1998/01/01 by Michael MacQueen · 4 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies #German History and Society
paper · doi:10.1093/hgs/12.1.27
openalex publication_date 1998/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
More than 200,000 of the 210,000 to 220,000 Jews who were resident on what was Lithuanian territory as of October 1939 did not live to see the end of the Second World War. In fact, the majority did not survive the bloody interval of July–November 1941.3 The aim of this paper is to establish a basis for understanding aspects of the Holocaust which were specific to Lithuania, chief among which is that the bulk of the physical organization of and preparation for murder, as well as the actual killing, was carried out by indigenous auxiliaries of the Nazi occupation regime. This is a crucial and inescapable fact regardless that Elnsatzkommando 3 of the Nazi Security Police (Sipo) and SD (Sichetheitsdienst or Security Service, the intelligence arm of the Nazi Party) must be seen as the prime organizing force in these killings, the majority of the murders was actually performed by Lithuanians.4