The Jäger Report
(The Holocaust in Lithuania--Document, Maps, Comment, Sources)
Introduction
The Jäger Report is a central document of genocide, and in particular of the unequivocal and relentless mass murder of the Jews of Lithuania, which began shortly after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The report sums up the activity of a company of the so-called Einsatzgruppen , or mobile killing units. Divided into four units totaling some 3,000 men, the Einsatzgruppen were intended to fight the enemies, real and imagined, of Nazi Germany behind the lines. They followed the German Army into Soviet territory, descending upon cities, towns and villages, including those with Jewish populations. By mid August, they were murdering every Jewish man, woman, and child in their midst.
Written by an SS- colonel, Karl Jäger , the infamous "Jäger Report" presents a chilling clinical tally of the "work" of Einsatzkommando 3, a company-sized (150 men) detachment of Einsatzgruppe A, the largest mobile killing unit. In the period July 4 to December 1, 1941, this detachment rained in on seventy-one different Jewish communities, in some instances returning more than once. In all, the Jäger Report has 112 entries for "actions"--the Nazi euphemism for mass killings. The vast majority of those killed were Jewish men, women and children, but Russians, Poles, Communists, Gypsies, and the "mentally sick" are also mentioned. The detachment typically enlisted the help of local Lithuanians to round up its victims and march them to a place outside the community, usually a forest, a Jewish cemetery, or a military installation. Then, Jäger's men shot the Jews, or commanded Lithuanian riflemen to shoot them, often in front of previously dug mass graves. In the second half of 1941, the detachment worked behind the lines of the German Army, and never faced regular Soviet troops in a military confrontation. By December 1, 1941, Einsatzkommando 3 had killed, according to its own count, 137,346 people, almost all of them Jews.
The Jäger Report fell into the hands of the Soviet Army when the Red Army reconquered Lithuania in 1944, and first came to light when the Soviet Foreign Ministry handed the document over to the Ludwigsburg Central Office for the Prosecution of National Socialist Crimes in 1963. This means that the document did not play a role in the Nuremberg Trials or the Einsatzgruppen Trial . Nor did the first generation of major works about the Holocaust cite it. The first edition of Raul Hilberg’s influential The Destruction of the European Jews , published in 1961, does not, for example, quote the document. In fact, it did not become publicly available until 1971, when Adalbert Rückerl, then the head of the Ludwigsburg Office, reproduced it in a facsimile at the end of his book-length account of the war crimes trials of the previous twenty-five years.
Since then, historians have cited the document often--so often, in fact, that people have come to see the Jäger Report as a comprehensive killing list, detailing the entirety of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Nothing could be further from the truth. In addition to EK3, two other Einsatzkommandos , EK 2 and EK 9 (of Einsatzgruppe B), operated in Lithuania, whole areas of which, especially in western Lithuania, were outside the murderous purview of EK3.
Taken together, by the end of December 1941, SS and Lithuanian killers murdered circa 100,000 Jews in Lithuania's rural areas, and 52,000 Jews in its cities. And yet, some 40,000 were still alive, clinging to hope, mainly in the major ghettos of Šiauliai, Kaunas, and Vilnius. Why then, did Jäger claim, at the end of his report, that "our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved."?
The interactive digital version of the Jäger Report invites readers, by clicking the place names in the translation, to penetrate the clinical language of the original source, and learn more about what happened. The seperate maps also link to more sources, secondary and primary. By using primary documents and the testimonies of witnesses and survivors, we can at least try to reconstruct something of the patterns and underlying grim realities that the Jäger Report both points to and hides from view.
Document
The document, which is both reproduced in the original and translated below, is linked according to place name. The link brings you to an explanation of the individual murder event at the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Holocaust is one of the most closely documented "Holocaust by Bullets," and the individual entries in the Atlas, though incomplete in places, allow us to see a more complicated picture. If the town is not linked in the document below, it means that the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania does not have an unequivocal reference to the particular murder event, or that it is outside Lithuania, either in Latvia or in Belarus.
The Commander of the security police and the SD Einsatzkommando 3 Kauen [Kaunas],
1 December 1941
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| Secret Reich Business! |
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5 copies
4th copy
Complete list of executions carried out in the EK 3 area up to 1 December 1941
Security police duties in Lithuania taken over by Einsatzkommando 3 on 2 July 1941.
(The Wilna [Vilnius] area was taken over by EK 3 on 9 Aug. 1941, the Schaulen area on 2 Oct. 1941. Up until these dates EK 9 operated in Wilna and EK 2 in Schaulen.)
On my instructions and orders the following executions were conducted by Lithuanian partisans:
4.7.41. Kauen-Fort VII 416 Jews, 47 Jewesses 463
6.7.41. Kauen-Fort VII Jews 2,514
Following the formation of a raiding squad under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Hamman and 8-10 reliable men from the Einsatzkommando, the following actions were conducted in cooperation with Lithuanian partisans:
7.7.41 Mariampole Jews 32
8.7.41. Mariampole 14 Jews, 5 Comm. officials 19
8.7.41. Girkalinei Comm. officials 6
7.41. Wendziogala 32 Jews, 2 Jewesses, 1 Lithuanian(f.), 2 Lithuanian Comm., 1 Russian Comm. 38
9.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII 21 Jews, 3 Jewesses 24
14.7.41 Mariampole 21 Jews, 1 Russ., 9 Lith. Comm. 31
17.7.41 Babtei 8 Comm. officials (incl. 6 Jews). 8
18.7.41 Mariampole 39 Jews, 14 Jewesses 53
19.7.41 Kauen-Fort VII 17 Jews, 2 Jewesses, 4 Lith. Comm., 2 Comm. Lithuanians (f.),1 German Comm. 26
21.7.41 Panevezys 59 Jews, 11 Jewesses, 1Lithuanian (f.), 1 Pole, 22 Lith. Comm., 9 Russ. Comm. 103
22.7.41 Panevezys 1 Jew. 1
23.7.41 Kedainiai 83 Jews, 12 Jewesses, 14 Russ. Comm., 15 Lith. Comm., 1 Russ.O-Politruk 125
25.7.41 Mariampole 90 Jews, 13 Jewesses 103
