MOBILE KILLING SQUADS

After the German army invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, a new stage in the Holocaust
began. Under cover of war and confident of victory, the Germans turned from the forced
emigration and imprisonment of Jews to mass murder. Special action squads, orEinsatzgruppen,
made up of Nazi (SS) units and police, moved with speed on the heels of the advancing German
army. Their job was to kill any Jews they could find in the occupied Soviet territory. Some
residents of the occupied regions, mostly Ukrainians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, aided these
German mobile killing squads by serving as auxiliary police.
The mobile killing units acted swiftly, taking the Jewish population by surprise. The killers
entered a town or city and rounded up all Jewish men, women, and children. They also took
away many Communist party leaders and Roma (Gypsies). Victims were forced to surrender any
valuables and remove their clothing, which was later sent for use in Germany or distributed to
local collaborators. Then the killing squad members marched their victims to open fields, forests,
and ravines on the outskirts of conquered towns and cities.There they shot them or gassed them
in gas vans and dumped the bodies into mass graves.

On September 21, 1941, the eve of the Jewish New Year, a mobile killing squad entered
Ejszyszki, a small town in what is now Lithuania. The killing squad members herded 4,000 Jews
from the town and the surrounding region into three synagogues, where they were held for two

days without food or water. Then, in two days of killing, Jewish men, women, and children were
taken to cemeteries, lined up in front of open pits, and shot to death. Today there are no Jews in
Ejszyszki. It was one of hundreds of cities, towns, and shtetls whose Jews were murdered during
the Holocaust. The rich culture of most of these Jewish communities was lost forever.

The killing squads murdered more than a million Jews and tens of thousands of other innocent
people. At Babi Yar, near Kiev, about 34,000 Jews were murdered in two days of shooting. Only
a few people in the general population helped their Jewish neighbors escape. Most people were
afraid that they too might be killed.

The massacres of innocent men, women, and children in Babi Yar and other towns were not the
crimes of hoodlums or crazy men. The executioners were "ordinary" men who followed the
orders of their commanding officers. Many of the killers had wives and children back in
Germany. Propaganda and training had taught many members of the mobile killing squads to
view their victims as enemies of Germany. Some killers drank heavily to dull their thoughts and
feelings. In addition, when they described their actions they used code words like "special
treatment" and "special action" instead of "killing" or "murder" to distance themselves from their
terrible crimes.

KEY DATES
JUNE 22, 1941
KILLING SQUADS DEPLOYED AGAINST JEWS
German mobile killing squads, called special duty units (Einsatzgruppen), are assigned to kill
Jews during the invasion of the Soviet Union. These squads follow the German army, as it

advances deep into Soviet territory, and carry out mass-murder operations. At first, the mobile
killing squads shoot primarily Jewish men. Soon, wherever the mobile killing squads go they
shoot all Jewish men, women, and children, without regard for age or gender. By the spring of
1943, the mobile killing squads will have killed more than a million Jews and tens of thousands
of partisans, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet political officials.
SEPTEMBER 29-30, 1941
ABOUT 34,000 JEWS KILLED AT BABI YAR
The Germans order the Jewish residents of Kiev to assemble on Melnik Street for resettlement
outside the city. In reality, those who report are directed along Melnik Street toward the Jewish
cemetery and the ravine, called Babi Yar. Jews are forced to hand over their valuables, disrobe,
and move into the ravine in small groups. German killing squads and Ukrainian auxiliary units
shoot them. The massacre continues for two days. About 34,000 Jewsmen, women, and
childrenare killed in this operation. In the months that follow, thousands more Jews are shot at
Babi Yar. Many non-Jews, including Roma (Gypsies) and Soviet prisoners of war, are also killed
in the ravine.
DECEMBER 1, 1941
A KILLING SQUAD COMMANDER REPORTS 137,346 KILLED
In the so-called "Jaeger Report," SS Colonel Karl Jaeger reports on the killings his unit carried
out in Lithuania between July 2 and December 1, 1941. He reports that his squad killed 137,346
Jewish men, women, and children. Jews in the cities of Kovno, Ukmerge, and Vilna are killed in
a series of massacres throughout the summer of 1941. Almost all Jews living in small Lithuanian
towns and villages are killed. Jaeger reports that only about 35,000 Jews remain, mostly as
forced laborers in the Kovno, Vilna, and Siauliai ghettos.

Mobile Killing Units

The mass murder of Jews in the occupied areas began with the Nazi invasion of the USSR on
June 22, 1941. The Wehrmacht combat units were accompanied by several SS death squads
(Einsatzgruppen), whose mission was the immediate liquidation of Jews and Commissars
(Russian political and educational communist officers). In practice, during the first months of the
Nazi occupation of the East, these units shot between 1.2 and 1.7 million Jewish men, women,
and children. German police and army units, and in many cases antisemitic local collaborators
also took part in these murders.