Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
A
Case Study of Wehrmacht Involvement
in the Holocaust’s “First Hour”
David W. Wildermuth
Shippensburg University
Introduction
Despite historians’ repeated and long-standing calls for the investigation of the
Wehrmacht’s role in the Holocaust, the complicity of this organization—and espe-
cially that of its front-line troops—remains an underexplored topic.1 Images of the
National Socialist centers of mass extermination have long dominated our notions of
the Holocaust. The recent catch-phrase “Holocaust by bullets,” however, has drawn
attention to the symbiotic relationship between the Holocaust’s genesis and the inva-
sion of the Soviet Union.2 Hitler may not have trusted his army to fulfill on its own the
National Socialist goals of this invasion, but the sheer number of Holocaust victims in
the East suggests that the Wehrmacht cooperated in the selection and liquidation of
Soviet Jewry. This article will illustrate how, during the occupation of Lida, front-line
troops repeatedly persecuted the town’s Jewish population in both arbitrary and
organized Aktionen. By focusing on acts of genocide in a specific town of the
Belorussian SSR during the first week of Operation Barbarossa, we gain micro-level
insight into the involvement of the German Army (the Heer, or more loosely, the
Wehrmacht) in the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.
Given the lack of case studies, it has been difficult to break down the image of
the Wehrmacht as a monolith or to gain insight into the mechanisms of Wehrmacht
participation in genocide. Christian Gerlach has recorded many crimes committed by
front-line German troops in Belorussia against both Jewish and non-Jewish Soviet
civilians, but the lack of contextualization in his works limits our insight into their
doi:10.1093/hgs/dct011
Holocaust and Genocide Studies 27, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 1–29 1
frequency and catalysts.3 Bernhard Chiari’s work on the German occupation of the
same territory portrays the Wehrmacht as lacking initiative, and thus as a supporting
actor in the Holocaust.4 Omer Bartov points to the gradual descent of the German
Army into a brutal war of annihilation in the East, with its crimes against Jews increas-
ing in both frequency and intensity over time. Before long the Army had witnessed, if
not participated in, mass murders of Jews.5 On the other hand, Hannes Heer ques-
tions the need to differentiate between varying levels of involvement and complicity,
arguing that the Wehrmacht was the “apparatus of a violence-oriented society,” and
that war against all enemies of the Reich was a “natural expression” of this orientation.6
Important new studies by Dieter Pohl on the Wehrmacht’s occupation policies and
Johannes Hürter on its uppermost leadership examine the Wehrmacht’s involvement
in the Holocaust from a “top-down” perspective, addressing only distantly the front-
line troops’ immediate measures against the Soviet Jewish population.7 Recent
Russian-language scholarship on the Holocaust has largely overlooked the role of the
Wehrmacht, whose crimes against Jews continue to be largely subsumed under the
broader heading of occupation crimes.8
Christian Hartmann has reached some conclusions regarding the Wehrmacht
and the Holocaust that are particularly relevant to this article. Specifically, Hartmann
posits that because the NS-apparatus and its centers of mass extermination were well
behind the front lines for the majority of the German-Soviet war, there was less
opportunity for front-line troops in the East to participate in the organized persecu-
tion of Soviet Jewry.9 As regards the first weeks of the invasion, he argues that crimes
perpetrated by front-line troops were limited to isolated incidents, mainly in the
Baltic and the Ukraine.10 The Wehrmacht’s primary experience in war crimes
occurred not during the summer 1941 advance, but during the later retreats, and was
motivated not so much by ideology as by military “necessity.”11 Indeed, Hartmann
draws a distinction between the German Army in the field and other units associated
with war crimes,12 offering the possibility of an “inverse reciprocal relationship”
between the density of front-line troops and the frequency of war crimes.13
Because Holocaust survivors often were unable to identify their tormentors,
Holocaust literature has also tended to perpetuate the paradigmatic view that
although the Wehrmacht requested and supported the liquidation of Soviet Jewry, the
security apparatus—e.g. the SS, SD, SiPo, OrPo and the Einsatzgruppen—carried
out the executions.14 Indeed, witnesses themselves most often report their first con-
tacts with German forces as having been with Gestapo, SS, or Einsatzgruppen units,
perhaps because the subsequent selections and mass liquidations performed by these
organizations remained most vivid in survivors’ memories. Even when survivors have
pointed to Wehrmacht participation in genocide, their inability to identify individual
units casts a shadow of doubt on the accuracy of their reports.