28.7.41 Panevezys 234 Jews, 15 Jewesses, 19 Russ.Comm., 20 Lith. Comm. 288
Total carried forward 3,334
sheet 2
Total carried forward 3,384
29.7.41 Rasainiai 254 Jews, 3 Lith. Comm. 257
30.7.41 Ariogala 27 Jews, 11 Lith. Comm. 38
31.7.41 Utena 235 Jews, 16 Jewesses, 4 Lith.Comm., 1 robber/murderer 256
31.7.41 Wendziogala 13 Jews, 2 murderers 15
2.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 170 Jews, 1 US Jewess, 33 Jewesses, 4 Lith. Comm. 209
4.8.41. Panevezys . 362 Jews, 41 Jewesses, 5 Russ. Comm.,14 Lith. Comm. 422
5.8.41 Rasainiai 213 Jews, 66 Jewesses 279
7.8.41 Utena 483 Jews, 87 Jewesses, 1 Lithuanian (robber of corpses of German soldiers) 571
8.8.41 Ukmerge 620 Jews, 82 Jewesses 702
9.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 484 Jews, 50 Jewesses 534
11.8.41 Panevezys 450 Jews, 48 Jewesses, 1 Lith. 1 Russ. 500
8.41 Alytus 617 Jews, 100 Jewesses, 1 criminal 719
14.8.41 Jonava 497 Jews, 55 Jewesses 552
15-16.8.41 Rokiskis 3,200 Jews, Jewesses, and J. Children, 5 Lith. Comm., 1 Pole, 1 partisan 3207
9-16.8.41 Rasainiai 294 Jewesses, 4 Jewish children 298
27.6-14.8.41 Rokiskis 493 Jews, 432 Russians, 56 Lithuanians (all active communists) 981
18.8.41 Kauen-Fort IV 689 Jews, 402 Jewesses, 1 Pole (f.),711 Jewish intellectuals from Ghetto in reprisal for sabotage action 1,812
19.8.41 Ukmerge 298 Jews, 255 Jewesses, 1 Politruk, 88 Jewish children, 1 Russ. Comm. 645
22.8.41 Dunanburg 3 Russ. Comm., 5 Latvian, incl. 1 murderer, 1 Russ. Guardsman, 3 Poles, 3 gypsies (m.), 1 gypsy (f.), 1 gypsy child, 1 Jew, 1 Jewess, 1 Armenian (m.), 2 Politruks (prison inspection in Dunanburg 21
Total carried forward 16,152
sheet 3
Total carried forward 16,152
22.8.41. Aglona Mentally sick: 269 men, 227 women, 48 children 544
23.8.41 Panevezys 1,312 Jews, 4,602 Jewesses, 1,609 Jewish children7,523
18-22.8.41 Rasainiai County 466 Jews, 440 Jewesses, 1,020 Jewish children 1,926
- 25.8.41 Obeliai 112 Jews, 627 Jewesses, 421 Jewish children 1,160
25-26.8.41 Seduva 230 Jews, 275 Jewesses, 159 Jewish children 664
26.8.41 Zarasai 767 Jews, 1,113 Jewesses, 1 Lith. Comm., 687 Jewish children, 1 Russ. Comm. (f.) 2,569
28.8.41 Pasvalys 402 Jews, 738 Jewesses, 209 Jewish children 1,349
26.8.41 Kaisiadorys All Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish children 1,911
27.8.41 Prienai All Jews, Jewesses, and Jewish Children 1,078
27.8.41 Dagda and Kraslawa 212 Jews, 4 Russ. POW's 216
27.8.41 Joniskia 47 Jews, 165 Jewesses, 143 Jewish children 355
28.8.41 Wilkia 76 Jews, 192 Jewesses, 134 Jewish children 402
28.8.41 Kedainiai 710 Jews, 767 Jewesses, 599 Jewish children 2,076
29.8.41 Rumsiskis and Ziezmariai 20 Jews, 567 Jewesses, 197 Jewish children 784
29.8.41 Utena and Moletai 582 Jews, 1,731 Jewesses, 1,469 Jewish children 3,782
13-31.8.41 Alytus and environs 233 Jews 233
1.9.41 Mariampole 1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 1,404 Jewish children, 109 mentally sick, 1 German subject (f.), married to a Jew, 1 Russian (f.) 5090
Total carried over 47,814
sheet 4
Total carried over 47,814
28.8-2.9.41 Darsuniskis 10 Jews, 69 Jewesses, 20 Jewish children 99
28.8-2.9.41 Carliava 73 Jews, 113 Jewesses, 61 Jewish children 247
28.8-2.9.41 Jonava 112 Jews, 1,200 Jewesses, 244 Jewish children 1,556
28.8-2.9.41 Petrasiunai 30 Jews, 72 Jewesses, 23 Jewish children 125
28.8-2.9.41 Jesuas 26 Jews, 72 Jewesses, 46 Jewish children 144
28.8-2.9.41 Agriogala 207 Jews, 260 Jewesses, 195 Jewish children 662
28.8-2.9.41 Jasvainai 86 Jews, 110 Jewesses, 86 Jewish children 282
28.8-2.9.41 Babtei 20 Jews, 41 Jewesses, 22 Jewish children 83
28.8-2.9.41 Wendziogala 42 Jews, 113 Jewesses, 97 Jewish children 252
28.8-2.9.41 Krakes 448 Jews, 476 Jewesses, 97 Jewish children 1,125
4.9.41 Pravenischkis 247 Jews, 6 Jewesses 253
4.9.41 Cekiske 22 Jews, 64 Jewesses, 60 Jewish children 146
4.9.41 Seredsius 6 Jews, 61 Jewesses, 126 Jewish children 193
4.9.41 Velinona 2 Jews, 71 Jewesses, 86 Jewish children 159
4.9.41 Zapiskis 47 Jews, 118 Jewesses, 13 Jewish children 178
5.9.41 Ukmerge 1,123 Jews, 1,849 Jewesses, 1,737 Jewish children 4,7092
5.8-6.9.41 Mopping up in: Rasainiai : 16 Jews, 412 Jewesses, 415 Jewish children 843
5.8-6.9.41 Mopping up in Georgenburg : all Jews, all Jewesses, all Jewish children 412
9.9.41 Alytus 287 Jews, 640 Jewesses, 352 Jewish children 1,279
9.9.41 Butrimonys 67 Jews, 370 Jewesses, 303 Jewish children 740
10.9.41 Merkine 223 Jews, 640 Jewesses, 276 Jewish children 854
10.9.41 Varena 541 Jews, 141 Jewesses, 149 Jewish children 831
11.9.41 Leipalingis 60 Jews, 70 Jewesses, 25 Jewish children 155
11.9.41 Seirijai 229 Jews, 384 Jewesses, 340 Jewish children 953
12.9.41 Simnas 68 Jews, 197 Jewesses, 149 Jewish children 414
11-12.9.41 Uzusalis Reprisal against inhabitants who fed Russ. partisans; some in possession of weapons 43
26.9.41 Kauen-F.IV 412 Jews, 615 Jewesses, 581 Jewish children (sick and suspected epidemic cases) 1,608
Total carried over 66,159
sheet 5
Total carried over 66,159
2.10.41 Zagare 633 Jews, 1,107 Jewesses, 496 Jewish children (as these Jews were being led away a mutiny rose, which was however immediately put down; 150 Jews were shot immediately; 7 partisans wounded) 2,236
4.10.41 Kauen-F.IX 315 Jews, 712 Jewesses, 818 Jewish children (reprisal after German police officer shot in ghetto) 1,845
29.10.41 Kauen-F.IX 2,007 Jews, 2,920 Jewesses, 4,273 Jewish children (mopping up ghetto of superfluous Jews) 9,200
3.11.41 Lazdija i 485 Jews, 511 Jewesses, 539 Jewish children 1,535
15.11.41 Wilkowiski 36 Jews, 48 Jewesses, 31 Jewish children 115
25.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 1,159 Jews, 1,600 Jewesses, 175 Jewish children (resettlers from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt am Main) 2,934
29.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 693 Jews, 1,155 Jewesses, 152 Jewish children (resettlers from Vienna and Breslau) 2,000
29.11.41 Kauen-F.IX 17 Jews, 1 Jewess, for contravention of ghetto law, 1 Reichs German who converted to the Jewish faith and attended rabbinical school, then 15 terrorists from the Kalinin group 34
EK 3 detachment in Dunanburg in the period 13.7-21.8.41: 9,012 Jews, Jewesses and Jewish children, 573 active Comm. 9,585
EK 3 detachment in Wilna:
12.8-1.9.41 City of Wilna 425 Jews, 19 Jewesses, 8 Comm. (m.), 9 Comm. (f.) 461
2.9.41 City of Wilna 864 Jews, 2,019 Jewesses, 817 Jewish children (Sonderaktion because German soldiers shot at by Jews) 3,700
Total carried forward 99,084
sheet 6
Total carried forward 99,804
12.9.41 City of Wilna 993 Jews, 1,670 Jewesses, 771 Jewish children3,334
17.9.41 City of Wilna 337 Jews, 687 Jewesses, 247 Jewish children and 4 Lith. Comm.1,271
