Origin and Content of DOK 239

[Aryan Scholar]

This is a formal proposition to discuss the origin and content of DOK 239 published in the book Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I: Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung, Baltikum und Transnistrien by Walter de Gruyter [source].
DOK 239 can be found on page 623 to 624 and contains 9 footnotes by Gruyter [source].
Footnote 1 shows the reference for the original document archived in the Lithuanian Central State Archives [source]. Gruyter offers a transcript in German language of DOK 239 and in footnote 2 he indicates the document was translated but the original linguistic particularities were kept.

DOK. 239
Der Kreisarzt von Trakai (Troki) informiert den Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land am 8. Juli 1942 über die Größe und Lage von Massengräbern erschossener Juden in seinem Landkreis (1)

Schreiben (Nr. 1057) der Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung (Kreisarzt des Kreises Trakai), gez. Paskevicius, an den Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land, Wulff, (Eing. 12.7.1942) vom 8.7.1942 (2)

Betr.: Bestattung von Leichen und Kadavern
Dr. Di./F.
Bezug: Ministerialerlaß vom 30.4.42 — Il.c. 3186 (3)

An Herrn Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land in Wilna
Beantworte das Schreiben vom 16. Juni 1942 wie folgt: (4)

1. Gem. Traken
In der östlichen Richtung 2 km von Traken,1 km vom Dorfe Wornicken,1 km vom Walde, 1 km vom See, in einer sandigen Mulde befindet sich ein 80 m langes, 4 m breites und 4 m tiefes jüdisches Massengrab. (5)

2. Gem. Semelischken
In der nördlichen Richtung 1 km von Semelischken am Walde, 50 m vom Wege, 2 km vom Flusse Strawa auf einer sandigen Anhöhe befindet sich ein 30 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. Abfluß in der Richtung Semelischken. (6)

3. Gem. Zesmaren
1) In der nördlichen Richtung 3 km von Zesmaren auf dem Lande zugehörig zum Dorfe Trilischken,1 km vom Wege Zaslen - Zesmaren, auf einer sandigen Anhöhe befindet sich ein 33 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. (7)
2) In der nördlichen Richtung 5 km von Zesmaren, 2 km vom Wege Kaischedoren - Zesmaren, am Bladukischker Walde befindet sich ein 30 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. (8)

Die Massengräber wurden im Jahre 1941 mit Kalk bestreut und mit Erde bedeckt. Im Frühjahr 1942 wurden die Gräber aufgedeckt, mit Chlorkalk bestreut und mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt und umzäunt.

Einzelne Gräber

1. Gem. Kaischedoren
1) In südlicher Richtung 2 km von Kaischedoren am Wege Kaischedoren - Zesmaren im Walde niedrig gelegen, ist ein Grab mit 8-10 Leichen, welches mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt ist.
2) Am Dorfe Palomene 12 km nördlich von Kaischedoren am Wege Palomene- Zaslen befindet sich ein Grab mit 8-12. Leichen.

2. Gem. Zaslen
In nördlicher Richtung 1 km von Zaslen am Wege Zaslen - Gegusien befindet sich ein Grab mit 15 - 20 Leichen. Das Grab ist mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt.

3. Gem. Rudischken
In nördlicher Richtung 3 km von Rudischken, 200 m vom Wege Traken - Rudischken im Walde befindet sich ein Grab mit 15-20 Leichen. Das Grab ist mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt.
Im Jahre 1942 wurde von mir an den Kreischef in Traken ein Schreiben gerichtet, in welchem ihm mitgeteilt wurde, daß er den Gemeindevorstehern des Kreises Traken den Auftrag geben sollte, alle im Frühjahr noch nicht begrabenen Leichen und Kadaver vergraben zu lassen. Ferner sollten die schon vorhandenen Gräber kontrolliert und verbessert werden. Weiter wurde bemerkt, daß den Gemeindevorstehern Anweisung erteilt werden sollte, wie sie in Zukunft in oben angegebenen Fällen handeln sollten. (9)

---

1 LCVA, R 613/1/10, Bl. 69+RS.

2 Die sprachlichen Eigenheiten des Originals wurden beibehalten.

3 Nicht aufgefunden. Der Zustand der Gräber bereitete den Zivilbehörden bereits wenige Monate nach den ersten Massakern Sorgen. Der Kreischef von Trakai hatte am 8.11.1941 angeordnet, die Massengräber bis zum 13.11.1941 zu umzäunen und mit Chlorkalk zu überschütten; Schreiben des Kreischefs von Trakai, gez. Macinskas, an die Bürgermeister und Amtsbezirkschefs von Semeliskes und Eisiskes vom 8.11.1944, LCVA, 500/1/4, Bd. 2, Bl. 794.

4 Nicht aufgefunden. In diesem Schreiben ging es offenbar erneut um die Lage und den Zustand der Massengräber sowie um mögliche Gefahren für die Trinkwasserversorgung der umliegenden Gemeinden.

5 Nach Karl Jägers Angaben erschossen Angehörige eines Teilkommandos des Ek 3 am 30.9.1941 in Trakai 1446 Juden; Jäger-Bericht vom 1.12.1941, siehe Bericht des BdS Kauen, gez. Jäger, vom 1.12.1941, Abdruck in: „Schöne Zeiten" (wie Dok. 18, Anm. 1), S. 52-62, sowie Dok. 43 vom 30.7.1941 Anm. 9.

6 Laut Jäger erschossen Angehörige eines Teilkommandos des Ek 3 am 6.10.1941 in Semeliäkes 962 Juden; wie Anm. 5.

7 Jägers Angaben zufolge erschoss dm Rollkommando Hamann mit Unterstützung lit. Hilfskräfte am 29.8.1941 in Rumsiskis und Ziezmariai 784 jüdische Frauen und Kinder; wie Anm. 5.

8 In Kaigiadorys erschoss das Rollkommando Hamann mit Unterstützung lit. Hilfskräfte am 26.8.1941 nach Jägers Angaben 1911 Juden; wie Anm. 5.

9 In den folgenden Monaten ließ sich die Zivilverwaltung in Wilna noch mehrmals von den Lokalbehörden über den Zustand der Massengräber informieren (allein im Kreis Kaunas gab es 330 Grabstätten mit etwa 30000 Toten) und ordnete in einigen Fällen die Aufschüttung einer zusätzlichen Erdschicht an, weil Leichen freigespült worden waren.

Origin
Gruyter presents DOK 239 as letter number 1057 from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed by Dr. Paskevicius, dated on 8 July 1942, sent to the Regional Commissioner of Vilnius-Country, Horst Wulff, received on 12 July 1942. Gruyet also state this letter was produced to inform Horst Wulff about size and location of mass graves of Jews shot in the Trakai district. This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter. The subject is translated as such:

Subject: Burial of corpses and carcasses

[source]

The subject of the letter shows the content is about burial of corpses and carcasses. If the mass graves described in the content of the letter contains the corpses of Jews who were shot as stated by Gruyter, then the carcasses must come from another origin as it cannot come from people who were shot.

The reference for the subject discussed by Dr. Paskevicius in the letter is a ministerial decree issued in a document dated on 30 March 1942. In footnote 3 Gruyter states the document of the Ministerial Decree was not found. Dr. Paskevicius sent his letter to Horst Wulff in response to a letter dated from 16 June 1942. In footnote 4 Gruyter states the letter from 16 June 1942 was not found. The references are translated as such:

Dr. Di/F.
Reference: Ministerial Decree of 30.4.42 – II.c. 3186
To the Regional Commissioner Vilnius-Country in Vilnius
Respond to the letter of 16 June 1942 as follows:

[source]

The absence of corroboration for this two very important references put the remaining content of DOK 239 into question regarding its accuracy and authenticity.


Content
Let's locate the communities and other geographical features described by Dr. Paskevicius. The description of the mass graves is translated as such [source]:

1. Traken community.
In an easterly direction 2 km from Traken, 1 km from the village of Wornicken, I km from the forest, 1 km from the lake, in a sandy hollow, there is a Jewish mass grave, 80 m long, 4 m wide and 4 m deep.

Traken (Trakai), https://goo.gl/maps/sLQJSfpcAu62
Wornicken (Varnikai), https://goo.gl/maps/j66tzfFNSLN2

2. Semelischken community.
In a northerly direction 1 km from Semelischken, at the edge of the forest, 50 m from the road, 2 km from the Strėva River on a sandy knoll, there is a Jewish mass grave, 30 m long. Drainage in the direction of Semelischken.

Semelischken (Semeliškės), https://goo.gl/maps/6BWmY54bfzF2
Strėva River (Reka Strava), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C4%97va

3. Zesmaren community.
1) In a northerly direction 3 km from Zesmaren, on land belonging to the village of Trilischken, 1 km from the road Zaslen-Zesmaren, on a sandy knoll there is a Jewish mass grave, 33 m long.
2) In a northerly direction 5 km from Zesmaren, 2 km from the road Kaischedoren-Zesmaren, at the Bladukischer Forest, there is a Jewish mass grave, 30 m long.

Zesmaren (Žiežmariai), https://goo.gl/maps/n1ZGzVgXi8E2
Trilischken (Triliškės), https://goo.gl/maps/Fa1V4MBiZQM2
Zaslen-Zesmaren road (Žaslių g.), https://goo.gl/maps/2e49bCcP1uD2
Kaischedoren-Zesmaren road (142), https://goo.gl/maps/121GGpfa4fr
Bladukischer forest (vienkiemis Bankauciškė), see image bellow

1606 Kaisiadorys Quadrant: DETAIL Ziezmariai



[source]

The mass graves were strewn with chlorinated lime and covered with earth in 1941. In the spring of 1942 the graves were uncovered, strewn with chlorinated lime, covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high and fenced in.