Attempts to move beyond such generalizations, especially as regards the contex-
tualized analysis of individual front-line Wehrmacht units, have been largely lacking.
During the occupation of the city of Lida I was witness to the following incident: The
leader of the regiment’s mounted troops (Infantry Regiment 336, 161st Infantry
Division) had 20 Jewish locals arrested and sent off by a kommando. Among these inhabi-
tants were people from 16 to around 60 years of age. When they arrived outside the city
limits, they severely mistreated them. They were beaten with rifle butts and tortured with
bayonets; blood was flowing from both nose and mouth. Then they had to, under further
mistreatment, dig a pit. When it was finished they had to stand one after the other before
the pit and were executed in the presence of all. There was no reason for this killing.54
Otto W.’s confession is revealing on two distinct levels. First, it is notable that a front-
line unit would find the time during active military operations to identify, torture, and
execute noncombatants belonging to a particular subgroup of the general population.
Second, there appears to have been a direct connection between combat operations
and this act of genocide. According to the June 27, 1941 entry in the war diary of the
division, it was this regiment, IR336, that had to overcome “strong resistance” on the
approaches to the town.55 Given the broad age difference and size of the targeted
group, we can conclude that this was a separate incident from the execution of the
Jewish intelligentsia. Moreover, the massacre was characterized in the recent work
Kholokost na territorii SSSR as an attack on Jews suspected of being Communists.56
The organization of an execution kommando under an officer confirms, however, that
the division accepted such methods for the “pacification” of the town. A few weeks
later, the division’s war diary recorded reprisals against non-combatants for an offense
that in all likelihood was committed by Red Army soldiers: after the mutilated corpses
of five dispatch riders who had gone missing were discovered, the division commander
ordered that “collective measures be taken against the [surrounding] villages.”57
Such reprisals against civilians had been codified by the prewar directives men-
tioned above, and from time to time—though not always—were mentioned explicitly
in the Wehrmacht’s war diaries. In contrast to the witness testimonies, the war diary of
the 161st Division does not mention specifically any persecution of Lida’s Jewish pop-
ulation, but the division’s listed activities allow for the possibility. A slip of paper enti-
tled “Measures for the 28th of June” and included with transcripts of the division’s
radio transmissions records the orders that the division staff gave its subordinate units
that day. According to this record, the measures for the 28th of June, in order of
importance, were “cleansing,” then “securing” the town and its environs, and conduct-
ing “reconnaissance.”58 Unlike the instructions that accompanied the latter two activ-
ities, the task of “cleansing” contained no further details. But because, in the course
of this day, doubts arose “regarding the treatment of the prisoners-of-war and the
civilian population,” the intelligence officer (Ic) of the 161st Division issued an
The paybook of a German non-commissioned officer and coins were found with a
prisoner from the [Soviet] Rifle Regiment 55, a Jew named Viktor Israelevich K. The
German NCO was taken prisoner wounded and was executed as a wounded prisoner of
war, after he wrote a goodbye card to his mother.60
That the intelligence officer of this division thought it relevant to record this unusual
anecdote in atypical detail in his war diary, mentioning that the prisoner was a Jew and
giving his recognizably Jewish name, underscores his apparent association of Jews
with the mistreatment of German soldiers. The linking of Soviet Jewry with the Red
Army’s notorious 55th Rifle Regiment, already identified as having committed war
crimes in the region, would only have encouraged tougher measures against the
Jewish community of Lida. This regiment was first identified by German units on
June 27th as one of the Red Army units defending Lida. Two days later, the 35th
Division reported that the 55th Red Army Rifle Regiment had executed wounded
German soldiers, while prisoners from this regiment revealed under interrogation
that they had been instructed to remove all markings of military rank on their uni-
forms and to later change into civilian clothing.61 The association of Soviet Jews with
this Red Army unit and its treachery speaks to what Hannes Heer has identified as the
“transformation of the Jews as political opponents into the declared military
enemy.”62 The date of this entry agrees with the yizkor book’s date for the liquidation
of Lida’s Jewish intelligentsia, which points to a sanctioned reprisal under the mantle
of the “cleansing” and/or “security” tasks undertaken by the 161st Division.