20.9.41 Nemencing 128 Jews, 176 Jewesses, 99 Jewish children 403
22.9.41 Novo-Wilejka 468 Jews, 495 Jewesses, 196 Jewish children1,159
24.9.41 Riess 512 Jews, 744 Jewesses, 511 Jewish children1,767
25.9.41 Jahiunai 215 Jews, 229 Jewesses, 131 Jewish children 575
27.9.41 Eysisky 989 Jews, 1,636 Jewesses, 821 Jewish children 3,446
30.9.41 Trakai 366 Jews, 483 Jewesses, 597 Jewish children 1,446
4.10.41 City of Wilna 432 Jews, 1,115 Jewesses, 436 Jewish hildren 1,983
6.10.41 Semiliski 213 Jews, 359 Jewesses, 390 Jewish children 962
9.10.41 Svenciany 1,169 Jews, 1,840 Jewesses, 717 Jewish children 3,726
16.10.41City of Wilna 382 Jews, 507 Jewesses, 257 Jewish children 1,146
21.10.41 City of Wilna 718 Jews, 1,063 Jewesses, 586 Jewish children 2,367
25.10.41 City of Wilna 1,776 Jewesses, 812 Jewish children 2,578
27.10.41City of Wilna 946 Jews, 184 Jewesses, 73 Jewish children 1,203
30.10.41 City of Wilna 382 Jews, 789 Jewesses, 362 Jewish children 1,553
6.11.41 City of Wilna 340 Jews, 749 Jewesses, 252 Jewish children 1,341
19.11.41 City of Wilna 76 Jews, 77 Jewesses, 18 Jewish children 171
19.11.41 City of Wilna 6 POW's, 8 Poles 142
0.11.41 City of Wilna 3 POW's 3
25.11.41 City of Wilna 9 Jews, 46 Jewesses, 8 Jewish children, 1 Pole for possession of arms and other military equipment 64
EK 3 detachment in Minsk from 28.9-17.10.41: Pleschnitza, Bischolin, Scak, Bober, Uzda 620 Jews, 1,285 Jewesses, 1,126 Jewish children and 19 Comm. 3,050--------
133,346
Prior to EK 3 taking over security police duties, Jews liquidated by pogroms and executions (including partisans) 4,000
-----------Total 137,346
Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their families
lt was only possible to achieve our objective of making Lithuania free from Jews by forming a raiding squad consisting of specially selected men led by SS-Obersturmführer Hamann, who grasped my aims completely and understood the importance of ensuring cooperation with the Lithuanian partisans and the relevant civilian authorities.
The execution of such actions is first and foremost a matter of organization. The decision to clear each district of Jews systematically required a thorough preparation of each individual action and a reconnaissance of the prevailing conditions in the district concerned. The Jews had to be assembled at one or several places. Depending on the number of Jews, a place for the graves had to be found and then the graves dug. The distance from the assembly point to the graves was on average 4 to 5 km. The Jews were transported in detachments of 500 to the execution area, with a distance of at least 2 km between them. The following example, selected at random, demonstrates the difficulties and the acutely stressful nature of the work:
In Rokiskis 3,208 people had to be transported 4½ km before they could be liquidated. In order to get this work done within 24 hours, over sixty of the eighty available Lithuanian partisans had to
be detailed for cordon duty. The rest, who had to be relieved constantly, carried out the work together with my men. Lorries are only very occasionally available for transporting the Jews. There were a number of escape attempts, which were thwarted single-handedly by my men, whose own lives were at risk. Three men from the Kommando at Mariampole, for example, shot thirty-eight escaping Jews and Communist officials on a path in a wood, with the result that none of them managed to escape. The marching distance to and from each individual action totaled 160-200 km. lt was only through the efficient use of time that it was possible to carry out up to five actions per week while still coping with any work that arose in Kauen, so that no backlog was allowed to build up.
The actions in Kauen itself, where there was an adequate number of reasonably well-trained partisans available, were like parade-ground shooting in comparison with the often-enormous difficulties which had to be faced elsewhere.
All the officers and men in my Kommando took an active part in the major actions in Kauen, except for an official from the criminal detection department, who was exempted owing to illness.
I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned. Those working Jews and Jewesses still available are needed urgently and I can envisage that after the winter this workforce will be required even more urgently. I am of the view that the sterilization program of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If despite sterilization a Jewess becomes pregnant, she will be liquidated.
One of Einsatzkommando 3's most important duties, after the Jewish actions, was to inspect the prisons in each village and town, most of which proved to be overcrowded. In every town there were on average about 600 people of Lithuanian origin held in prison without any real reason. These people had been detained by partisans merely on the basis of denunciations. Many personal scores had been settled in the process. Nobody cared what became of them. You had to visit the prisons and stop for just a moment in the
overcrowded cells, which as far as hygiene was concerned defied description, to believe the conditions there Jonava - and this is one example among many -sixteen men were kept in a dark room in a cellar 3 m long, 3 m wide and l. 65 m high for five weeks. They could all have been released since there were no charges against them. Girls aged between thirteen and sixteen were incarcerated because they had applied to join the Communist youth in order to get work. In such cases we had to take quite radical measures to hammer the message home into the heads of the relevant Lithuanian authorities. The prisoners were assembled in the prison yard and checked off against lists and documents. Those who had been locked up on spurious charges as a result of quite harmless behavior were put in a special group. Those whom we sentenced to one to three months and six months for their crimes were also separated into a special group, and those that were to be liquidated, such as criminals, Communist officials, Politruks and other riff-raff, were put into another group. Some of them, depending on their crime, particularly the Communist officials, received an additional punishment of ten to forty lashes with the whip which was meted out immediately. After the inspection was over the prisoners were led back to their cells. Those that were to be freed were led to the marketplace in a column where, after a short address in the presence of many inhabitants, they were set free. The content of the speech (it was translated sentence by sentence by an interpreter into Lithuanian and Russian) was as follows: 'If we were Bolsheviks we would have shot you, but as we are Germans we are giving you back your freedom.'