In other words, in accordance with Dr. Paskevicius, the mass graves in Trakai, Semeliškės and Žiežmariai communities were strewn with chlorinated lime and covered with earth in 1941. The same process was repeated in the spring of 1942 but this time covered with a 1 meter high layer of earth and fenced in.

Individual graves
1. Kaischedoren community.
1) In a southerly direction 2 km from Kaischedoren by the road Kaischedoren-Zesmaren, lying low in the forest, there is a grave with 8-10 corpses, which is covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high.
2) At the village Palomene 12 km north of Kaischedoren next to the road Palomene-Zaslen, there is a grave with 8-12 corpses.

Kaischedoren (Kaišiadorys), https://goo.gl/maps/cadqdmTjCLU2
Kaischedoren-Zesmaren road (142), https://goo.gl/maps/121GGpfa4fr
Palomene (Palomenė), https://goo.gl/maps/zdJG5Rr8sKv
Palomene-Zaslen road (?), ?

2. Zaslen community.
In a northerly direction 1 km from Zaslen on the road Zaslen-Gegusien, there is a grave with 15-20 corpses. The grave is covered by a layer of earth up to one meter high.

Zaslen (Žasliai), https://goo.gl/maps/8npzaRMVAZE2
Zaslen-Gegusien road (143), https://goo.gl/maps/dBoj7BiWfiB2

3. Rudischken community.
In a northerly direction 3 km from Rudischken, 200 m from the road Traken-Rudischken in the forest, there is a grave with 15-20 corpses. The grave is covered by a layer of earth of up to one meter high.

Rudischken (Rūdiškės), https://goo.gl/maps/RG1JdtLxz7A2
Traken-Rudischken road (Trakų g.), https://goo.gl/maps/9mgtrhC3MDr

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring. Furthermore, the already existing graves were to be checked and improved. It was also noted that the community leaders were to be instructed on how to proceed in the future with regard to the above-mentioned cases.

Dr. Paskevicius finishes the letter saying he was already in communication with the head of Trakai district in 1942 about the subject of the letter, burial of corpses and carcasses. Dr. Paskevicius say he ask the head of Trakai district not just to instruct the leaders of each community to bury corpses and carcasses in a grave during the spring of 1942, but as well to check and improve the existing graves. This implies the head of the Trakai district know about the location and dimensions of the mass graves and graves at least in 1942. Finally, Dr. Paskevicius note he also ask the head of Trakai district to instruct the leaders of each community on how to proceed in the future with the mass graves and graves he described in the letter.


The footnotes of DOK 239 by Walter de Gruyter is translated as such:

[1] LCVA R 613/1/10 fl. 69+RS

[2] The linguistic particularities of the original were maintained.

[3] Document not found. The state of the graves was a source of concern for the civilian authorities already a few months after the first massacres. The head of Trakai district had on 8.11.1941 ordered that the mass graves were to be fenced in and covered with chlorinated lime until 13.11.1941. Letter from the head of Trakai district, signed Mačinskas, to the mayors and sub-district heads of Žiežmariai, Semeliškes and Eišiškés dd. 8.11.1941, LCVA 500/1/4, Vol. 2, fl. 794.

[4] Document not found. This letter was obviously again about the location and state of the mass graves as well as possible dangers for the drinking water supply of the surrounding communities.

[5] According to Karl Jäger members of a partial detachment of Einsatzkommando (Ek) 3 shot 1,446 Jews in Trakai on 30.9.1941; Jäger-Report dd. 1.12.1941, see Report by the Commander of Security Police Kauen, signed Jäger, dd. 1.12.1941, facsimile in “The Good Old Days” (as Document 18, note 1), pp. 52-62, as well as Document 43 dd. 30.7.1941, note 9.

[6] According to Jäger members of a partial detachment of Ek3 shot 962 Jews in Semeliškes on 6.10.1941; as note 5.

[7] According to Jäger the Hamann mobile detachment, with the support of Lithuanian auxiliaries, shot 784 Jewish women and children in Rumsiskis und Ziezmariai on 29.8.1941; as note 5.

[8] In Kaišiadorys the Hamann mobile detachment, with the support of Lithuanian auxiliaries, shot 1911 Jews on 26.8.1941 according to Jäger; as note 5.

[9] In the following months the civilian administration had the local authorities inform them several more times about the state of the mass graves (in the Kaunas district alone there were 330 burial sites with about 30,000 dead) and ordered the banking up of an additional layer of soil, because corpses had been washed free.

[source]

[Roberto]

This is a formal proposition to discuss the origin and content of DOK 239 published in the book Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I: Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung, Baltikum und Transnistrien by Walter de Gruyter [source].
DOK 239 can be found on page 623 to 624 and contains 9 footnotes by Gruyter [source].
Footnote 1 shows the reference for the original document archived in the Lithuanian Central State Archives [source]. Gruyter offers a transcript in German language of DOK 239 and in footnote 2 he indicates the document was translated but the original linguistic particularities were kept.

DOK. 239
Der Kreisarzt von Trakai (Troki) informiert den Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land am 8. Juli 1942 über die Größe und Lage von Massengräbern erschossener Juden in seinem Landkreis (1)

Schreiben (Nr. 1057) der Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung (Kreisarzt des Kreises Trakai), gez. Paskevicius, an den Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land, Wulff, (Eing. 12.7.1942) vom 8.7.1942 (2)

Betr.: Bestattung von Leichen und Kadavern
Dr. Di./F.
Bezug: Ministerialerlaß vom 30.4.42 — Il.c. 3186 (3)

An Herrn Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land in Wilna
Beantworte das Schreiben vom 16. Juni 1942 wie folgt: (4)

1. Gem. Traken
In der östlichen Richtung 2 km von Traken,1 km vom Dorfe Wornicken,1 km vom Walde, 1 km vom See, in einer sandigen Mulde befindet sich ein 80 m langes, 4 m breites und 4 m tiefes jüdisches Massengrab. (5)

2. Gem. Semelischken
In der nördlichen Richtung 1 km von Semelischken am Walde, 50 m vom Wege, 2 km vom Flusse Strawa auf einer sandigen Anhöhe befindet sich ein 30 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. Abfluß in der Richtung Semelischken. (6)

3. Gem. Zesmaren
1) In der nördlichen Richtung 3 km von Zesmaren auf dem Lande zugehörig zum Dorfe Trilischken,1 km vom Wege Zaslen - Zesmaren, auf einer sandigen Anhöhe befindet sich ein 33 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. (7)
2) In der nördlichen Richtung 5 km von Zesmaren, 2 km vom Wege Kaischedoren - Zesmaren, am Bladukischker Walde befindet sich ein 30 m langes jüdisches Massengrab. (8)

Die Massengräber wurden im Jahre 1941 mit Kalk bestreut und mit Erde bedeckt. Im Frühjahr 1942 wurden die Gräber aufgedeckt, mit Chlorkalk bestreut und mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt und umzäunt.

Einzelne Gräber

1. Gem. Kaischedoren
1) In südlicher Richtung 2 km von Kaischedoren am Wege Kaischedoren - Zesmaren im Walde niedrig gelegen, ist ein Grab mit 8-10 Leichen, welches mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt ist.
2) Am Dorfe Palomene 12 km nördlich von Kaischedoren am Wege Palomene- Zaslen befindet sich ein Grab mit 8-12. Leichen.

2. Gem. Zaslen
In nördlicher Richtung 1 km von Zaslen am Wege Zaslen - Gegusien befindet sich ein Grab mit 15 - 20 Leichen. Das Grab ist mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt.

3. Gem. Rudischken
In nördlicher Richtung 3 km von Rudischken, 200 m vom Wege Traken - Rudischken im Walde befindet sich ein Grab mit 15-20 Leichen. Das Grab ist mit einer bis 1 m hohen Erdschicht bedeckt.
Im Jahre 1942 wurde von mir an den Kreischef in Traken ein Schreiben gerichtet, in welchem ihm mitgeteilt wurde, daß er den Gemeindevorstehern des Kreises Traken den Auftrag geben sollte, alle im Frühjahr noch nicht begrabenen Leichen und Kadaver vergraben zu lassen. Ferner sollten die schon vorhandenen Gräber kontrolliert und verbessert werden. Weiter wurde bemerkt, daß den Gemeindevorstehern Anweisung erteilt werden sollte, wie sie in Zukunft in oben angegebenen Fällen handeln sollten. (9)

---

1 LCVA, R 613/1/10, Bl. 69+RS.

2 Die sprachlichen Eigenheiten des Originals wurden beibehalten.

3 Nicht aufgefunden. Der Zustand der Gräber bereitete den Zivilbehörden bereits wenige Monate nach den ersten Massakern Sorgen. Der Kreischef von Trakai hatte am 8.11.1941 angeordnet, die Massengräber bis zum 13.11.1941 zu umzäunen und mit Chlorkalk zu überschütten; Schreiben des Kreischefs von Trakai, gez. Macinskas, an die Bürgermeister und Amtsbezirkschefs von Semeliskes und Eisiskes vom 8.11.1944, LCVA, 500/1/4, Bd. 2, Bl. 794.

4 Nicht aufgefunden. In diesem Schreiben ging es offenbar erneut um die Lage und den Zustand der Massengräber sowie um mögliche Gefahren für die Trinkwasserversorgung der umliegenden Gemeinden.

5 Nach Karl Jägers Angaben erschossen Angehörige eines Teilkommandos des Ek 3 am 30.9.1941 in Trakai 1446 Juden; Jäger-Bericht vom 1.12.1941, siehe Bericht des BdS Kauen, gez. Jäger, vom 1.12.1941, Abdruck in: „Schöne Zeiten" (wie Dok. 18, Anm. 1), S. 52-62, sowie Dok. 43 vom 30.7.1941 Anm. 9.