Teilkommando Haupt had not arrived in Lida to perform its “police-security” opera-
tions by the date in question.
Multiple victim testimonies indicate that the phrase “doubts regarding the treat-
ment of the prisoners-of-war and the civilian population” referred euphemistically to
acts that included the arbitrary and wanton murder of many of Lida’s Jews by soldiers
of the 161st Division. The testimony given by Arnold Arluk-Lawit, who was 21 years
old at the time of the events he describes, is distinct in the level of detail it provides.
Arluk-Lawit is clear in his indictment of front-line Wehrmacht troops passing through
Lida during the initial phase of occupation:
The march-through lasted a few days. . . . In the meantime, on the way through, what I
have always stressed, that the Wehrmacht participated heartily, yes, already during the
march-through hundreds of Jews were murdered through the assistance of the
Wehrmacht.63
The first period of the occupation [by] the Germans was very difficult. Jews could be shot
arbitrarily by various soldiers who had gone wild and were out to shoot someone, if they
wanted. Then this Feldkommandantur [sic] left for the front and a [new]
Ortskommandantur arrived. Then things changed a bit. The Ortskommandant was a
little older and brought an older [unit] with him . . . . The older men were not as wild as
the younger ones.64
The reference to the difference in average age of the men of the two
Ortskommandanturen is a crucial detail—one that is supported by the historical
record—and further underscores the veracity of Arluk-Lawit’s testimony. The first
Ortskommandantur in Lida was, as previously mentioned, established by the 35th
Infantry Division, a division created with the introduction of universal conscription in
1935, and whose personnel consisted overwhelmingly of younger recruits and career
officers. By contrast, the personnel of the 403rd Security Division consisted almost
entirely of reserve officers and soldiers drafted later and deemed too old to serve at
the front.65 With the change in Ortskommandanturen upon the arrival of the 403rd’s
Ortskommandantur 849, the change from younger to older personnel occurred
exactly as Arluk-Lawit recalled. By attributing the worst period of the occupation to
the first, younger, Ortskommandantur, the testimony makes it clear that the active
persecution of the Jews of Lida, in both its organized and spontaneous forms, was
committed by front-line troops.
The selection and liquidation of Lida’s Jews by front-line troops may well be
part of a larger phenomenon that has only recently begun to receive more scholarly
attention.66 In the case of the 35th Division, I have documented other examples of the
persecution of Jewish civilians as “reprisals” for their alleged participation in combat.
On the evening of June 28, 1941, a combat group tasked with the capture of Bielica, a
village not far from Lida with a considerable Jewish population, reported the details of
a coordinated punitive action against the civilian population: “Because civilians partici-
pated in the battle against German soldiers, 10 men were executed as hostages,
Bielica put to the torch by the 6th Company.”67 Multiple victim sources indicate that
the reprisals were directed primarily against the Jewish community: with perhaps
one exception, all the civilians executed were Jewish, and the homes torched had
been identified by collaborating locals as Jewish-owned.68 That such reprisals could
be organized through the initiative of the local commander clearly indicates that
As soon as the Germans took the town, after a week, the more or less prominent repre-
sentatives of the intelligentsia were executed. Not only the Jewish intelligentsia, but also
the Polish, although there were especially a lot of Jews, well-known in the city, lawyers,
that is, all were intellectuals.78
Another survivor, Grigory Hasid, who was 17 years old at the time, does not give a
specific date for this action, but confirms Klovskii’s recollection of events:
As soon as the Germans arrived they demanded a list of prominent Jews, intellectuals. By
the way they demanded such a list of the Poles as well. They didn’t know then for what
purpose this was done. [The Germans] took these people, they were not seen further. In
fact they executed them.79
A third survivor, Martin Mordechai Bass, 29 years old at the time, reported:
Right in the beginning they picked up all the people they considered
prominent. . . . They picked up . . . some Jewish lawyers and . . . other people who had
been prominent in the city and they killed them. . . . A few days later we found
out. . . . Some Polish people living around those places came and told us.