The prisoners were then warned that they were to steer clear of any political activity, that they should report any subversive activities which came to their notice to the German authorities. They were also urged to take part actively in rebuilding local agriculture. They were finally warned that should one of them be found guilty again of a crime he would be shot. They were then released.
It is difficult to imagine the joy, gratitude and delight our measures awoke in those released and indeed in the local population. We often had to use sharp words to cool the enthusiasm of women, children and men who with tears in their eyes tried to kiss our hands and feet.
(signed) Jäger
SS-Standartenführer
Translation source: Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess. The Good Old Days, The Free Press, NY, 1988, pp. 46-58.
Maps
The following map documents the communities Karl Jäger listed in his report. The legend of the map has two layers. The first (default) layer, using the blue Star of David, lists the communities in the Jäger Report in alphabetical order; the second, using the red Star of David, can be activated by clicking on it in the legend; it lists communities in the order they appear in the report.
Each place, or symbol, leads one to further links. These links are:
- to the wikipedia entry for the city, town, or village;
- to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania (the same link as in the digitized document);
- to the Yad Vashem Killing Sites database;
- to the Yahad-in-Unum Map of the "Holocaust by Bullets" (as yet very incomplete for Lithuania);
- to the JewishGen Kehilalinks , a portal for reconstructing the history of Jewish communities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. For a list of all the Lithuanian communities, go here . Collected in these links are reports, images, testimonies, and even poems about the community and its destruction.
- to the actual killing sites and/or memorial (following the information of the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania) on google maps (satellite image).
Communities listed in the Jäger Report (in alphabetical order) - Google My Maps
It should be underscored that the map of the Jäger Report (above) depicts only those communities listed in the report itself. It by no means covers all the communities in which German and Lithuanian units murdered Jews.
Dovid Katz, the noted Yiddish linguist, created such a map, and from it, one can begin to visualize the ubiquity of the destruction.
By clicking the link below the map, one comes to the interactive original. This allows one to probe deeper into the communities outside the purview of Einsatzkommando 3. Moreover, the Katz Map contains valuable links, including links to the Yizkor books of Lithuania, dedicated to the memory of eradicated communities. They are often packed with information, images, and primary sources, including factual accounts of what happened and literary reflections. Even if one is only researching the communities linked in the Jäger Report, this map should be consulted. For aside from individual testimony, the Yizkor books count among our best primary sources for the reconstruction, provisional as it will always be, of the Jewish experience of the community and its destruction. For a complete list of Yizkor books translated, partially or completely, into English, go to the Yizkor Book Project at Jewishgen.org , and search for Lithuania at the translations page. Or simply, go here .
Corroborating the Katz Map, but with more direct detail about the killing, is the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania . It too shows the ubiquity of the destruction, and, more than any other map, serves as a digital gateway into it horrors.
Jews constituted just over seven percent of the population in June 1941, when the killing began. Non-Jews participated in the genocide, tried to help Jews, or were bystanders, if not always innocent ones. Many, in each of these categories, were eyewitnesses to the killings.
Since 2009, Yahad-in-Unum (Peace in Unity) has made considerable progress in interviewing eyewitnesses throughout eastern Europe. In the case of Lithuania, as elsewhere, these witnesses were very young at the time. Nevertheless, the interviews add detail and insight into how the genocide unfolded. Below is a screen shot, taken in March 2021, of Yahad-in-Unum's Map of places where researchers have conducted interviews. Red dots signal that that the interviews are available, blue that they are forthcoming. The interviews are generally in Lithuanian, but often with English subtitles (to receive the full video, you will have to email the organization). The pages also have many photographs that help give a sense of the terrain.
The link to the interactive online-map is below the screenshot of the map.
Finding Jewish Sources
Because the Nazis and their helpers murdered 95% of the Jewish population in Lithuania, survivor accounts are scarce and most are in Yiddish or in Hebrew. Nevertheless, there are a number of places to turn in order to find and in some cases listen to the voices of the persecuted.
The first major place to turn is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . It has an extensive collection of documents on Lithuania during these years, and searching for individual Lithuania communities will typically bring up many of them. Of particular interest may be the The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive at the USHMM; it holds a very rich collection of taped interviews with survivors. Perhaps the easiest way to access them is to type the term "Lithuania" into the USHMM search engine and solve for "video" and the languages you understand. Another approach is to type in a place name, such as Marijampole. The USHMM often provides transcripts for these testimonies, making finding information or discussions about particular topics easier. Some interviews are in English, but many are not.
With a few major exceptions, most of the ghettos of Lithuania were "destruction ghettos," places where Jews were held before they were killed. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945 contains valuable sections on the ghettos, as well as on what happened in many of the rural communities in Lithuania. The Encyclopedia is available in book form, but it is also possible to download it as a pdf file.
A second major place to turn is the USC Shoah Foundation, Virtual History Archive , especially if one is near a site that allows full access to the more than 50,000 testimonies (as opposed to the some 4,000 that are open access). To find the closest access point, go here . One approach to the VHA is to use the place index, focusing on Lithuania. Many of the testimonies will address the period before and perhaps after the first six months of the invasion. Nevertheless, assiduous researchers will find voices among these testimonies not encountered in the secondary literary. Below is a map generated by the USC Shoah Visual History Archive (full access) showing places in Lithuania referenced in VHA testimonies.
A third place is the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimony at Yale University. It is not as widely available at the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, but it now has a number of access sites . Moreover, the interviews are more extensive and are often conducted with a great deal of expertise. One way to find the relevant testimonies is to search for Lithuania in the geographic subject index. Another way is to type in the name of a community, such as Panevėžys.
Yad Vashem, a fourth major center to turn to, has significant holdings as well--though only some 200 full online testimonies about Lithuania are available. To access them, go to the Yad Vashem Survivor Testimonies . A still larger store of them is to be found on Yad Vashem's YouTube channel . Use the channels search function to solve for Lithuania or for the specific town or city.
Yad Vashem, the oldest major center of Holocaust rememberance, offers other approaches as well. Embedded in Yad Vashem's k illing sites database (to which you have access through the Jäger Report maps) is a series of more precise descriptions of what happened on the ground. These descriptions are contained in its series entitled "The Untold Stories: The Murder Sites of the Jews in the Occupied Territories of the Former USSR." A drop-down list allows one to solve for Lithuania, and within Lithuania, to search for community. A description of what happened will appear, with photos, and perhaps a video, or even a part of a testimony. Remarkable as well is the Photo Archive of Yad Vashem . Type in the name of a community, such as Ukmergė. Images of the town and at least some of the Jews who once inhabited it before they were murdered will appear. Finally, there are names. Yad Vashem has the most complete collection in the world of the names of the Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. This remarkable database, entitled The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names , counts more than 4.8 million individual names. At least a million remain to be identified.
A very different angle is involved when pursuing the activity of "helping" and "rescue" on the part of non-Jewish Lithuanians. Here too Yad Vashem has unique data bases that allows us to reconstruct what happened. Go to the Yad Vashem site for the Righteous Among Nations and search for "Lithuania." A list with more names and places will appear, with possibilities for further research.