6 Laut Jäger erschossen Angehörige eines Teilkommandos des Ek 3 am 6.10.1941 in Semeliäkes 962 Juden; wie Anm. 5.

7 Jägers Angaben zufolge erschoss dm Rollkommando Hamann mit Unterstützung lit. Hilfskräfte am 29.8.1941 in Rumsiskis und Ziezmariai 784 jüdische Frauen und Kinder; wie Anm. 5.

8 In Kaigiadorys erschoss das Rollkommando Hamann mit Unterstützung lit. Hilfskräfte am 26.8.1941 nach Jägers Angaben 1911 Juden; wie Anm. 5.

9 In den folgenden Monaten ließ sich die Zivilverwaltung in Wilna noch mehrmals von den Lokalbehörden über den Zustand der Massengräber informieren (allein im Kreis Kaunas gab es 330 Grabstätten mit etwa 30000 Toten) und ordnete in einigen Fällen die Aufschüttung einer zusätzlichen Erdschicht an, weil Leichen freigespült worden waren.

Origin
Gruyter presents DOK 239 as letter number 1057 from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed by Dr. Paskevicius, dated on 8 July 1942, sent to the Regional Commissioner of Vilnius-Country, Horst Wulff, received on 12 July 1942. Gruyet also state this letter was produced to inform Horst Wulff about size and location of mass graves of Jews shot in the Trakai district. This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

That may be so, but how is the publisher's comment supposed to affect the contents of the document?

The subject is translated as such:

Subject: Burial of corpses and carcasses

[source]

The subject of the letter shows the content is about burial of corpses and carcasses. If the mass graves described in the content of the letter contains the corpses of Jews who were shot as stated by Gruyter, then the carcasses must come from another origin as it cannot come from people who were shot.

Why, because cause of death is not stated? That was not of interest to either the sender or the receiver, whose concerns were of a hygienic nature. And as I said before, a publisher's comment does not affect the contents of the document.

The reference for the subject discussed by Dr. Paskevicius in the letter is a ministerial decree issued in a document dated on 30 March 1942. In footnote 3 Gruyter states the document of the Ministerial Decree was not found. Dr. Paskevicius sent his letter to Horst Wulff in response to a letter dated from 16 June 1942. In footnote 4 Gruyter states the letter from 16 June 1942 was not found. The references are translated as such:

Dr. Di/F.
Reference: Ministerial Decree of 30.4.42 – II.c. 3186
To the Regional Commissioner Vilnius-Country in Vilnius
Respond to the letter of 16 June 1942 as follows:

[source]

The absence of corroboration for this two very important references put the remaining content of DOK 239 into question regarding its accuracy and authenticity.

And how and why exactly does the absence of the mentioned documents put the accuracy and authenticity of DOK 239 into question? One might as well argue that it's an indication of the document's authenticity and accuracy, as a supposed forger could also have made the other two documents, while on the other hand it's not unlikely that the receiver destroyed them (it would have been in his interest as his possession of these letters was evidence of collaboration with an occupying power). What is more, since when are forged documents kept in archives, where there's a good chance that they will never catch anyone's attention?

Content
Let's locate the communities and other geographical features described by Dr. Paskevicius. The description of the mass graves is translated as such [source]:

1. Traken community.
In an easterly direction 2 km from Traken, 1 km from the village of Wornicken, I km from the forest, 1 km from the lake, in a sandy hollow, there is a Jewish mass grave, 80 m long, 4 m wide and 4 m deep.

Traken (Trakai), https://goo.gl/maps/sLQJSfpcAu62
Wornicken (Varnikai), https://goo.gl/maps/j66tzfFNSLN2

2. Semelischken community.
In a northerly direction 1 km from Semelischken, at the edge of the forest, 50 m from the road, 2 km from the Strėva River on a sandy knoll, there is a Jewish mass grave, 30 m long. Drainage in the direction of Semelischken.

Semelischken (Semeliškės), https://goo.gl/maps/6BWmY54bfzF2
Strėva River (Reka Strava), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C4%97va

3. Zesmaren community.
1) In a northerly direction 3 km from Zesmaren, on land belonging to the village of Trilischken, 1 km from the road Zaslen-Zesmaren, on a sandy knoll there is a Jewish mass grave, 33 m long.
2) In a northerly direction 5 km from Zesmaren, 2 km from the road Kaischedoren-Zesmaren, at the Bladukischer Forest, there is a Jewish mass grave, 30 m long.

Zesmaren (Žiežmariai), https://goo.gl/maps/n1ZGzVgXi8E2
Trilischken (Triliškės), https://goo.gl/maps/Fa1V4MBiZQM2
Zaslen-Zesmaren road (Žaslių g.), https://goo.gl/maps/2e49bCcP1uD2
Kaischedoren-Zesmaren road (142), https://goo.gl/maps/121GGpfa4fr
Bladukischer forest (vienkiemis Bankauciškė), see image bellow

1606 Kaisiadorys Quadrant: DETAIL Ziezmariai



[source]

So the locations exist. AS forgot to mention that another document completely independent of, the Jäger Report, mentions mass killings in the areas where Paskevicius mentioned the existence of mass graves:

Mass killings by the EK in Trakai on 30 September 1941 are mentioned on page 6 (http://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-hist ... tm.en.html). The District Medical Officer's report refers to this area as follows:

In easterly direction 2 km from Traken, 1 km from the village of Wornicken, 1 km from the forest, 1 km from the lake, in a sandy depression, there is a Jewish mass grave 80 meters long, 4 meters wide and 4 meters deep.

962 Jews were killed in Semiliski on 6 October 1941. The DMO's report refers to this area as follows:

In northerly direction 1 km from Semelischken by the forest, 50 m from the road, 2 km from the river Strawa on a sandy height, there is a Jewish mass grave about 30 m long. Drainage in the direction of Semelischken.

784 Jews were killed in Rumsiskis a. Ziezmariai on 29 August 1941. The DMO's report refers to this area as follows:

In northerly direction 3 km from Zesmaren, on land belonging to the village Trilischken, 1 km from the road Zaslen-Zesmaren, on a sandy height there is a Jewish mass grave 33 meters long.

1,911 Jews were shot on 26 August 1941 in Kaisiadorys. The DMO's report refers to this area as follows:

In northerly direction 5 km from Zesmaren, 2 km from the road Kaischedoren-Zesmaren, by the Bladukischer Forest there is a Jewish mass grave 30 meters long.

And that there is also other evidence whereby mass killings took place in these areas:

Anyway, here's the information from the Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania (http://www.holocaustatlas.lt/EN/) regarding the areas mentioned in the DMO's report:

Mass Murder of the Jews at Trakai

About massacre

“Until September, 1941, the Jews of Trakai lived in their homes and apartments. During the first days of September, police forced the town’s Jews into a ghetto which was located among summer homes beyond a lake. Jews were taken to the ghetto in canoes and small boats. In total about 400 Jews of Trakai were sent to the ghetto. Later, rural police sent Jews from Aukštadvaris, Onuškis, Rudiškės, Žydkaimis and Lentvaris to the ghetto. Police from Trakai, Aukštadvaris, Onuškis and Lentvaris guarded the ghetto.

“About two weeks after the ghetto was established, 20–30 members of the Special Squad arrived in Trakai. A German petty officer travelled with them. According to testimony from some members of the Special Squad, Martin Weiss also went to Trakai.

“On September 30, 1941, men, women, children and the elderly were lined up in columns and escorted by armed guards – local policemen commanded by Kazimieras Vasilevskis, policemen from Aukštadvaris, Onuškis and Lentvaris and local white armbanders and Special Squad murderers – to the Varnikai forest and shot after many humiliations. The mass murder began in the morning and ended in the afternoon.

“The Jäger Report says 1,446 Jews were shot in Trakai on September 30, 1941, including 366 men, 483 women and 597 children.”
Address: Trakai district, Trakai administrative district, Varnikai village
Victim number: 1446
Perpetrators
Special Squad;
M. Weiss;
Trakai police, led by K. Vasilevskis;
police and white armbanders from Aukštadvaris, Onuškis and Lentvaris;
How to find?

Driving on road no. 4751, turn right at the sign “Varnikų piliakalnis” in Varnikai village. Drive past the cemetery deeper into the forest to the commemorative stone. Proceed in 100 meters and you’ll see the monument.
Latitude: 54.649933 Longitude: 24.961733
Monument

A concrete obelisk was set up at the mass murder site after World War II. In 1984 and 1985 the gravesite was reconstructed and a wooden sculpture installed (sculpture by Marijanas Misevičius).

Unique site code: 11288

Status: Listed on register

Inscription: “The blood of 1,446 Jewish children, women and men was spilled here. Nazis and their local collaborators brutally murdered them on September 30, 1941. Let the memory of those who perished in innocence remain sacred” (in Yiddish and Lithuanian)

As we can see, there's information about the massacre (about particulars of the killing and the Lithuanians who took part therein) that is not contained in the Jaeger Report and must thus be based on other evidence.

Mass Murder of the Jews from Semeliškės, Vievis and Žasliai
About massacre

“In the second half of September, 1941, the Jews of Semeliškės were moved to the ghetto. Jews from Vievis and some Jews from Žasliai were also imprisoned. The ghetto existed for about two weeks. During the first few days of October, a truck carrying about 20–30 members of the Special Squad arrived in Semeliškės from Vilnius. A German man came by car. He and head of the rural district of Semeliškės and the local police chief went to inspect the future killing site. The Jews of Semeliškės were killed on October 6, 1941. In the morning police from Semeliškės, Vievis and Žiežmariai who guarded the ghetto began to move Jews to the execution site. Another group of police guarded the pit. The executioners of the Special Squad forced small groups of Jews to the pit and shot them. The massacre lasted several hours. After returning to Semeliškės the shooters got drunk. The guards did not get any vodka.

