served as Yad Vashem's director from 1972 to 1993, and specialised ...

, Yale University Press, 2005,
Google Print, p.12
/ref>

Lithuanian Riflemen's Union The Lithuanian Riflemen's Union (LRU, lt, Lietuvos šaulių sąjunga), also referred to as Šauliai ( lt, šaulys for ''rifleman''), is a paramilitary non-profit organisation supported by the State. The activities are in three main areas: milita ...

. Czesław Michalski
Ponary – Golgota Wileńszczyzny
(Ponary – the Golgoth of Wilno Region). ''Konspekt'' nº 5, Winter 2000–2001, a publication of the Academy of Pedagogy in Kraków. Last accessed 10 February 2007. Stanisław Mikke
'W Ponarach'
Relation from a Polish–Lithuanian memorial ceremony in Paneriai, 2000. On the pages of Polish Bar Association It was composed primarily of Lithuanians, although according to Lithuanian historian Bubnys, a few Russians and a few Poles served in it as well. There are different estimates regarding the size of the unit. Polish historian Czesław Michalski estimates that it grew from base of 50Konspekt ''Ponary – Golgota Wileńszczyzny'' Czesław Michalski Pedagogical University of Cracow 2001 while Tadeusz Piotrowski asserts about that there were 100 volunteers at its onset. According to Michalski, after its initial creation, at various times hundreds of people were members.

Arūnas Bubnys Arūnas Bubnys (born November 7, 1961) is a Lithuanian historian and archivist. He started his studies at Vilnius University in 1985. In 1993 he received a Ph.D for the thesis ''Lietuvių antinacinė rezistencija 1941–1944 m.'' ( en, Lithuanian A ...

states that it never exceeded a core of forty or fifty men. 118 names are known; 20 of the members have been prosecuted and punished. According to the Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys, who cited the Polish historian

Helena Pasierbska Helena Pasierbska-Wojtowicz (1921 – 12 March 2010) was a Polish writer. During the Second World War, she joined the Polish resistance organization (first Związek Walki Zbrojnej, later Armia Krajowa) and served as a curier and nurse. Took part ...

, during 1941–1944, approximately 108 men were members of YB.

Role in the Holocaust

The squad members were used as guards and moved Jews from their apartments to the

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...

. YB also guarded the

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 orga ...

headquarters in Vilnius, the prison on present-day

Gediminas Avenue Gediminas Avenue ( lt, Gedimino prospektas) is the main street of Vilnius, where most of the governmental institutions of Lithuania are concentrated, including the government, parliament, Constitutional Court and ministries. It is also the locat ...

, as well as the Paneriai base. Together with German police, the squad participated in the

Ponary massacre , location = Paneriai (Ponary), Vilnius (Wilno), Reichskommissariat Ostland , coordinates = , date = July 1941 – August 1944 , incident_type = Shootings by automatic and semi-automatic weapons, genocide , perpetrators ...

, where some 70,000 Jews were murdered,Jews of Vilna and Lithuania in general had their own complex identity, and labels of

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...

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 are ...

Russian Jews The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...

are all applicable only in part. See also:

Ezra Mendelsohn Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest ('' kohen''). In Greco- Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρ ...

, ''On Modern Jewish Politics'', Oxford University Press, 1993,
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and

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, ''Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages'', Houghton Mifflin Books, 2003,
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/ref> along with estimated 20,000

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in ...

and 8,000

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n POWs, many from nearby Vilnius. YB was created to kill people and it killed people during its entire existence. It carried out most of the murders in 1941. YB killed people in Paneriai,

Nemenčinė Nemenčinė ( is a city in Vilnius district municipality, Lithuania, it is located only about north-east of Vilnius. Close to Nemenčinė forest was planted which forms a sentence ''Žalgiris 600'' (commemorating the Battle of Grunwald) visib ...

, Naujoji Vilnia,

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, Jašiūnai, Eišiškės,

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, Semeliškės, and

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. YB killed tens of thousands people, mostly Jews.

1943

When Germans closed Vilnius' monasteries in 1943, YB guarded their facilities until Germans removed the seized property. In 1943 YB performed far fewer executions than in 1941–1942. From December 1943 Paneriai was guarded by an SS unit and by 1944, according to Lithuanian historian Bubnys, YB did not perform shootings in Paneriai. From August 1943 YB was renamed to a Squad of 11th Battalion of

Latvian Legion The Latvian Legion ( lv, Latviešu leģions) was a formation of the German Waffen-SS during World War II. Created in 1943, it consisted primarily of ethnic Latvian personnel.Gerhard P. Bassler, ''Alfred Valdmanis and the politics of survival'', 20 ...

. Old identity documents were replaced with new documents of Latvian Legion troops. Despite the formal change, YB was still serving German Security Police and SD.

1944

In July 1944 YB was moved to

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 Traka ...

and stationed at

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 the ...

. There YB guarded the prison and before retreating, killed 100 prisoners. Then YB was moved to Stutthof, where it escorted Jews to

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. It stayed there until April 1944, when it received orders to convoy Jews to

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. However, YB members fled from the approaching front and Jewish prisoners escaped. Some YB members successfully retreated to Germany; some stayed in the zone occupied by Red Army.

Uniforms

Squad members were issued Soviet weapons and white armbands. Some of the squad members wore Lithuanian Army uniforms until 1942, when they were issued green SD uniforms with

Swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. I ...

and skulls on caps. Squad members were also issued SD identity cards.

Commanders

Amongst the original organizers of the squad were junior lieutenants Jakubka and Butkus. After 23 July 1941, the commanding officer was Juozas Šidlauskas. In November 1941, lieutenant Balys Norvaiša, became the commander of the squad and his deputy was lieutenant Balys Lukošius. By the end of 1943, Norvaiša and Lukošius were deployed to a self-defence battalion and command of the YB was transferred to sergeant Jonas Tumas. The longest-serving commander of YB was SS man Martin Weiss. Weiss not only directed executions but killed victims personally. In 1943 Weiss was replaced by private Fiedler.

Aftermath

Ten YB members were sentenced and executed by Soviet authorities in 1945 (Jonas Oželis-Kazlauskas, Juozas Macys, Stasys Ukrinas, Mikas Bogotkevičius, Povilas Vaitulionis, Jonas Dvilainis, Vladas Mandeika, Borisas Baltūsis, Juozas Augustas, Jonas Norkevičius). In total, twenty YB members were convicted by Polish and Soviet authorities, four of them in Poland in the 70s. In 1972 Polish authorities arrested three men, one Polish (Jan Borkowski, who during the war used a Lithuanized version of his name, Jonas Barkauskas), and the other two of mixed Polish–Lithuanian ethnicity (Władysław Butkun aka Vladas Butkunas and Józef Miakisz aka Juozas Mikašius) and sentenced them to death. These sentences were later commuted to 25 years imprisonment. Other YB members died after the war or lived abroad.

References

External links

"Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto": wartime photographs & documents – vilnaghetto.comCan Lithuania face its Holocaust past?
– Excerpts from lecture given by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Director of the

Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educa ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, at the conference on "Litvaks in the World," 28 August 2001. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ypatingasis Burys Einsatzgruppen Home front during World War II Military history of Lithuania during World War II Jewish Lithuanian history Jewish Polish history Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany The Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Poland Local participation in the Holocaust Lithuania–Poland relations Paneriai Generalbezirk Litauen Collaboration with the Axis Powers