Finally, a major source of Jewish written testimony may be found in the Yizkor books for the Jewish communities of Lithuania. Only a small number are fully translated into English. To see whether a community has a completely translated Yizkor book, go to the translation page , and solve for country (Lithuania) and status (complete). For communities that appeared in the Jäger Report, completed translations include, as of April 2021: Butrimonys , Jonava , Jurbarkas , Rokiskis , Svencionys , and Trakai . There are also a number of translations that are listed as partial, but have a great deal of translated material for researchers, including some, like Eišiškes , which have significant primary materials.
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Comment
As with other documents of the Holocaust, an adequate interpretation of the Jäger Report necessarily begins by asking who, where, when, and how. One also wants to know why such an account was written at all.
Who is a question of who did the killing and who was killed.
When his unit entered Lithuania, Karl Jäger, the commander of EK3, was 52 years old, and counted among the relatively few SS officers who had fought in World War I. Yet it was less the war than the Weimar Republic that shaped him. His livelihood followed the vicissitudes of its economic turbulence, and during the Great Depression, his modest business making musical instruments went bankrupt and he and his wife separated. In this period of turmoil, National Socialism gave him a sense of self worth. Having joined the NSDAP in 1923, he had been a fervent organizer for the fledgling party in his home town of Waldshut in the Black Forest. But it was the SS that gave him a paid position and a sense of mission. He quickly rose in its hierarchy, attaining a rank roughly equivalent to a colonel. It was as a colonel in the SS that Jäger came to Lithuania, pursued his murderous work, and authored the infamous report that bears his name. After the war, he lived a quiet life in a rural community near Heidelberg, until he was arrested in 1959. Showing neither contrition nor remorse, he claimed that he was not involved in the killing and was just following orders. While in prison, awaiting trial, he took his own life.
The Jäger Report was not available to prosecutors when Jäger was apprehended. As a result, we do not know very much about the conditions of its authorship. Why was it written in this tabular form, when most SS field reports are summaries, often haphazard, of the activities of commando units? To whom was the report sent? Only to Jäger's superior, Walter Stahlecker , Commander of Einsatzgruppe A? How did Jäger arrive at his statistics? Who gathered them? Are they accurate in general and in detail? And to what end was the statistical summary used?
Obviously, Jäger did not work alone. Subordinate to him was a cadre of younger officers, mainly in their late twenties and early thirties. Like Jäger, they struggled to find their economic footing during the Great Depression, and were immensely indebted to the the Nazis, in particular the SS, for their social and professional advancement. Trained in SS leadership schools, these young men had inculcated Nazi racial ideas and went about their murderous work with energy, elan, and cruelty. Among them was Joachim Hamann, whom one historian has described as Jäger's "bloodhound." The organizer of a mobile unit made up of SS and Lithuanian men, Hamann belonged to the species of killers out of conviction. After his mobile unit murdered as many as 60,000 Lithuanians, he worked his way further up the SS ladder, eventually becoming the adjutant of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Reinhard Heydrich's replacement in the SS.
Most of the killers came from the next group down. Comparatively young, typically in their early thirties, many of these men came from the Saxon city of Plauen and had served previously under Jäger.
Taken together, the unit shows an older, experienced officer, leading a cadre of thoroughly indoctrinated young men who were deeply indebted to the Nazis and who believed fervently in Nazi ideology. Far from being "ordinary men," These people were committed ideological killers.
The number of those killed--137,346, according to the report--is easily committed to paper. More difficult is to imagine what the numbers mean. For all its prima facie horror, the Jäger Report requires us to research more deeply, to think more analytically, and to envision more concretely.
Initially, Jaeger’s unit mainly killed Jewish men. Then, starting in early August, they murdered women. And by mid-August, they slaughtered children too. The progression is a macabre clue. It tells us that in the first weeks, the Einsatzgruppen operated more or less within the confines of an agreement that the SS had made with the Army before the invasion began. That agreement said nothing about the eradication of the Jews, but stipulated instead that the SS would rout out Communists and potential partisans. Initial instructions to the heads of the Einsatzgruppen did, however, note that Jews would be the target of “self-cleansing efforts,” by which the SS leadership meant that pogroms, “are to be triggered leaving no traces whatsoever.”
The most notorious pogrom was in Vilijampoleje on June 25-27, in which Lithuanian nationalists, acting on Nazi instigation, killed more than a thousand Jews. But because Nazis had taken photographs, the most well-known pogrom involved the brutal murder of some 60 Jews with iron bars and clubs at the so-called Lietūkus Garage in Kaunus on June 27, 1941.
If bloody, sadistic pogroms transfix the moral imagination, the nationalist militias proved to be far more lethal. By the end of July, when German civilian authorities replaced the military administration, Lithuanians, at the behest of the SS, had killed roughly 1,100 Jews in pogroms, but some 20,000 in militia shootings.
By early August, as the Jäger Report reveals, the unit had widened its murderous writ and dramatically increased the number of Jews it killed.
What had changed? Decisive, according to Christoph Dieckmann, the author of the most comprehensive recent account of the Holocaust in Lithuania, was the arrival of the German civil administration in late July. In one of its first measures, the German occupation administration ordered the identification, isolation, and incarceration of the Lithuanian Jews. Sending these orders to Lithuanian police chiefs, the German civil administration underscored that these measures were to be executed with extreme swiftness. The aim was to kill the Jews in the countryside, focusing on the Shtetl in the north, then the southwest and southeast, before turning to the larger cities.
Before early August, the murder of every last Jewish man, woman, and child had yet to begin. There had been brutal killings, but some 95% of the Jews of Lithuania were still alive. For the SS, this small country with a Jewish population of roughly 210,000 people, would now become its first experiment in full-scale genocide--not a rehearsal, but the thing itself.
On first read, the Jäger Report demonstrates the violent efficiency of the German killing machine; for it documents the exact numbers of Jews killed by the SS in city after city, town after town, Shtetl after Shtetl. We have hundreds of reports from other mobile killing units that followed the German Army during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. And yet no other SS commander wrote reports that come even close to the precise, clinical recounting observable in the Jäger report. No doubt, the document’s bank-ledger language discloses something important about the mindset of this SS leader. Yet a closer look reveals that this very language was also hiding something.
It hid that the German SS had a great deal of help. Since the genocide proceeded via a division of labor, this help, or complicity, occurred at two different levels. Identifying, incarcerating, guarding, and moving Jews to killing sites represented one level of complicity. Those who pulled the triggers constituted another.
The first kind of engagement involved wide circles of civil and military authorities. On the Lithuanian side, the complicity stretched down to the police in rural towns throughout Lithuania, and points to responses ranging from abject servility to disturbing eagerness on the part of Lithuanians to help the Nazis eradicate the Jews. Indeed, the speed and vehemence with which Lithuanians turned on the Jews in their hometowns utterly shocked the Jews of the region. This working together, Germans and Lithuanians, in order to murder Jews, also points to closer personal cooperation in killing, especially as compared to the communal pogroms and zealous arrests and mass shootings of late July. As they conversed on the phone and worked out the murderous details in person, a lethal synergy emerged as German SS and Lithuanian fascists bonded over the very crimes they were committing.