“According to the Jäger report, 962 Jews were killed in Semeliškės: 213 men, 359 women and 390 children.”
Address: Semeliškės administrative district, Semeliškės forest, Elektrėnai district
Victim number: 962
Perpetrators
Special Squad;
head of the rural district of Semeliškės;
police chief of Semeliškės;
policemen from Semeliškės, Vievis and Žiežmariai
How to find?

When you come to Semeliškės from Vilnius (road no. 4709), turn onto the road on the right just before the post office. Continue to the forest. In the forest go about 50 meter s and you’ll see a commemorative marker on the left. Turn onto the forest track and go another 100 meters until you see the monument.
Latitude: 54.671500 Longitude: 24.673700
Monument

Unique site code: 11285

Status: Listed on register

Inscription: “At this place the Nazis and their helpers spilled the blood of 960 Jewish children, women and men on October 6, 1941” (in Yiddish)

Same thing here.

Mass Murder of the Jews of Kaišiadorys and Surrounding Areas
About massacre

“The planned mass shooting of Jews began at the end of August, 1941. Initially the Gaižiūnai military installation was chosen as the site for the mass murder, then the site was changed to the Strošiūnai forest. Two sites were to be used for the mass murder: one in the so-called Vasiliev ditch, the other next to what is now the Vilnius–Kaunas highway.

“Jews held at a Kaišiadorys storehouse were murdered first. They were divided into groups of 20–30 and led to their execution. They shot men first, then women and children. By evening the storehouse was empty and 500 people had been shot. Jews in the ghetto and another warehouse were killed later.

“According to the Jäger Report, Jews from the Kaišiadorys ghetto and temporary isolation site, 1,911 people, were shot on August 26, 1941. It is believed that not all Jews in the Kaišiadorys ghetto and temporary isolation site could have been shot in one day. Thus it is thought that only the last day of the mass murders is indicated in the report. The main organizers of the mass murder of the Jews were SS-Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann’s Rollkommando and locals with white armbands, local police and local volunteers.”
Address: Kaišiadorys district, Žiežmariai administrative district, Strošiūnai forest (9th quadrant)
Victim number: 1911
Perpetrators
Rollkommando Hamann/1st Battalion, 3rd Unit;
Kaišiadorys white armbanders, police and local volunteers;
How to find?

On the highway from Vilnius to Kaunas, turn right at the Žiežmariai exit (road no. 1808). Go 1.5 km, turn onto the forest road to the right.
Latitude: 54.823900 Longitude: 24.460700
Monument

A monument was placed at the mass murder site on October 16, 1964. In 1990 Žiežmariai traditional artist Vidmantas Kapačiūnas made three sculptures out of oak which were later burned.

Unique site code: 10892

Status: Protected by state

Inscription: “The Nazi henchmen and their local collaborators brutally tortured and buried half-alive 2,200 Jewish men from Žasliai, Žiežmariai and Kaišiadorys” (in Lithuanian and Yiddish)

Same thing here.

Mass Murder of the Jews of Kaišiadorys and Surrounding Areas

About massacre

“The planned mass shooting of Jews began at the end of August, 1941. Initially the Gaižiūnai military installation was chosen as the site for the mass murder, then the site was changed to the Strošiūnai forest. Two sites were to be used for the mass murder: one in the so-called Vasiliev ditch, the other next to what is now the Vilnius–Kaunas highway.

“Jews held at a Kaišiadorys storehouse were murdered first. They were divided into groups of 20–30 and led to their execution. They shot men first, then women and children. By evening the storehouse was empty and 500 people had been shot. Jews in the ghetto and another warehouse were killed later.

“According to the Jäger Report, Jews from the Kaišiadorys ghetto and temporary isolation site, 1,911 people, were shot on August 26, 1941. It is believed that not all Jews in the Kaišiadorys ghetto and temporary isolation site could have been shot in one day. Thus it is thought that only the last day of the mass murders is indicated in the report. The main organizers of the mass murder of the Jews were SS-Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann’s Rollkommando and locals with white armbands, local police and local volunteers.”
Address: Kaišiadorys district, Žiežmariai administrative district, Strošiūnai forest (9th quadrant)
Victim number: 1911
Perpetrators
Rollkommando Hamann/1st Battalion, 3rd Unit;
Kaišiadorys white armbanders, police and local volunteers;
How to find?

On the highway from Vilnius to Kaunas, turn right at the Žiežmariai exit (road no. 1808). Go 1.5 km, turn onto the forest road to the right.
Latitude: 54.823900 Longitude: 24.460700
Monument

A monument was placed at the mass murder site on October 16, 1964. In 1990 Žiežmariai traditional artist Vidmantas Kapačiūnas made three sculptures out of oak which were later burned.

Unique site code: 10892

Status: Protected by state

Inscription: “The Nazi henchmen and their local collaborators brutally tortured and buried half-alive 2,200 Jewish men from Žasliai, Žiežmariai and Kaišiadorys” (in Lithuanian and Yiddish)

Mass Murder of the Jews (Women, Children and Elderly) of Kaišiadorys and Surrounding Area
About massacre

“On August 29, 1941, the surviving Jewish women, children and elderly – in total 784 people – of Kaišiadorys and surrounding areas (Žasliai, Žiežmariai, Rumšiskės) were shot. Lithuanian self-defense unit, Rollkomando Hamann, local police and white armbanders took part in the mass murder.

“On November 3, 1952, a Soviet special commission studying the mass murder state determined the ditch had been 55 meters long, 3 meters wide and 2 meters deep. The ditch was filled with corpses up to one meter.”
Address: Kaišiadorys district, Žiežmariai administrative district, Strošiūnai forest (28th quadrant)
Victim number: 784
Perpetrators
Rollkommando Hamann/1st Battalion 3rd Unit;
Kaišiadorys white armbanders and police;
How to find?

Turn right after 60 km when you go on the Highway A1 (E85) from Vilnius to Kaunas. There is a small gravel road. After 100 m turn left. Go straight 300 m until you reach the mass killing site.
Latitude: 54.803950 Longitude: 24.558563
Monument

A commemorative marker was placed at the mass murder site on October 16, 1964. The inscription was replaced with a new commemorative plaque in 1991.

Unique site code: 10891

Status: Protected by state

Inscription: “The Nazi henchman and their local collaborators brutally tortured and buried half-alive about 1,800 Jewish men and women from Žasliai, Žiežmariai and Kaišiadorys here on August 28, 1941” (in Yiddish and Lithuanian)

Same thing here. The latter quote expressly mentions a postwar Soviet crime site investigation.

Mass execution of Jews from Semeliškės and nearby villages

1 Execution site(s)
Kind of place before :ForestMemorials :YesPeriod of occupation:1941-1944.
Witness interview

Bronislawa, born in 1933, recollects: “All the Jews were shot within the first year. Later, the Germans were asking around if there were any Jews left. People used to snitch on each other. In Žuvyčiai, the Germans found a person who hid Jews. They were all taken to the nearby forest. The Jews were shot and the person who provided shelter was acting crazy after that scene. They wanted to shoot him too, but they didn’t. There was one Lithuanian serving the Germans so he stood up for him. There was a notice saying that all the members of the family would be shot if someone was hiding Jews. But people still hid them and saved them. (Witness N°6, interviewed in Semeliškės, on September 19, 2013)

Soviet archives

"150-200 meters northwest of the Bovshi farmstead, in Semeliškės volost of Trakai Uyezd, there is a fenced cemetery that contains the remains of 1020 civilians brutally tortured and shot by German fascist monsters. At the end of September 1941, about 1000 men, women and children were brought by the Germans to the place mentioned above under heavy escort. Victims were undressed about 50 meters from the ditch, beaten with sticks, then blindfolded and shot. They were shot in groups of six people. Sick victims were thrown from the cart into the pit and shot inside the pit. In this way, from 10 AM until 6 PM, 1020 men and women were shot. Screams and moans could be heard from 2-3 kilometers away." [Local government commission report, compiled on August 27, 1944, RG-22.002M.7021-94/438]

http://yahadmap.org/#village/semeli-k-s ... huania.784

The mass graves were strewn with chlorinated lime and covered with earth in 1941. In the spring of 1942 the graves were uncovered, strewn with chlorinated lime, covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high and fenced in.

In other words, in accordance with Dr. Paskevicius, the mass graves in Trakai, Semeliškės and Žiežmariai communities were strewn with chlorinated lime and covered with earth in 1941. The same process was repeated in the spring of 1942 but this time covered with a 1 meter high layer of earth and fenced in.

And so?

Individual graves
1. Kaischedoren community.
1) In a southerly direction 2 km from Kaischedoren by the road Kaischedoren-Zesmaren, lying low in the forest, there is a grave with 8-10 corpses, which is covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high.
2) At the village Palomene 12 km north of Kaischedoren next to the road Palomene-Zaslen, there is a grave with 8-12 corpses.

Kaischedoren (Kaišiadorys), https://goo.gl/maps/cadqdmTjCLU2
Kaischedoren-Zesmaren road (142), https://goo.gl/maps/121GGpfa4fr
Palomene (Palomenė), https://goo.gl/maps/zdJG5Rr8sKv
Palomene-Zaslen road (?), ?

2. Zaslen community.
In a northerly direction 1 km from Zaslen on the road Zaslen-Gegusien, there is a grave with 15-20 corpses. The grave is covered by a layer of earth up to one meter high.

Zaslen (Žasliai), https://goo.gl/maps/8npzaRMVAZE2
Zaslen-Gegusien road (143), https://goo.gl/maps/dBoj7BiWfiB2

3. Rudischken community.
In a northerly direction 3 km from Rudischken, 200 m from the road Traken-Rudischken in the forest, there is a grave with 15-20 corpses. The grave is covered by a layer of earth of up to one meter high.