Bass recalled the date of the liquidation as “1941, end of June or beginning of July.”80
Among all this testimony, however, another stands out for the personal freight it
carries. At the time of the event, Felix Zandman was a 14-year-old boy whose father
was selected for liquidation but ultimately spared. No doubt because this Aktion had
the most serious implications for his family, he is able to describe the event in more
detail:
It so happened that the night I returned home [to Grodno from Słonim] was a dramatic
night, very dramatic night, I didn’t know that because we slept over at the train station. It
was a curfew, and in the morning we came home, there was big turmoil . . . . The same
night the Germans have arrested a few hundred intellectuals, among them my
father. . . . They took 100 of them and shot them, and my father was . . . let go.81
Conclusion
In his groundbreaking 1997 work Keine Kameraden, Christian Streit speculated that
most front-line soldiers would have found the notion of “dirtying their hands” through
participation in the execution of Jews and other undesirables paradoxical, since “the
Einsatzgruppen were pushing to do just this, in order to prove to their boss Heydrich
[their] exemplary officiousness.”104 The example of Lida shows that the Wehrmacht
could, and did, find reasons to liquidate groups of Jews.
The timeline set forth here places the liquidation of Lida’s Jewish intelligentsia in
the first or second day of the occupation by the Wehrmacht. Since the 161st Division
was soon relieved by the 35th, it is difficult to say with absolute certainty which division
was responsible for this action. This should not obscure the fact, however, that the exe-
cutions were ordered and performed by front-line troops who selected their Jewish
victims and did not leave the “dirty work” to the Einsatzgruppen.
Notes
I would like to thank the staff of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum for their support during the research and writing of this article. I
also thank Kirsten Götze of the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung
nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen; Karel Berkhoff of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust,
and Genocide Studies; Martin Dean and Geoffrey Megargee of the Center for Advanced
Holocaust Studies and the two anonymous reviewers engaged by Holocaust and Genocide
Studies for their generous assistance and comments on earlier versions of this work.
1. In 1999 Christian Gerlach wrote that “the crimes of German front units in the Second
World War have hardly been systematically investigated, indeed the research has hardly even
considered this question.” Christian Gerlach, “Verbrechen deutscher Fronttruppen in
Weißrußland 1941–1944,” in Wehrmacht und Vernichtungspolitik: Militär im nationalsozialisti-
schen System, ed. Karl-Heinrich Pohl (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 89; five
5. Omer Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 159.
6. Hannes Heer, “Killing Fields: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belorussia, 1941–42,”
in War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941–1944, ed. Hannes Heer
and Klaus Naumann (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004), 73.
7. See Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, 532f, which limits the analysis to the most common forms of
cooperation at the lower levels but recognizes that the first measures against the Soviet Jewish
population were often taken by front-line troops. Dieter Pohl’s Die Herrschaft der Wehrmacht:
Deutsche Militärbesatzung und einheimische Bevölkerung in der Sowjetunion 1941–1944
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2008) also mentions participation of the Wehrmacht in some early
mass shootings (247) but concedes: “Individual acts of murder of Jews by soldiers directly after
the occupation of a town are little known. . . . No precise details can be given about the extent
and breadth of this crime” (243).
8. See for instance Gabriele Gorzka and Knut Stang, eds., Der Vernichtungskrieg im Osten:
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht in der Sowjetunion—aus Sicht rußicher Historiker (Kassel,
Germany: Kassel University Press, 1999). See also Gennadii Bordiugov, “Voina vse spishet?
12. Ibid., 31: “Thus (the Ereignismeldungen document it again and again) only certain units of
the Eastern Army—the Geheime Feldpolizei, Feldgendarmerie, Orts- und Feldkommandaturen
or individual security units—systematically cooperated in the practice of murder with Himmler’s
people. Neither from their size nor from their institutional importance were they representative
of the Eastern Army!”
