A terrible fact is that by October 1941, an epidemic of deportations swept almost all of Europe. On October 4, 1941, Heydrich mentioned the “plan for the complete evacuation of Jews from the territories occupied by us.” In early November 1941, he argued that he endorsed the pogroms of Parisian synagogues, robberies in Jewish areas that occurred four days earlier, in view of the fact that “Jews are at the highest level identified as arsonists of the war and therefore must be held accountable for everything that happens now in Europe; Europe must be cleansed of them.
As for Hitler, he fiercely criticized the Jews not only of the Soviet Union and the United States, but of Europe as a whole. On November 28, 1941, at a meeting with the great Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al-Hus-Seini, he said: “Germany intends to press all the levers to solve the Jewish problem. And in Palestine, there will be no rest for Jews as soon as we gain control over this territory. ” By this time, the still surviving Jews in the territories of Eastern Europe occupied by the Germans were driven into ghettos located in large, medium-sized cities and regions.
Starting in September 6, 1941, in Vilnius, 29,000 Jewish people were squeezed into the territory, designed to accommodate only 4,000 people. During an inspection trip to the Vilnius ghetto in early November 1941, Goebbels noted the terrible crowding prevailing there: “… Jews are lice of civilized humanity. One way or another, they must be destroyed or destroyed.
As soon as you spare them, you yourself don’t notice how you become their victim. ” On July 10, 1941, a Jewish ghetto was founded in Kaunas, where 18,000 people were constantly attacked and robbed by both Germans and local residents (Lithuanians) looking for valuables and material benefits from this situation. In the same period, smaller ghettos were founded in other cities of the Baltic countries.
Their creation was preceded by the massacre of the Jewish population in the same countries. Since the victims of this massacre were men (at least in the initial stages), these ghettos were usually populated by women and children: in Riga, for example, where the ghetto was founded by the end of October 1941, there were almost 19,000 women and only a little over 11,000 men. On November 30 and December 8, 1941, 24,000 people were shot, and the rest, mainly men, sent to German factories as laborers and as slave power. Such a similar massacre, only on a larger scale, occurred in Kaunas on October 28, 1941, when Helmut Rauka, the head of the Jewish department of the Kaunas Gestapo, ordered to gather 27,000 Jews at 6 a.m. on the main square of the city.
Throughout the day, Rauka and his employees sorted out suitable people for work. When it got dark, 10,000 Jews were assigned to the latter category. The rest were sent home. The next morning, all of those 10,000 were driven on foot to Fort IX, where they were shot to the death of a single man. The head of the Gestapo’s Jewish affairs department ordered 27,000 Jews to gather at 6 a.m. on the main square of the city. Throughout the day, Rauka and his employees sorted out suitable people for work. When it got dark, 10,000 Jews were assigned to the latter category. The rest were sent home. The next morning, all of those 10,000 were driven on foot to Fort IX, where they were shot to the death of a single man. The head of the Gestapo’s Jewish affairs department ordered 27,000 Jews to gather at 6 a.m. on the main square of the city. Throughout the day, Rauka and his employees sorted out suitable people for work. When it got dark, 10,000 Jews were assigned to the latter category. The rest were sent home. The next morning, all of those 10,000 were driven on foot to Fort IX, where they were shot to the death of a single man.