The SS, then, had a great deal of help in the direct killing. Just how much can be seen by focusing on the most notorious unit within Jäger’s Mobile Killing Unit. This was Joachim Hamann’ raiding squad, or Rollkommando. Karl Jäger describes the unit of the twenty-seven-year-old first lieutenant as consisting of “8-10 reliable men from the Einsatzkommando,” and working “in cooperation with Lithuanian partisans.” In fact, there were many more Lithuanian partisans than German SS officers in Hamann's unit. One listing reveals the name of nearly sixty Lithuanian men.
For a small number of murder events, publicly available documents in English or German allow us to get closer to the experience of the Holocaust from the perspective of the victims--principally the Jews of Lithuania. One such event is Butrimonys, where, according to the Jäger Report, the unit killed 67 Jews, 370 Jewesses, and 303 Jewish children on September 9, 1941.
A surviving document from this town comes to us in the form of a farewell letter from a young Jewish boy, Avram Boyarski, who was in hiding with his father. It seems clear the father started the letter, which he intended for relatives. The boy finished it--his last letter.
The letter tells about the terror instilled by the Germans and by the Lithuania partisans, and the fate of young Boyarski's friends and family, many of whom the Nazis and their accomplices had already killed. Constantly on the run, Boyarski and his father were utterly dependent on people who took them in. But on August 12, Lithuanian partisans rounded up the Jews between ages 15 and 60, among them the boy’s father, and shot them in the nearby town of Alytus. A few weeks later, on September 9, a German detachment of the EK 3, with help from Lithuanian guards, “brought in,” as the boy (now the sole author of the letter) put it, “all the men, women and children from Butrimonys,” and then marched the Jews to the enormous ditches that had been dug at the outskirts of town. Here is how the young Boyarski described the scene:
“the men were forced to stand on the edge of the pit, and they shot them, and they fell in. The women and the children were driven into the pit alive and then shot. Some fell dead and the others were buried alive. Forty Lithuanian bandits shot them.
The boy closes by hoping his letter survives as “a record of what the Germans and the Lithuanians did to the Jewish people.”
While the Jäger Report suggests to its readers a cold, clinical killing operation, the story that the Boyarskis tell is one of ongoing terror from the beginning. It reminds us that the Jews of Lithuania experienced a relentless assault of unmitigated terror, with the "Holocaust by bullets" only the last act in horrific, drawn-out tragedy. The letter also discloses the desperate attempts of Jews to escape, and a crestfallen recognition that their neighbors have completely and utterly turned on them.
The Butrimonys document is extremely rare. Most of the other testimonies come come to us from the large ghettos--Šiauliai, Kaunas, and Vilnius. Among the most famous are the scraps of paper dug up from the ground in the small town of Ponary, where Germans and Lithuanians massacred some 40,000 Jews by the end of 1941, and tens of thousands thereafter. Most of the Jews killed here were from nearby Vilnius, the “Jerusalem of the Lithuania,” the city of which the poets Abraham Sutzkever, Czeslaw Milosz, and Tomas Venclova have written about with such eloquence and sorrow.
The author was Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Polish journalist who could see the killings from a hiding place in the attic of his cottage in the woods on the outskirts of Ponary. When the Germans occupied the area in June 1941, they killed Jews and other peoples in this obscure patch of forsaken forest, filling fuel-tank pits dug by the Soviets with corpses.
Witnessing these killings, not once, but over and over again, Sakowicz scratched precise entries on loose sheets of paper, recording what he saw. He then buried the sheets in sealed lemonade bottles, which his neighbors dug up after the war (Sakowicz was killed in July 1944), and turned over to the Jewish Museum in Vilnius; the sheets of paper thereafter lay in the Lithuanian State Archive, tagged “illegible.” In the course of a lifetime of collecting documents on the extermination of the Jews of Lithuania, Dr. Rachel Margolis, a partisan fighter and survivor, pieced the extent sheets together and transcribed them. First published in Polish in 1999, the entries in the form of a diary are now available in English and in German translation, with critical notes and historical introductions.
Sakowicz’s Ponary Diary 1941-1944 forces our imagination of how these murders occurred into new territory. With the help of Lithuanian shooters, often “striplings of seventeen to twenty-five years,” the SS forced Jews to the pits, often blindfolded, usually naked, where the Jews were then shot, bludgeoned, or stabbed before they fell into the pits. Often drunk, sometimes sober, the German SS and the Lithuanian shooters carried out the murders now with efficiency, now with studied cruelty. They also bludgeoned to death hundreds of children with rifle butts, sometimes throwing the “whelps” into the pit before killing them.
The diary not only records the killings as they occurred from July 1941 to November 1943, it also tells us of the many Jews who tried to run away and of the many Jewish mothers who tried to hide their infants in piles of clothes. Alas, Lithuanian guards caught and found almost all of them. Sakowicz also notes that a market in shoes, pants, coats, dresses, watches, jewelry and gold teeth flourished, with the backpacks of the Lithuanian Riflemen bulging after each day’s work. The riflemen exchanged these items for money and vodka; it was a brisk business, and everyone in the area took part.
When Jäger sent his last report, on December 1, some 75% of the Jews of Lithuania had been murdered. There was still more to come. By the end, the Germans and the Lithuanians killed close to 95% of the Jews of this small country.
"Have you seen, in fields of snow,
frozen Jews, row on row?
Blue marble forms lying,
not breathing, not dying." (Abraham Sutzkever, "Frozen Jews," 1944)
Abraham Sutzkever, perhaps the greatest Jewish poet from this part of the world, struggled to find words.
Sources
*denotes mainly primary source material
N.B. There is a special section at the end on finding sources in English for Lithuanian communities mentioned in the Jäger Report.
*Deutsche Besatzungsherrschaft in der UdSSR, 1941 1945. Dokumente der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion II, ed. Andrej Angrick et al. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2013 (includes the Jäger Report as well as an earlier report, written in the same ledger-of-death style, of September 10, 1941, in which Jäger claimed responsibility for killing over 75,000 Jews).
*Yitzhak Arad et al., ed. The Einsatzgruppen Reports, trans. Stella Schossberger. New York: The Holocaust Library, 1989 (a useful collection of translated field reports from the mobile killing units, including Einsatzgruppe A, which operated in Lithuania.)
David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publications, 2011 (important for its extensive use of Jewish sources--see details in "community sources").
Waitman Wade Beorn, with Anne Kelly Knowles, "Killing on the Ground and in the Mind: The Spatialities of Genocide in the East," in Geographies of the Holocaust, ed. Anne Kelly Knowles, Tim Cole, and Alberto Giordano. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2014, 89-118 (groundbreaking GIS analysis of the killings, in a volume that was pathbreaking for geospatial analysis of the Holocaust more generally).
Christoph Dieckmann, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941-1944, 2 vols. Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2011 (the closest we have to a definitive history--it is currently being translated by Yale University Press into English).
*Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry, trans. David Patterson. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002, 241-379 (includes A. Sutzkever's The Vilna Ghetto, material from the United Partisan Organization of the Vilna Ghetto; the Diary of E. Yerushalmi of Siaulia, and Meier Elin's accounts of the Death Forts of Kaunas, among other material).