13. Ibid., 67: “It almost gives the impression as if the density of the German deployment and
the frequency of crimes stood in an inverse reciprocal relationship.”
14. Rolf-Dieter Müller, Der letzte deutsche Krieg 1939–1945 (Stuttgart: Klett-Kotta, 2005), 97.
15. Noteworthy in this regard is Arthur Nebe’s statement, made in the first month of the war,
that while transgressions by his Einsatzgruppe B units against the Wagner-Heydrich agreement
had led “now and again” to complaints by Wehrmacht units, the leadership of Army Group
Center shared his own view that the agreement had only “formal significance.” See
“Tätigkeitsbericht des Chefs der Einsatzgruppe B für die Zeit vom 23.6.1941 bis zum
13.7.1941,” reproduced in Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion
1941/42: Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspoizei und des SD (Berlin:
Edition Hentrich, 1997), 380.
16. T.G. Vershitskaia, “Lida,” Kholokost’ na territorii SSSR (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009).
17. Aharon Weiss, “Lida,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd ed., ed. Fred Skolnik and Michael
Berenbaum (Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007).
18. Eliahu Damesek, “The German Occupation” in Sepher Lida, ed. Alexander Manor (Tel
Aviv: Irgun yotse Lida be-Yisrael u-Va’ad ha-ezrah li-Yehude Lida ba-Artsot ha-Brit, 1970).
19. E.G. Joffe, G.D. Knatko, and V.D. Selemenev, eds., Holokost v Belarusi, 1941–1944:
Dokimenty i Matiriali (Minsk: NARB, 2002).
26. On June 30, 1941, the war diary of the 403rd Security Division recorded the arrival of the
Sonderkommando of the Security Police, and noted its intended deployment to Grodno, Lida,
and Vilna. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), T315/Roll 2206, p. 403.
Sicherungsdivision, Eintrag 30.6.41.
27. In his Order no. 3 of July 1, 1941, Heydrich claims that Grodno had been occupied four
days earlier by the Wehrmacht, but this is incorrect. By the afternoon of June 23, 1941, Grodno
was effectively under German control. See note 19 above. Compare also below the details of
the capture of this city by the Wehrmacht.
32. See ibid., which goes on to speculate that “because the Red Army rear guard did not offer
much resistance,” and the demolition of the bridges over the Nemen had been executed “in the
greatest rush and incompletely,” the morale of the retreating Red Army had already begun to
“buckle.” See also USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education (USC
Shoah Visual History) testimony of Boris Gindin, a Red Army lieutenant stationed in Grodno
during its defense. Gindin states that on the afternoon of June 23, 1941, his unit was ordered to
retreat from Grodno.
33. Infanteriedivision, Funkspruch Nr. 21 von A.A.8 an 8.I.D., 23.6.41, 14.00 Uhr, NARA,
T315/Roll 458, p. 8.
34. They appear to have arrived by June 26, 1941. See Sicherungsdivision, 26.6.41, NARA,
T315/Roll 2206, p. 403.
35. Infanteriedivision, Abt. Ia, Div.Gef.Stand Lososna Ostrand, 24.6.41, 8.00 Uhr, NARA,
T315/Roll 458, p. 8.
39. War diary report, 161st Infanteriedivision, 28.6.41, NARA, T315/Roll 1444, Entry 12. Uhr:
“Regiment 336 with second battalion on the right and first battalion on the left has reached the
forest edge by Myto, strong resistance at the Dziwa [river].”
40. War diary report, 161st Infanteriedivision, 28.6.41, NARA, T315/Roll 1444, Entry 19.15.
Uhr: “40 Stukas attack Lida.”
41. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Elise Barzach, segment 51.
42. War diary report, 161st Infanteriedivision, 28.6.41, NARA, T315/Roll 1445.
43. War diary of the 35th Infantry Division, Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv Freiburg (BA/MA),
RH26 35, 29.6.41, 13.00.
46. Richtlinien für das Verhalten der Truppen in Russland, cited from Norbert Müller, ed.,
Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in der UdSSR (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1980), 53.