Rudischken (Rūdiškės), https://goo.gl/maps/RG1JdtLxz7A2
Traken-Rudischken road (Trakų g.), https://goo.gl/maps/9mgtrhC3MDr

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring. Furthermore, the already existing graves were to be checked and improved. It was also noted that the community leaders were to be instructed on how to proceed in the future with regard to the above-mentioned cases.

Dr. Paskevicius finishes the letter saying he was already in communication with the head of Trakai district in 1942 about the subject of the letter, burial of corpses and carcasses. Dr. Paskevicius say he ask the head of Trakai district not just to instruct the leaders of each community to bury corpses and carcasses in a grave during the spring of 1942, but as well to check and improve the existing graves. This implies the head of the Trakai district know about the location and dimensions of the mass graves and graves at least in 1942. Finally, Dr. Paskevicius note he also ask the head of Trakai district to instruct the leaders of each community on how to proceed in the future with the mass graves and graves he described in the letter.

And so?

The footnotes of DOK 239 by Walter de Gruyter is translated as such:

[1] LCVA R 613/1/10 fl. 69+RS

[2] The linguistic particularities of the original were maintained.

[3] Document not found. The state of the graves was a source of concern for the civilian authorities already a few months after the first massacres. The head of Trakai district had on 8.11.1941 ordered that the mass graves were to be fenced in and covered with chlorinated lime until 13.11.1941. Letter from the head of Trakai district, signed Mačinskas, to the mayors and sub-district heads of Žiežmariai, Semeliškes and Eišiškés dd. 8.11.1941, LCVA 500/1/4, Vol. 2, fl. 794.

[4] Document not found. This letter was obviously again about the location and state of the mass graves as well as possible dangers for the drinking water supply of the surrounding communities.

[5] According to Karl Jäger members of a partial detachment of Einsatzkommando (Ek) 3 shot 1,446 Jews in Trakai on 30.9.1941; Jäger-Report dd. 1.12.1941, see Report by the Commander of Security Police Kauen, signed Jäger, dd. 1.12.1941, facsimile in “The Good Old Days” (as Document 18, note 1), pp. 52-62, as well as Document 43 dd. 30.7.1941, note 9.

[6] According to Jäger members of a partial detachment of Ek3 shot 962 Jews in Semeliškes on 6.10.1941; as note 5.

[7] According to Jäger the Hamann mobile detachment, with the support of Lithuanian auxiliaries, shot 784 Jewish women and children in Rumsiskis und Ziezmariai on 29.8.1941; as note 5.

[8] In Kaišiadorys the Hamann mobile detachment, with the support of Lithuanian auxiliaries, shot 1911 Jews on 26.8.1941 according to Jäger; as note 5.

[9] In the following months the civilian administration had the local authorities inform them several more times about the state of the mass graves (in the Kaunas district alone there were 330 burial sites with about 30,000 dead) and ordered the banking up of an additional layer of soil, because corpses had been washed free.

[source]

Your argument being?

[Aryan Scholar]

Origin
Gruyter presents DOK 239 as letter number 1057 from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed by Dr. Paskevicius, dated on 8 July 1942, sent to the Regional Commissioner of Vilnius-Country, Horst Wulff, received on 12 July 1942. Gruyet also state this letter was produced to inform Horst Wulff about size and location of mass graves of Jews shot in the Trakai district. This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

That may be so, but how is the publisher's comment supposed to affect the contents of the document?

I did not made any claim implying Gruyter presentation of the DOK 239 affected the content of DOK 239, so this question and its implied statement will be ignored.

No straw man fallacy, please.

The subject of the letter shows the content is about burial of corpses and carcasses. If the mass graves described in the content of the letter contains the corpses of Jews who were shot as stated by Gruyter, then the carcasses must come from another origin as it cannot come from people who were shot.

Why, because cause of death is not stated?

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of carcasses. The carcasses can come from people who was shot dead, but those carcasses cannot possibly be a direct consequence of people being shot dead. Thus a question arise: what caused the corpses of such mass graves and graves to become carcasses regardless if they were shot dead or not?

That was not of interest to either the sender or the receiver, whose concerns were of a hygienic nature. And as I said before, a publisher's comment does not affect the contents of the document.

If Dr. Paskevicius and Wulff did not had any interest about the cause of death of the corpses and carcasses discussed in the letter, then they were quite likely discussing details about the mortal remains of people who were not necessarily killed with bullets, but died due other causes, including natural causes such as diseases or accidents (which explains why there are carcasses with corpses), and then buried in specific mass graves and graves due its recognizable origin. E.g. the "corpse and carcasses" of Jews were buried in "Jewish mass graves" as explicit said by Dr. Paskevicius.

Moreover:

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring.

Where "all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave" in 1942 comes from and what would be their cause of death?

The absence of corroboration for this two very important references put the remaining content of DOK 239 into question regarding its accuracy and authenticity.

And how and why exactly does the absence of the mentioned documents put the accuracy and authenticity of DOK 239 into question?

Because one explanation for the absence of two important explicit references in the letter to corroborate its origin and content is DOK 239 was fabricated.

One might as well argue that it's an indication of the document's authenticity and accuracy, as a supposed forger could also have made the other two documents, (...) What is more, since when are forged documents kept in archives, where there's a good chance that they will never catch anyone's attention?

Indeed, but if a forger inserts three forged documents in an archive he would increase the risk of the forgery being uncovered. One single forged document is more difficult to be uncovered than three. As more documents a forger makes to corroborate a forged document, more references he needs to fabricate in the forged documents to make the original forged document appear authentic and accurate.

(...) while on the other hand it's not unlikely that the receiver destroyed them (it would have been in his interest as his possession of these letters was evidence of collaboration with an occupying power).

This assumption is in contradiction with the origin of DOK 239:

Letter (Nr. 1057) from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed Paskevicius, to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, Wulff (received on 12.7.1942) dated 8.7.1942

DOK 239 is a letter received by Horst Wulff in 12 September 1942 from Dr. Paskevicius, not the contrary.

So the locations exist. AS forgot to mention that another document completely independent of, the Jäger Report, mentions mass killings in the areas where Paskevicius mentioned the existence of mass graves:

(...)

Your argument being?

Let's first establish a common agreement about what the origin and content of DOK 239 means before discuss if other authoritative evidence corroborates or not DOK 239.

[Roberto]

Origin
Gruyter presents DOK 239 as letter number 1057 from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed by Dr. Paskevicius, dated on 8 July 1942, sent to the Regional Commissioner of Vilnius-Country, Horst Wulff, received on 12 July 1942. Gruyet also state this letter was produced to inform Horst Wulff about size and location of mass graves of Jews shot in the Trakai district. This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

That may be so, but how is the publisher's comment supposed to affect the contents of the document?

I did not made any claim implying Gruyter presentation of the DOK 239 affected the content of DOK 239, so this question and its implied statement will be ignored.

I think you did:

This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

If not, what is the relevance of this comment in the context of this discussion?

No straw man fallacy, please.

A straw-man fallacy implies a deliberate misrepresentation of the opponent's argument. In the context of this discussion, however, the publisher's remark could be understood as suggesting something about the authenticity or accuracy of the document in question.

The subject of the letter shows the content is about burial of corpses and carcasses. If the mass graves described in the content of the letter contains the corpses of Jews who were shot as stated by Gruyter, then the carcasses must come from another origin as it cannot come from people who were shot.

Why, because cause of death is not stated?

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of carcasses.[/quote]

That may be so, but nowhere in his letter, unless I missed something, does District Medical Officer Paskevicius (hereinafter the "DMO") mention "pieces of carcasses". He mentions "Jewish" mass graves and graves containing small numbers of corpses. People shot dead become corpses.

The carcasses can come from people who was shot dead, but those carcasses cannot possibly be a direct consequence of people being shot dead.

Why not? While the cause of death is not stated in the DMO's letter, there is one document independent of the DMO's letter, mentioned in my previous post, in which mass killings (obviously by shooting) of people in the areas where the DMO mentions Jewish mass graves are mentioned. There is also other evidence, mentioned in my previous post as well, suggesting such mass killings in the areas in question. On the other hand, there is no evidence that I know of suggesting any other origin of the Jewish mass graves mentioned by the DMO. So the conclusion that the Jewish mass graves contain the corpses of people killed according to this other evidence is warranted.

Thus a question arise: what caused the corpses of such mass graves and graves to become carcasses regardless if they were shot dead or not?

The DMO does not state that the corpses became carcasses. The former term is generally used for mortal human remains, the latter for mortal remains of animals. The heading of the letter presumably refers to "corpses and carcasses" because, in his letter of 16 June 1942, Regional Commissar Wulff inquired about both human and animal remains. Which is understandable as both pose a health risk when buried, namely a risk of ground water contamination by leachate. However, nowhere in the text does the DMO mention carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, as being the contents or among the contents of the graves described. He mentions only graves containing mortal remains of human beings.

That was not of interest to either the sender or the receiver, whose concerns were of a hygienic nature. And as I said before, a publisher's comment does not affect the contents of the document.

If Dr. Paskevicius and Wulff did not had any interest about the cause of death of the corpses and carcasses discussed in the letter, then they were quite likely discussing details about the mortal remains of people who were not necessarily killed with bullets, but died due other causes, including natural causes such as diseases or accidents (which explains why there are carcasses with corpses), and then buried in specific mass graves and graves due its recognizable origin.

