''Ypatingasis būrys'' (, ) or Special Squad of the German Security Police and SD () was a killing squad 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 territory ...

in 1941–1944. The unit, primarily composed of Lithuanian volunteers,

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...

, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'', Yale University Press,
Google Books, p.84
/ref> was formed by the German occupation 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 Schutzstaffel, SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence ...

(SD) and

Sicherheitspolizei The often abbreviated as SiPo, is a German term meaning "security police". In the Nazi Germany, Nazi era, it referred to the state political and criminal investigation security agency, security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of ...

(Sipo). ^p.15 The unit was subordinated to German police, and had no official autonomy. In Polish they were colloquially called ''strzelcy ponarscy'' (" Ponary riflemen" in Polish).

History

The Vilnian Special Squad () was first mentioned in documents dated 15 July 1941. The Special Squad (YB) began as police units formed when Lithuania was occupied by Germany in 1941. Lithuanian historian Arūnas Bubnys notes that it is difficult to confirm how many members the 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

Many members were volunteers, particularly former members of the nationalistic paramilitary

Lithuanian Riflemen's Union The Lithuanian Riflemen's Union (LRU, ), also referred to as Šauliai (''the Riflemen''; from for ''rifleman''), is a paramilitary organization supported by the Government of Lithuania and regulated by the dedicated law. It is active in three ...

^p.12 It was composed primarily of Lithuanians, although according to Bubnys, a few Russians and Poles served as well. Estimates differ regarding the size of the unit. Polish historian estimates that it grew from a base of 50 while Tadeusz Piotrowski asserts there were 100 volunteers at the onset. According to Michalski, at times it had hundreds of members. Bubnys says that it never exceeded a core of forty or fifty men. Of the members, 118 names are known; 20 have been prosecuted and sentenced. According to Bubnys, who cited the Polish historian Helena Pasierbska, during 1941–1944, approximately 108 men were members of the YB.

Role in the Holocaust

The squad members were used as guards and took

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

from their apartments to the

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

. The YB also guarded the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

headquarters in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, the prison on present-day Gediminas Avenue, as well as the Paneriai base. Together with the German military's

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...

, the squad participated in the

Ponary massacre The Ponary massacre (), or the Paneriai massacre (), was the mass murder of up to 100,000 people, mostly Jews, Poles, and Russians, by German '' SD'' and '' SS'' and the Lithuanian '' Ypatingasis būrys'' killing squads, during World War II a ...

, in which some 70,000 Jews were murdered, many from nearby Vilnius along with estimated 20,000 Poles and 8,000 Russian POWs. The YB was created to kill people and it killed people during its entire existence. It carried out most of the murders in 1941. The YB is known to have 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) visibl ...

, Naujoji Vilnia,

Varėna Varėna () is a city in Dzūkija, southern Lithuania. It is the capital of the district of Varėna. Currently, there are 7,794 residents. The Varėna district is the largest and most forested municipality of Lithuania as more than 50% of the di ...

, Jašiūnai, Eišiškės,

Trakai Trakai (; see Trakai#Names and etymology, names section for alternative and historic names) is a city and lake resort in Lithuania. It lies west of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania or just from the administrative limits of the Lithuanian capi ...

, Semeliškės, and

Švenčionys Švenčionys (; ; known also by several Švenčionys#Etymology, alternative names) is a city in eastern Lithuania, and capital of the Švenčionys district municipality, located north of Vilnius. , it had a population of 4,065 of which about 17% ...

1943

When the Germans closed Vilnius' monasteries in 1943, the YB guarded their facilities until Germans removed the seized property. In 1943, the YB performed far fewer executions than in 1941–1942. Beginning in December 1943, Paneriai was guarded by an SS unit, and by 1944, according to Bubnys, the YB did not perform shootings in Paneriai. Beginning in August 1943, the YB was renamed a squad of the 11th Battalion of the Latvian Legion. Their old identity documents were replaced with new documents from the Latvian Legion. Despite the formal change, the YB still served the German Security Police and SD.

1944

In July 1944, the YB was moved to

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

and stationed at Ninth Fort. There, the YB guarded the prison and before retreating, killed 100 prisoners. Afterward, the YB was moved to Stutthof, where it escorted Jews to

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

. It stayed there until April 1945, when it received orders to convoy Jews to

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its bank (geography), left-bank tributary, the Brda (river), Brda, the strategic location of Byd ...

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

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

Uniforms

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

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

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

Commanders

Among the original organizers of the squad were junior lieutenants Jakubka and Butkus. After 23 July 1941, the commanding officer was

Juozas Šidlauskas Juozas is a Lithuanian masculine given name, a shortened version of Juozapas, which in turn is the equivalent of English ''Joseph''. List of people named Juozas * Juozas Adomaitis-Šernas (1859–1922), Lithuanian scientific writer and book smug ...

. 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 the 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, and 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

Bibliography

* *

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,

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, 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 military relations Paneriai Generalbezirk Litauen Vilnius in World War II