47. Handbill Kennt Ihr den Feind? BA/MA, RH39 377, available online at http://www.
museum-karlshorst.de/de/vorkrieg/19.html (accessed February 21, 2013).
48. See Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, 515: “In parts of White Russia, a decree announced the
marking of Jews through white armbands with the star of David and the requisitioning of [their]
radios. Additionally, they were confined to their domiciles and required to register their address
with the appropriate municipal authority. These municipalities had at their disposal male and
female Jews between 16 and 50 years old for forced labor. This decree was signed ‘the Supreme
Commander of the German Army.’ It was circulated in the areas of the commander of the
Ninth Army, Generaloberst Adolf Strauß, Panzer Group 3, Generaloberst Hermann Hoth, and
Fourth Army, Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge. The date of the decree is unclear, but
from the content it concerns decrees of the first hour.”
49. The implementation of these measures in the cases of Grodno and Lida has been
confirmed by multiple survivors. For Lida, see the USC Shoah Visual History testimonies of
Arnold Arluk-Lawit, Elise Barzach, Ruth Lapidus, and Ruth Sokolowski. For Grodno, see the
USC Shoah Visual History testimonies of Harold Gordon, Rita Kesselman, and Linda Penn. In
Kalkulierte Morde, Gerlach writes, “In Lida during the first days [of occupation], the
Wehrmacht gathered all Jews between 15 and 60 years of age and then let them go” (511). This
account does not convey the extent of the anti-Jewish persecution. According to the testimony
of one survivor, the Jews of Lida were kept in the town jail and subjected daily to forced labor.
Only after two weeks were they released and allowed to return home. See testimony of Eliahu
Damesek, Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltung Ludwigsburg, 2 ARZ 94/59.
52. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Bella Goldfischer, segment 17.
53. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Elise Barzach, segment 54. This was “mostly still
the [German] Army.”
54. See Otto Wormuth, Außerordentliche Staatliche Kommission für die Feststellung und
Untersuchung der Gräueltaten der deutsch-faschistischen Eindringlinge und ihrer Komplizen,
und des Schadens, den sie den Bürgern, Kolchosen, öffentlichen Organisationen, staatlichen
Betrieben und Einrichtungen der UdSSR zugefügt haben (quoted in Hannes Heer, Stets zu
erschießen sind Frauen, die in der Roten Armee dienen [Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1995],
18). Wormuth’s report gives July 17, 1941 as the date for this atrocity, but the clear association
of the atrocity with the capture of Lida (in the German original: “Bei der Besetzung der Stadt
Lida . . .”) and the correspondence of the age of the victims to the ages of those Jews required
for the formation of work detachments as announced on a poster of late June 1941 indicate that
this atrocity occurred in Lida during the first days of the occupation. The 161st Infantry Division
was near Molodechno, Belorussia, on July 17, 1941, but did not participate in its capture.
55. 161st Infanteriedivision, Ia/Führungsabteilung, 27.6.41, NARA, T315/Roll 1444.
58. 161st Infanteriedivision, Massnahmen für den 28.6., NARA, T315/Roll 1445, image #354.
59. 161st Infanteriedivision, Ic/Feindnachrichten und Abwehr, 28.6.41, NARA, T315/Roll
1445.
60. Ibid.
63. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Arnold Arluk-Lawit, segment 40.
64. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Arnold Arluk-Lawit, segment 46.
66. See also Waitman Beorn, “Negotiating Murder: A Panzer Signal Company and the
Destruction of the Jews of Peregruznoe, 1942,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 23, no. 2
(2009): 185–213.
67. Einsatz der 14./IR111 bei der Gruppe Mandelsloh vom 28.6.—3.7.1941, BA/MA RH26/
35, diary 41.
68. For details of the selection of Jewish victims and the burning of the Jewish houses by
members of the 35th Infantry Division, see USC Shoah Visual History testimonies of Robert
Lesser (segment 38), Philip Lazowski (segment 9f ), Chaim Yoselewitz (segment 54), and
Moshe Yoselevich (segment 61). Also see testimony of Rachel Shkop (minutes 01:00—03:00),
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) Oral History Collection RG
50.1200144.