Why should that be "quite likely"? First of all, it mattered neither to the DMO nor to Regional Commissar Wulff how the people whose graves the DMO mentioned had died. Buried corpses can be a health concern independently of the cause of death. Second, there is no evidence suggesting that the "Jewish mass graves" mentioned by the DMO had a non-violent origin, e.g. an epidemic, while there is evidence that these mass graves were of people who had been killed according to the aforementioned document. It is also unlikely that people who had died of non-violent causes should be buried in mass graves in a rural area (the DMO refers to areas close to forests in three cases, and to a sandy height 1 km away from the road), to which they would have to be transported. Deaths from disease in large numbers requiring burial in mass graves usually occur among urban populations, and their mass burial usually happens in or close to the urban areas in which such deaths occurred. The placement of the mass graves, on the other hand, suggests a transport of the intended victims to places where their killing would not be witnessed.

E.g. the "corpse and carcasses" of Jews were buried in "Jewish mass graves" as explicit said by Dr. Paskevicius.

Again, the DMO does not mention that "corpses and carcasses" are buried in "Jewish mass graves". The term "Jewish mass graves" suggests that the graves contain the corpses of individuals of Jewish faith or ethnicity. It doesn't suggest that animals (to which the term "cadavers" would apply) are buried in the same grave. That would also be a highly improbable scenario.

Moreover:

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring.

Where "all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave" in 1942 comes from and what would be their cause of death?

There is no way of establishing this. Carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, might be those of animals who died of disease in the field and were not removed. Human corpses, on the other hand, are likely to be those of individuals who met a violent death somewhere in the rural areas for which the DMO is responsible, as people don't usually just drop dead in a field or forest. The human corpses could be those of Jewish escapees hunted down and killed, whose corpses the killers did not bother to bury.

The absence of corroboration for this two very important references put the remaining content of DOK 239 into question regarding its accuracy and authenticity.

And how and why exactly does the absence of the mentioned documents put the accuracy and authenticity of DOK 239 into question?

Because one explanation for the absence of two important explicit references in the letter to corroborate its origin and content is DOK 239 was fabricated.

That may be a theoretically possible explanation, but it is an unlikely one for various reasons. One are that many documents pertaining to the period in question have not been found, e.g. because they were destroyed. Another is that the DMO might have had an interest to get rid of documents in his possession that pointed to his having collaborated with occupation authorities. Yet another is that the contents of DOK 239 are in themselves innocuous, their incriminating character following only from contextualizing them with the other evidence I mentioned. Yet another is that the documents never seems to have been published before it was found by historians in the Lithuanian State Archive. It would make no sense for a hypothetical forger to manipulate a document or create a false document and then make no use of it. Forged documents are not usually kept in someone's drawer until they are filed in some archive, where there's a good chance of no one ever discovering them.

One might as well argue that it's an indication of the document's authenticity and accuracy, as a supposed forger could also have made the other two documents, (...) What is more, since when are forged documents kept in archives, where there's a good chance that they will never catch anyone's attention?

Indeed, but if a forger inserts three forged documents in an archive he would increase the risk of the forgery being uncovered. One single forged document is more difficult to be uncovered than three. As more documents a forger makes to corroborate a forged document, more references he needs to fabricate in the forged documents to make the original forged document appear authentic and accurate.

The risk of discovery may be higher, but so would be the benefit if the forgery is not detected. Anyway, that scenario is merely hypothetical, and there's no evidence of any kind that might support it. On the contrary, all evidence somehow related to the DMO's letter suggests its authenticity.

(...) while on the other hand it's not unlikely that the receiver destroyed them (it would have been in his interest as his possession of these letters was evidence of collaboration with an occupying power).

This assumption is in contradiction with the origin of DOK 239:

Letter (Nr. 1057) from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed Paskevicius, to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, Wulff (received on 12.7.1942) dated 8.7.1942

DOK 239 is a letter received by Horst Wulff in 12 September 1942 from Dr. Paskevicius, not the contrary.

I wasn't referring to Wulff but to Paskevicius, in whose possession the letters referred from the Regional Commissioner would have been. Paskevicius, as I said, would have had an interest in destroying these documents as they were evidence of his having collaborated with the German occupiers. Horst Wulff, on the other hand, may have fled from the Soviets without bothering or having had the time to destroy all the documents in his possession. Besides, his having inquired about mass graves in a given area for health reasons and having received a response to such inquiry would not incriminate him in a legal sense, i.e. there's no crime he would have committed by such actions. Knowledge of facts or circumstances related to a crime is not a crime.

So the locations exist. AS forgot to mention that another document completely independent of, the Jäger Report, mentions mass killings in the areas where Paskevicius mentioned the existence of mass graves:

(...)

Your argument being?

Let's first establish a common agreement about what the origin and content of DOK 239 means before discuss if other authoritative evidence corroborates or not DOK 239.

I don't think there are any more open questions about what the meaning of the origin and contents of DOK 239 means. We can therefore proceed to contextualize it with other evidence of the kind used by historians applying the historical method.

[Aryan Scholar]

I did not made any claim implying Gruyter presentation of the DOK 239 affected the content of DOK 239, so this question and its implied statement will be ignored.

I think you did:

This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

If not, what is the relevance of this comment in the context of this discussion?

No straw man fallacy, please.

A straw-man fallacy implies a deliberate misrepresentation of the opponent's argument. In the context of this discussion, however, the publisher's remark could be understood as suggesting something about the authenticity or accuracy of the document in question.

It shows Gruyet made a statement about DOK 239 which is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter. Gruyet is inducing the reader to assume DOK 239 is about mass graves and graves of people who were just shot dead when this is not evident in DOK 239.

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of carcasses.

That may be so, but nowhere in his letter, unless I missed something, does District Medical Officer Paskevicius (hereinafter the "DMO") mention "pieces of carcasses". He mentions "Jewish" mass graves and graves containing small numbers of corpses. People shot dead become corpses.

...but not carcasses. You did not miss anything in the letter but in the dictionary:

carcass
(British carcase)

NOUN

1.5 The remains of something.
‘automotive carcasses stripped of radios, hubcaps and even body panels’

Pieces of carcasses, pieces of remains of human bodies.

The carcasses can come from people who was shot dead, but those carcasses cannot possibly be a direct consequence of people being shot dead.

Why not? While the cause of death is not stated in the DMO's letter, there is one document independent of the DMO's letter, mentioned in my previous post, in which mass killings (obviously by shooting) of people in the areas where the DMO mentions Jewish mass graves are mentioned. There is also other evidence, mentioned in my previous post as well, suggesting such mass killings in the areas in question. On the other hand, there is no evidence that I know of suggesting any other origin of the Jewish mass graves mentioned by the DMO. So the conclusion that the Jewish mass graves contain the corpses of people killed according to this other evidence is warranted.

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of remains of human bodies.

Thus a question arise: what caused the corpses of such mass graves and graves to become carcasses regardless if they were shot dead or not?

The DMO does not state that the corpses became carcasses. The former term is generally used for mortal human remains, the latter for mortal remains of animals. The heading of the letter presumably refers to "corpses and carcasses" because, in his letter of 16 June 1942, Regional Commissar Wulff inquired about both human and animal remains. Which is understandable as both pose a health risk when buried, namely a risk of ground water contamination by leachate. However, nowhere in the text does the DMO mention carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, as being the contents or among the contents of the graves described. He mentions only graves containing mortal remains of human beings.

E.g. the "corpse and carcasses" of Jews were buried in "Jewish mass graves" as explicit said by Dr. Paskevicius.

Again, the DMO does not mention that "corpses and carcasses" are buried in "Jewish mass graves". The term "Jewish mass graves" suggests that the graves contain the corpses of individuals of Jewish faith or ethnicity. It doesn't suggest that animals (to which the term "cadavers" would apply) are buried in the same grave. That would also be a highly improbable scenario.

Moreover:

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring.

Where "all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave" in 1942 comes from and what would be their cause of death?

There is no way of establishing this. Carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, might be those of animals who died of disease in the field and were not removed. Human corpses, on the other hand, are likely to be those of individuals who met a violent death somewhere in the rural areas for which the DMO is responsible, as people don't usually just drop dead in a field or forest. The human corpses could be those of Jewish escapees hunted down and killed, whose corpses the killers did not bother to bury.

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring. (...) In the spring of 1942 the graves were uncovered, strewn with chlorinated lime, covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high and fenced in.

Which means the carcasses discussed in the letter are from human bodies and not from animals as Dr. Paskeviciu instructed the head of Trakai district to bury it altogether with corpses in Jewish mass graves and graves in the spring of 1942, the same period of time Dr. Paskeviciu says Jewish mass graves were uncovered and strew with chlorinated lime. If Dr. Paskeviciu meant carcasses of human bodies in the above sentence then is obvious the subject of the letter was not about carcasses of animals but of human bodies, which contradicts your assumption Wulff made an inquire to Dr. Paskeviciu about human and animal remains.

That was not of interest to either the sender or the receiver, whose concerns were of a hygienic nature. And as I said before, a publisher's comment does not affect the contents of the document.

If Dr. Paskevicius and Wulff did not had any interest about the cause of death of the corpses and carcasses discussed in the letter, then they were quite likely discussing details about the mortal remains of people who were not necessarily killed with bullets, but died due other causes, including natural causes such as diseases or accidents (which explains why there are carcasses with corpses), and then buried in specific mass graves and graves due its recognizable origin.

Why should that be "quite likely"? First of all, it mattered neither to the DMO nor to Regional Commissar Wulff how the people whose graves the DMO mentioned had died. Buried corpses can be a health concern independently of the cause of death.

Because, as you agreed, "buried corpses can be a health concern independently of the cause of death".

It is also unlikely that people who had died of non-violent causes should be buried in mass graves in a rural area (the DMO refers to areas close to forests in three cases, and to a sandy height 1 km away from the road), to which they would have to be transported. Deaths from disease in large numbers requiring burial in mass graves usually occur among urban populations, and their mass burial usually happens in or close to the urban areas in which such deaths occurred. The placement of the mass graves, on the other hand, suggests a transport of the intended victims to places where their killing would not be witnessed.