David E. Fischman, The Book Smugglers. Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2017 (a gripping story about the Paper Brigade of Vilnius).
Margarete Holzman, "Dies Kind soll Leben." Die Aufzeichnungen der Helene Holzman, 1941- 1944, ed. Reinhard Kaiser and Margarete Holzman. Frankfurt am Main: Schöffling & Co., 2000 (on Kaunus, and the desperate effort of one woman to save the children).
*Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, ed. Susanne Heim et al., vol. 7, Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I: Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung, Baltikum und Transnistrien, ed. Bert Hoppe and Hildrun Glass. Munich, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2011 (essential documents, German, Lithuania, and Jewish)
*Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto, ed. Dennis B. Klein. Washington, D.C.: Bullfinch Press, 1997 (based on an exhibit of the USHMM).
Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, 2 vols. trans. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra: David Solly Sandler, 2020). (contains translated accounts of the Holocaust in Lithuania from 121 Jewish survivors, recorded by Leib Koniuchowsky in DP camps from 1946 to 1948).
*Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944, ed. and intro by Benjamin Harshav, trans. Barbara Harshav. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002 (teeming with insight and detail into life in the Vilnius ghetto--a breathtaking edition, beautifully edited and translated)
Raya Kruk, Lautlose Schreie: Berichte aus dunklen Zeiten. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1999 (how a young woman survives in Kaunas)
Konrad Kwiet, “Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 12,1 (1998), 3-26. (Making the case for Lithuania as the testing ground for genocide)
Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. Lithuania. ed. Dov Levin. Trans. from Hebrew, ed. Dov Levin, assisted by Josef Rosin. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996 (invaluable information about Lithuanian communities). For Jewishgen.org's virtual copy, go here .
*The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson. Vilnius: The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2006 (especially important for its excerpts of rare primary sources)
*Die "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR," 1941. Dokument der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion I, ed. Klaus Mallmann et al. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2011 (a giant volume full of chilling local reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the SS).
*Jewish Responses to Persecution, vol. 3, 1941–1942, ed. Jürgen Matthäus with Emil Kerenji, Jan Lambertz, and Leah Wolfson. Lanham, MD: Alta Mira Press, 2013 (excellent general collection, with a few translated documents on the Jewish response to the genocide in Lithuania)
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, ed. by Geoffrey P. Megargee, Vol. II, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, ed. Martin Dean, with an introduction by Christopher R. Browning, Part B, pp. 1031-1058. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012 (detailed descriptions of the Ghettos in Lithuania, including many that existed for only a short period of time--also contains useful suggestions for further research). For the pdf file, go here .
The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust, 2 vols. ed. Guy Miron. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009 (succinct entries entered alphabetically for all of eastern Europe, but without further bibliographical references).
Dina Porat, The fall of a Sparrow. The Life and Times of Abba Kovner, Stanford University Press, Calif. 2009 (a biography of the famous resistance fighter).
Josef Rosin, Protecting our Litvak Heritage. A History of Fifty Jewish Communities in Lithuania, intro. Dov Levin, ed. Susan Levy and Joel Alpert. Coral Gables: The Friends of the Yurburg Jewish Cemetery, Inc, 2009 (important material for understanding a series of devastated Jewish towns and villages). For a pdf, made publically available on Jewishgen.org, go here .
*Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman, The Unknown Black Book. The Holocaust in the German Occupied Soviet Territories, trans. Christopher Morris and Joshua Rubenstein. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2008, esp. 277-315 (translations of essential wartime and postwar letters, diaries, and testimonies, includes important material on Kaunas in addition to Lithuania communities outside of the operation of EK3).
*Kazimierz Sakowicz, Ponary Diary, 1941-1943. A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder, ed. Yitzhak Arad, trans. Laurence Weinbaum. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008 (devastating account).
*Abraham Sutzkever, Wilner Ghetto, 1941-1944, trans. (into German from Yiddish) by Hubert Witt. Zürich: Ammann Verlag, 2009 (the poet's sketches of life in the Vilnius ghetto, first published in Moscow and Paris in 1946). For an English translation, see Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry, 241-267.
*Avraham Tory, Surviving the Holocaust. The Kovno Ghetto Diary, ed. Martin Gilbert, notes by Dina Porat, trans. Jerzy Michalowicz. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990 (a remarkably detailed and perceptive account, retrieved from the rubble of Kaunas, laying bare the thoughts and experiences of the secretary of the ghetto's Jewish council)
Joachim Tauber, "'Juden, Eure Geschichte auf litauischem Boden ist zu Ende!' Litauen und der Holocaust im Jahr 1941," Osteuropa 52, 9/10 (2002), 1346-1360 (succinct analysis).
Wolfram Wette: Karl Jäger - Mörder der litauischen Juden. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 2011 (excellent short book on Jäger, his career, and the significance of the report)
Community Sources
(English-language primary sources for communities named in the Jäger Report)
Please find below a bibliography, which cannot claim to be complete or authoritative, but may help find sources, especially regarding the smaller communities mentioned in the Jäger Report. Significant "taped testimony" is noted by VHA (=USC Shoah Foundation, Visual History Archive), USHMM (=United States Holocaust Memorial Archive), F (=Fortunoff Video Archives of Yale University), YV (Yad Vashem), and YU (=Yahad-in-Unum). Significant "printed sources," typically excerpts of post-Holocaust testimony, are listed separately. The bibliography is ordered alphabetically by community. Bold means that substantial sources have been found (as of October 2022). Sources are not listed alphabetically or chronologically be date of creation or publication, but simply in the order they were found.
Alytus
Taped Testimony: USHMM, F, YV, DB.
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 116-122, 201-202; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Aglona
Ariogala
Taped testimony: VHA, YU
Babtai
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010); "The Slaughter of the Jews in Vendzhiogala and Baptei (1 and 2)," (testimony of Abe Lison and Sheyne Nozhikov), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 261-265
Butrimonys
Taped Testimony: USHMM, YV.
Printed Sources: Nathan Cohen, "The Destruction of the jews of Butrimonys as Described in a Farewell Letter from a Local Jew," Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 4,3 (1989), 357–375. (Contains the full text, translated into English, of the Butrimonys letter); If I Forget Thee... The Destruction of the Shtetl Butrimantz. Testimony by Riva Lozansky and other Witnesses , trans by Eva Tverskoy (Washington, D.C. 1988); Rūta Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff, Our People.. Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust (Lanham, 2016), 137-142; The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 203; With a Needle in the Heart. Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps, trans. Diana Bartkutė-Barnard and Aldona Matulytė (Vilnius, 2013), 214;
Čekiškė
Dagda and Krāslava
Darsūniškis
Printed Testimony: The Slaughter of the Jews in Kruonis, Pakuonis and Darshunishkis (Testimony of Yosef Gar), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 246-248.