71. Regarding Lida, see USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Ruth Lapidus, who states that
“after two weeks [of the occupation] they killed the intellectuals” (segment 48). Regarding
Grodno, see “Eidesstaatliche Versicherung von Ely und Zelda Gordon, 10.21.60,” in
Documents Concerning the Destruction of the Jews of Grodno 1941–1944, vol. 1, ed. Serge
Klarsfeld (New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1985?), 79. This statement puts the date of
the liquidation “in the first days” of the occupation.
72. See photographs entitled “Lida 3.7.41,” BA/MA Msg 1/3192, p. 71.
73. Due to the intricacies of German copyright law, permission to reproduce the photos in
the album could not be obtained. The album is located in the Bundesarchiv, Freiburg (MSG
2/13830, photo on p. 71).
74. Ereignismeldung no. 11 of July 3, 1941 stated: “Advance Kommando on the way to Lida”
(Ereignismeldung UdSSR No. 11, 3. Juli 1941, BA/BL R58/214). But in Nebe’s subsequent
activity report of July 14, 1941, he states that this troop left Grodno for Lida on July 4, 1941.
(“Tätigkeitsbericht des Chefs der Einsatzgruppe B für die Zeit vom 23.6.1941 bis zum
13.7.1941,” Einsatzgruppen, 378.)
75. See Ereignismeldung UdSSR No. 13, 5. Juli 1941, BA/BL R58/214, which stated: “E
[insatz] K[ommando] 9. Base Grodno. . . . Pogroms initiated.”
76. See “Tätigkeitsbericht des Chefs der Einsatzgruppe B für die Zeit vom 23.6.1941 bis zum
13.7.1941,” Einsatzgruppen, 378.
77. Ibid.
78. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Daniil Klovskii, segment 118.
79. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Grigory Hasid, segment 26.
82. According to the USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Harold Gordon, posters requiring
all residents to register with the German authority went up all over Grodno by July 1st.
94. See BA/MA RH26 35, 2.7.1941. The war diary describes these men as “mostly soldiers in
civilian clothing.”
95. See Otto Wormuth, Report. Another account by a soldier of the 161st Infantry Division
from the same source states that some time before September 1941, all the Jews living in an
unnamed city were brought to a barn, where twenty-five were selected and executed (see state-
ment of Fritz K., 371st Infantry Regiment, 161st Infantry Division, USHMM, RG-22.014M).
Interestingly, confessions found in the same source from seven different soldiers of the 35th
Infantry Division taken prisoner by the Red Army failed to mention any crimes committed
against Jews by this front-line unit (see ibid., statements of Waldemar Hermann, Karl Jenne,
Fritz Seemann, Josef Binn, August Kamps, Artur Lattenstein, and Wolfgang Kern). But atroc-
ities against Jews did occur, as survivors attest. Bella Goldfischer recalled that when her family
returned to Lida after the bombing, they encountered a group of distraught Jewish women who
told them of the murder of all the males in their group—including a nine-month-old infant—by
a German Army patrol (USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Bella Goldfischer, segment 15).
98. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Arnold Arluk-Lawit, segment 44.
99. Ibid.
100. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Elise Barzach, segment 56.
101. USC Shoah Visual History testimony of Dora Fajgman, segment 11.
102. KTB der 403 Sicherungsdivision, entry July 14, 1941, NARA T315/Roll 2206.
103. Ibid, Tätigkeitsbericht Ic/Juli 1941.
104. Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen
1941–1945 (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 1997 [1978]), 103.
105. Compare Stephen G. Fritz, Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995), chap. 8: “Trying to Change the World,” which
reproduces excerpts from numerous letters written at the front by German soldiers of various
units. The letters reveal a very active desire on the part of German soldiers to take action against
Soviet Jewry. Typical for this source: “You see evidence of Jewish, Bolshevik cruelties which I
can hardly believe possible. . . . You can imagine that this cries out for revenge, which will also
be carried out” (196). Conversely, the letters written by members of the 35th Division and
reviewed by the author at the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart, contain no references to