Daugavpils
Eišiškės
Taped Testimony: USHMM, YV
Published sources: Nearly Translated Yizkor Book ; Yaffa Eliach, There There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok (New York, 1999); Leon Kahn, No Time to Mourn. The True Story of a Jewish Partisan Fighter (Vancouver, B.C., 2004); David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Garliava
Girkalnis
Jašiūnai
Jieznas
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Jonava
Taped Testimony: USHMM, F, YV
Printed Sources: Completed translation of Yizkor Book ; Sidney Iwens, How Dark the Heavens (New York, 1990), 12-2; "The Slaughter of the Jews in the Lithuanian Town of Jonava," (testimony of Sloyme Katsas and Gershon Reybshteyn), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 266-273.
Joniškis
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010); "The Slaughter of the Jews in Jonishkis, (testimony of Efroyim Veinpres)" in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 237-239.
Josvainiai
Jurbarkas
Taped Testimony: VHA, USHMM
Printed testimony: Completed translation of Yizkor Book;
Kaunus (in addition to books listed in "sources")
Taped Testimony: VHA, USHMM, F, YV
Printed testimony: Kovno Ghetto Diary (Part of Yizkor Project) ; With a Needle in the Heart. Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps, trans. Diana Bartkutė-Barnard and Aldona Matulytė. Vilnius: Garnelius, 2013 (valuable translation of short autobiographical accounts--many from Kaunas survivors); Trudi Birger, A Daughter's Gift of Love. A Holocaust Memoir. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992 (the Kaunas ghetto as seen through the eyes of a young woman); William Mischell, Kaddish for Kovno: Life and Death in a Lithuanian Ghetto, 1941-1945. Chicago. Chicago Review Press, 1988; Solly Ganor, Light One Candle. A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem. New York: Kodansha International, 1995 (the ghetto through the eyes of a young boy); Alex Faitelson, Heroism and Bravery in Lithuania, 1941-1945. New York: Jerusalem, 1996; Ephraim Oshry, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. trans. by Y. Leiman. New York: The Judaica Press, Inc., 1995 (especially important for the religious dimension--from one of the few east European rabbis to survive the Holocaust); in addition, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry, trans. David Patterson. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002, contains the following sources on Kaunas: Meier Elin, "The Death Forts of Kovno," 314-326; I Iosade, "The Kovno Ghetto Fighters," 326-333; "From the Diary of Doctor Elena Buividaite-Kutorgene (June -December 1941)," pp. 333-36; "The Slaughter of the Jews in Vendzhiogala and Baptei (1 and 2)," (testimony of Abe Lison and Sheyne Nozhikov), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 261-265; "Mass Shootings of Jews in the Seventh Fort Kovno," (testimonies of Khayse Khodash and Peshe Kagan), in in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 497-519. "Events during the Occupation of Grodno and Kovno," (testimony of Yitskhok Kobrovsky), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 555-568.
Kaišiadorys
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Kėdainiai
Taped Testimony: USHMM, F
Printed Sources: The Gruesome Slaughter of the Jews of Kėdainiai, Sheta and Zheime," in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 154-161.
Krakės
Lazdijai
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 100-104; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Leipalingis
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Marijampolė
Taped Testimony: VHA, USHMM, F
Printed Sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Merkinė
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Naujoji Vilnia
Nemenčinė
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 121-12; "The Slaughter of the jews in the Town of Nementzine (1,2, and 3)" (testimony of Sore Eynbinder, Yekusiel Gordon, and Avrom Daytz), in in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 296-312.
Obeliai
Panevėžys
Taped Testimony: VHA, USHMM, F, YV
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 106-112; Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff, Our People. Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust (Lanham, 2016), 143-150; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Pasvalys
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 112-114.
Petrasiunai
Pravieniškės
Prienai
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Raseiniai
Printed Sources: "The Slaughter of Jews in the Lithuanian County Seat Raseiniai," (testimonies of Dvoyre Lazarsky, neé Yankelevitsch, Frida Praz, Yeshayohu and Rivka Krom) in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 70-92.
Riešė
Printed Source: "The Slaughter of the Jews in Rieshe," (testimony of Khyene Fridberg-Mindes), in in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 283-284.
Rokiškis
Taped Testimony: USHMM, F, YV
Printed Sources: Completed Translation of Yizkor Book ; The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 155; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Rumšiškės and Žiežmariai
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010); "The Slaughter of the Jews in the Samll Town of Rumshishkes," (testimony of Khane Shuster), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 249-251.
Šeduva
Printed Sources: Rūta Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff, Our People. Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust (Lanham, 2016), 109-114;
Seirijai
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Semeliškės
Printed Sources: With a Needle in the Heart. Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps, trans. Diana Bartkutė-Barnard and Aldona Matulytė (Vilnius, 2013), 328-331; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Seredžius
Simnas
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Švenčionys
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed Sources: Rūta Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff, Our People.. Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust (Lanham, 2016), 81-8; "The Slaughter of the Jews in the County of Shventzionys (1,2, and 3)," (testimony of Dr. Binyomin Taraseysky, Yankel Levin, Avrom Taytz and Fruma Hochmann), in in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 313-356; "The Shventziony's Ghettto" (testimony of Shimen Bushkanetz and Khaye Ginzberg) in in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 357-359.
Trakai
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed Sources: Completed Translation of Yizkor Book ; printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Ukmergė
VHA, Taped Testimony: USHMM, F
Printed Sources: The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania, ed. Joseph Levinson (Vilnius, 2006), 64-77, 106-108; David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Utena and Molėtai
Taped testimony: USHMM, F, YV
Užusaliai
Vandžiogala (see Kaunas)
Varėna
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Veliuona
Vilkaviškis
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed sources: David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Vilkija
Taped testimony: VHA
Printed Testimony: "The Slaughter of the Jews in Vilkija (1 and 2)," (testimony of Moyshe Karnovsky and Rokhel Gempl), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 256-260.
Vilnius (in addition to books listed in "sources")
Taped testimony: VHA, USHMM, F, YV
- Printed sources: Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust. New York: Holocaust Publications, 1981; Yitskhok Rudashevski, Diary of the Vilna Ghetto, June 1941-April 1943. Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters' House, 1973., Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry, trans. David Patterson. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2002, contains the following sources on Vilnius: Abraham Sutzkever, "The Vilna Ghetto," 241-268; The United Partisan Organization of the Vilna Ghetto, 268-294.
Žagarė
Taped testimony: USHMM, YA
Printed Sources: Rose Zwi, Last Walk in Naryshkin Park (Melbourne, 1997); David Bankier, Expulsion and Extermination: Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010).
Zapyškis
Printed Sources: "The Slaughter of the Jews in Zapyshkis and Krukiai," (testimonies of Shakhne, Yerakhmiel, Yitzkhok and Nosn Volk), in Leb Koniuchowsky, Testimonies of Lithuanian Life, tr. Jonathan Boyarin (Canberra, 2020), vol. 1, 252-255.
Zarasai
Acknowledgements
My gratitude to the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania for allowing me to "deep link" the Jäger Report to their detailed and informative map and descriptions. My thanks as well to Joel Alpert and the Yizkor Book Project for allowing me to map these wonderful sources. A special acknowledgement to Christoph Dieckman of the University of Bern, who offered detailed, constructive criticism. Remaining faults are my own--and am happy to field criticism, and correct where possible. For contact details go here . Unless otherwise acknowledged, all images are screenshots with links to the original, or images covered under creative commons license.