Unlikely but not impossible.

Because one explanation for the absence of two important explicit references in the letter to corroborate its origin and content is DOK 239 was fabricated.

That may be a theoretically possible explanation, but it is an unlikely one for various reasons. One are that many documents pertaining to the period in question have not been found, e.g. because they were destroyed. Another is that the DMO might have had an interest to get rid of documents in his possession that pointed to his having collaborated with occupation authorities. Yet another is that the contents of DOK 239 are in themselves innocuous, their incriminating character following only from contextualizing them with the other evidence I mentioned. Yet another is that the documents never seems to have been published before it was found by historians in the Lithuanian State Archive. It would make no sense for a hypothetical forger to manipulate a document or create a false document and then make no use of it. Forged documents are not usually kept in someone's drawer until they are filed in some archive, where there's a good chance of no one ever discovering them.

Indeed, but if a forger inserts three forged documents in an archive he would increase the risk of the forgery being uncovered. One single forged document is more difficult to be uncovered than three. As more documents a forger makes to corroborate a forged document, more references he needs to fabricate in the forged documents to make the original forged document appear authentic and accurate.

The risk of discovery may be higher, but so would be the benefit if the forgery is not detected. Anyway, that scenario is merely hypothetical, and there's no evidence of any kind that might support it. On the contrary, all evidence somehow related to the DMO's letter suggests its authenticity.

In fact the DOK 239 was discovered by Gruyter, which if a forgery then it is serving the intention of the forger, and regardless of being a forgery or not, its authenticity and accuracy cannot be corroborated by two previous documents which are supposedly the origin of DOK 239. The forger benefits the from absence of corroboration to have his forgery uncovered while the genuine author do not benefits from absence of corroboration to have his letter authenticated.

(...) while on the other hand it's not unlikely that the receiver destroyed them (it would have been in his interest as his possession of these letters was evidence of collaboration with an occupying power).

This assumption is in contradiction with the origin of DOK 239:

Letter (Nr. 1057) from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed Paskevicius, to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, Wulff (received on 12.7.1942) dated 8.7.1942

DOK 239 is a letter received by Horst Wulff in 12 September 1942 from Dr. Paskevicius, not the contrary.

I wasn't referring to Wulff but to Paskevicius, in whose possession the letters referred from the Regional Commissioner would have been.

In accordance with what? Gruyter presents the DOK 239 as a letter sent from the Main Health Administration to Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, which indicates Dr. Paskevicius received the previous letter from the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land as civil servant working for the Main Health Administration. Why should Dr. Paskevicius kept in his personal possession a letter addressed to the Main Health Administration instead to leave archived in the respective department where he worked for?

Paskevicius, as I said, would have had an interest in destroying these documents as they were evidence of his having collaborated with the German occupiers.

Reductio ad absurdum: then the ten of thousands of civil servants working for the Lithuanian government should have the same interest as the Lithuanian government collaborated with the German National Socialists until the Soviet occupation in 1944. If Dr. Paskevicius did not want to be associated with the German National Socialists to be later incriminated then he would not sent any letter to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land.

Horst Wulff, on the other hand, may have fled from the Soviets without bothering or having had the time to destroy all the documents in his possession. Besides, his having inquired about mass graves in a given area for health reasons and having received a response to such inquiry would not incriminate him in a legal sense, i.e. there's no crime he would have committed by such actions. Knowledge of facts or circumstances related to a crime is not a crime.

So DOK 239 is not authoritative evidence which shows a crime occurred (as there is no mention of cause of death) but only describes what could be the consequence of a criminal action (as there is mention of mass graves and graves).

Got it.

So the locations exist. AS forgot to mention that another document completely independent of, the Jäger Report, mentions mass killings in the areas where Paskevicius mentioned the existence of mass graves:

(...)

Your argument being?

Let's first establish a common agreement about what the origin and content of DOK 239 means before discuss if other authoritative evidence corroborates or not DOK 239.

I don't think there are any more open questions about what the meaning of the origin and contents of DOK 239 means. We can therefore proceed to contextualize it with other evidence of the kind used by historians applying the historical method.

Not while common agreement is not reached.

At the moment the meaning of "carcasses" in the context of the letter is being discussed.

[Aryan Scholar]

---

Vilnius Country

A brief history of Vilnius:

The 20 years that changed Vilnius forever (1939 – 1959)

In 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland and this sparked the World War 2. Vilnius was captured by the Soviets on September 1939. They sacked the city and then presented an ultimatum to Lithuania. Under this ultimatum, Lithuania would be given 1/5th of the Vilnius region (including the city) but would have to accept Soviet military bases in its territory. Refusal would have meant imminent Soviet invasion, therefore Lithuania accepted.

„Vilnius belongs to us and we belong to the Russians“ was a popular irony at the time. It wasn‘t far from the truth as by the mid-1940 Russian forces deposed the Lithuanian government and completely occupied and annexed Lithuania in three months time. Vilnius felt the full swing of nationalization campaign and the genocide of the Lithuanian nation. „There will be Lithuania – but without the Lithuanians“ – said Mikhail Suslov, the chairman of USSR Central Comity Bureau for Lithuanian Affairs. In June 1941 alone some 2% of the entire Lithuania's population (50 000) were forced into railroad cattle carriages and deported to Siberia where most died. Campaigns like this became even larger under the Second Soviet Occupation. Vilnius's eastern location and railway hub status meant that most deportees were moved through the city.

Nazi German invasion (1941) relieved the pressure on some ethnicities (among them Lithuanians) but increased it on some others. The entire Jewish population of Vilnius, never before segregated from the others in what for centuries had been a tolerant multicultural city, was suddenly locked in a ghetto. A large share of them (up to 30 000) eventually were killed at Paneriai suburb in 1941-1943, many others were sent to labor camps or fled; the Jewish population declined from 54 600 in 1931 to 16 400 in 1959.

[Source]

---

Dr. Paskevicius

The letter offers little detail about who is the author of the letter and why he wrote the letter. Gruyter just say the letter was signed by a person called Paskevicius (or Paškevičius in Lithuanian language), a doctor presumably working in the district medical office of the Trakai district in 1942, part of what Gruyter name as Main Health Administration. This name is slightly inconsistent with the name of health department of the Lithuanian government in 1942, The Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

1939: The Year that Changed Everything in Lithuania's History, Šarūnas Liekis, pag. 373:



[source]

The name Paškevičius is common surname used by people in Lithuania as confirmed by authoritative evidence of two Lithuanians who lived before and after WWII:

Wikipedia:

Rasos Cemetery

Rasos Cemetery (Lithuanian: Rasų kapinės, Polish: cmentarz Na Rossie w Wilnie, Belarusian: Могілкі Росы) is the oldest and most famous cemetery in the city of Vilnius, Lithuania. (...) There are many famous Lithuanians, Poles, and Belarusians buried there, including over fifty Vilnius University professors. Those interred there include: (...) Augustinas Paškevičius (1844–1914), Lithuanian doctor, cultural figure, chairman (1909-1914) of Lithuanian cutural Rūta Society of Vilnius.

[source]

Antanas Poška

Antanas Paškevičius – Poška (24 March [O.S. 10 March] 1903[2] – 16 October 1992) was a prominent Lithuanian traveler and anthropologist, as well as an active member of the Esperanto movement in Lithuania. He is best known for his journey to India in 1929–36. (...) Poška returned to Lithuania in 1936 and worked as a journalist. (...) After the Soviet takeover in 1945, he refused to destroy books deemed unacceptable to the Soviet regime and was imprisoned in a Gulag. (...) He was allowed to return to Lithuania in 1959 and worked as a lecturer and journalist and continued his anthropological studies, but his past as a political prisoner prevented him from taking a more prominent position. (...) During the Nazi occupation (1941–44) Poška started working as a manager of Vilnius Public Library No. 3. (...) Despite the dangers, Poška saved at least three Lithuanian Jews by hiding them from the SS in his house.

[source]

---

Horst Wulff

The letter also offer little details about who is the receiver of the letter and why he received the letter. Gruyter just say the letter was received by a person named Wulff, the supposedly "Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land" in 1942. Several authoritative evidence confirms Wulff is the surname of Horst Wulff, and indeed the "Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land" in 1942:

Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto:

Wulff



[source]

Wikipedia:

Horst Wulff (* 28. Oktober 1907; † April/Mai 1945) war ein deutscher Nationalsozialist, der während des Zweiten Weltkrieges im deutsch besetzten Litauen als Gebietskommissar in Wilna-Land eingesetzt war. (...) Nach dem Überfall auf die Sowjetunion wurde er im August 1941 Gebietskommissar in Wilna-Land. Im November 1941 trat er von der SA zur SS über (...) Wulff starb während der Schlacht um Berlin.

[source]

Translated as such by Google Translate:

Horst Wulff (born October 28, 1907, † April / May 1945) was a German national socialist who was employed as a regional commissioner in Vilnius during the Second World War in German-occupied Lithuania. (...) After the attack on the Soviet Union he became regional commissioner in Vilnius in August 1941. In November 1941 he passed from the SA to the SS (...) Wulff died during the Battle of Berlin.

Another authoritative evidence claims Horst Wulff was shot dead in 1944 by the SS for provide the AK army (who assisted the Soviet army against the Germans) with arms.

Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947, Tadeusz Piotrowski, pag. 89:

[source]

A Guest at the Shooters' Banquet: My Grandfather's SS Past, My Jewish Family, A Search for the Truth, Rita Gabis:

[source]

The references for the primary source used in the above secondary source is correct:

R 90/748
Wulff, Horst1
941- Jan. 1945
Enthält auch:
Generalkommissar in Kauen.- Personalakte
Alte Signatur
Z - D I/4297 VBS 2/BARCH002770 ZD I 4297
Name
Wulff, Horst
Z-Signatur
ZD I 4297
Geburtsdatum
28.10.1907
Benutzungsort
Berlin-Lichterfelde

[source]

---

[Roberto]

I did not made any claim implying Gruyter presentation of the DOK 239 affected the content of DOK 239, so this question and its implied statement will be ignored.

I think you did:

This is statement is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter.

If not, what is the relevance of this comment in the context of this discussion?

No straw man fallacy, please.

A straw-man fallacy implies a deliberate misrepresentation of the opponent's argument. In the context of this discussion, however, the publisher's remark could be understood as suggesting something about the authenticity or accuracy of the document in question.

It shows Gruyet made a statement about DOK 239 which is inconsistent with the subject of the letter and the absence of any mention of cause of death in the content of the letter. Gruyet is inducing the reader to assume DOK 239 is about mass graves and graves of people who were just shot dead when this is not evident in DOK 239.

It's not Gruyet, first of all. De Gruyter is a publisher. The persons who put the document collection together are Berg Hoppe and Hildrun Glass.

Second, while the cause of death does not follow from the DOK 239, it follows from the contextualization of the document with the Jäger Report in the footnotes. So Hoppe and Glass are not inducing their readers in error.

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of carcasses.

That may be so, but nowhere in his letter, unless I missed something, does District Medical Officer Paskevicius (hereinafter the "DMO") mention "pieces of carcasses". He mentions "Jewish" mass graves and graves containing small numbers of corpses. People shot dead become corpses.

...but not carcasses. You did not miss anything in the letter but in the dictionary:

carcass
(British carcase)

NOUN

1.5 The remains of something.
‘automotive carcasses stripped of radios, hubcaps and even body panels’

Pieces of carcasses, pieces of remains of human bodies.

You seem to assume that "carcasses" are pieces of human bodies. But that is not correct, and the latter line of your quote doesn't suggest what you maintain. It uses the examples "pieces of carcasses" and "pieces of human bodies" as possible contexts in which the respective terms are used. The definition of "carcass" under https://www.google.pt/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=TFM ... q=Carcass+ reads as follows:

noun
noun: carcass; plural noun: carcasses; noun: carcase; plural noun: carcases

the dead body of an animal.
"she saw the mud-covered carcass of a sheep"
synonyms: corpse, cadaver, dead body, body, remains, skeleton, relics; More
informalstiff;
archaiccorse
"a lamb carcass"
the trunk of an animal such as a cow, sheep, or pig, for cutting up as meat.
"the carcass has a high proportion of meat to bone"
synonyms: corpse, cadaver, dead body, body, remains, skeleton, relics; More
informalstiff;
archaiccorse
"a lamb carcass"
the remains of a cooked bird after all the edible parts have been removed.
humorous
a person's body, living or dead.
"my obsession will last while there's life in this old carcass"
synonyms: body, person, self; More
backside;
informalbutt;
vulgar slangarse;
vulgar slangass
"shift your carcass from the seat"
the structural framework of a building, ship, or piece of furniture.
the remains of something.
"automotive carcasses stripped of radios, hubcaps and even body panels"

So while the term may be used for human bodies (in a humorous sense) or for parts or remains of inanimate objects, it is generally used to designate dead bodies of animals, whereas the term "corpse" is generally used to designated dead bodies of human beings. Also, please mind that "carcass" is a translation from the German term "Kadaver". And for that term the German Duden (http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kadaver) has the following definitions:

toter Körper eines Tiers, auch menschliche Leiche - dead body of an animal, also a human corpse)
(abwertend) [verbrauchter, kraftloser] menschlicher Körper - (derogatory) [spent, forceless] human body

Synomyme zu Kadaver - Synonyms of "Kadaver"
Aas, Tierleiche; (Jägersprache) Luder - carrion, animal corpse; (in hunter speech) "Luder" (which literally means "hussy" or "minx"

So there's no basis for assuming that the German term "Kadaver", translated as "carcass", refers to pieces of human bodies. It usually refers to dead bodies of animals. And it is reasonable to assume that it was used with this meaning in the letters containing the Regional Commissioner's questions to the DMO, because from a medical-hygienic perspective animal carcasses may be as much a health hazard as human corpses.

The carcasses can come from people who was shot dead, but those carcasses cannot possibly be a direct consequence of people being shot dead.

Why not? While the cause of death is not stated in the DMO's letter, there is one document independent of the DMO's letter, mentioned in my previous post, in which mass killings (obviously by shooting) of people in the areas where the DMO mentions Jewish mass graves are mentioned. There is also other evidence, mentioned in my previous post as well, suggesting such mass killings in the areas in question. On the other hand, there is no evidence that I know of suggesting any other origin of the Jewish mass graves mentioned by the DMO. So the conclusion that the Jewish mass graves contain the corpses of people killed according to this other evidence is warranted.

Because people who are killed with bullets are not just blow out in pieces of remains of human bodies.

Again, you misunderstood the term "carcass" as meaning a part of a human corpse, which is not what it means, see above. And what's important here is the original term "Kadaver", which may refer to a dead human body, or to a living human body in a derogatory sense, but usually refers to the dead body of an animal.

Thus a question arise: what caused the corpses of such mass graves and graves to become carcasses regardless if they were shot dead or not?

The DMO does not state that the corpses became carcasses. The former term is generally used for mortal human remains, the latter for mortal remains of animals. The heading of the letter presumably refers to "corpses and carcasses" because, in his letter of 16 June 1942, Regional Commissar Wulff inquired about both human and animal remains. Which is understandable as both pose a health risk when buried, namely a risk of ground water contamination by leachate. However, nowhere in the text does the DMO mention carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, as being the contents or among the contents of the graves described. He mentions only graves containing mortal remains of human beings.

E.g. the "corpse and carcasses" of Jews were buried in "Jewish mass graves" as explicit said by Dr. Paskevicius.

Again, the DMO does not mention that "corpses and carcasses" are buried in "Jewish mass graves". The term "Jewish mass graves" suggests that the graves contain the corpses of individuals of Jewish faith or ethnicity. It doesn't suggest that animals (to which the term "cadavers" would apply) are buried in the same grave. That would also be a highly improbable scenario.

Moreover:

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring.

Where "all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave" in 1942 comes from and what would be their cause of death?

There is no way of establishing this. Carcasses, i.e. mortal remains of animals, might be those of animals who died of disease in the field and were not removed. Human corpses, on the other hand, are likely to be those of individuals who met a violent death somewhere in the rural areas for which the DMO is responsible, as people don't usually just drop dead in a field or forest. The human corpses could be those of Jewish escapees hunted down and killed, whose corpses the killers did not bother to bury.

In 1942 I sent a letter to the district head in Traken, informing him that he was to instruct the community leaders of the Traken district to have all those corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave to be buried in the spring. (...) In the spring of 1942 the graves were uncovered, strewn with chlorinated lime, covered with a layer of earth up to one meter high and fenced in.

Which means the carcasses discussed in the letter are from human bodies and not from animals as Dr. Paskeviciu instructed the head of Trakai district to bury it altogether with corpses in Jewish mass graves and graves in the spring of 1942, the same period of time Dr. Paskeviciu says Jewish mass graves were uncovered and strew with chlorinated lime.

The erroneous assumption underlying this statement is that that "carcasses" are pieces of human bodies. Not so. The term "carcasses" ("Kadaver", in German) is generally used as meaning dead bodies of animals. Where did you read anything about carcasses or corpses still lying in the open being buried in already existing graves, by the way? The term "alle im Frühjahr noch nicht begrabenen Leichen und Kadaver" translates as "all corpses and carcasses not yet buried in the spring". It says nothing about where those corpses and carcasses should be buried.

If Dr. Paskeviciu meant carcasses of human bodies in the above sentence then is obvious the subject of the letter was not about carcasses of animals but of human bodies, which contradicts your assumption Wulff made an inquire to Dr. Paskeviciu about human and animal remains.

This statement is also based on the erroneous assumption that "carcasses" are pieces of human corpses. What is more, it makes no sense that Wulff would inquire about "corpses and pieces of corpses". What makes sense, for the reasons explained, is his inquiring about dead bodies of both humans and animals.

That was not of interest to either the sender or the receiver, whose concerns were of a hygienic nature. And as I said before, a publisher's comment does not affect the contents of the document.

If Dr. Paskevicius and Wulff did not had any interest about the cause of death of the corpses and carcasses discussed in the letter, then they were quite likely discussing details about the mortal remains of people who were not necessarily killed with bullets, but died due other causes, including natural causes such as diseases or accidents (which explains why there are carcasses with corpses), and then buried in specific mass graves and graves due its recognizable origin.

Why should that be "quite likely"? First of all, it mattered neither to the DMO nor to Regional Commissar Wulff how the people whose graves the DMO mentioned had died. Buried corpses can be a health concern independently of the cause of death.

Because, as you agreed, "buried corpses can be a health concern independently of the cause of death".

Your reply is not logical. The indifference of the cause of death to there being a health concern due to the presence of corpses is precisely the reason why the cause of death need not have been of interest to either Paskevicius or Wulff, and was not addressed in the former's letter.

It is also unlikely that people who had died of non-violent causes should be buried in mass graves in a rural area (the DMO refers to areas close to forests in three cases, and to a sandy height 1 km away from the road), to which they would have to be transported. Deaths from disease in large numbers requiring burial in mass graves usually occur among urban populations, and their mass burial usually happens in or close to the urban areas in which such deaths occurred. The placement of the mass graves, on the other hand, suggests a transport of the intended victims to places where their killing would not be witnessed.

Unlikely but not impossible.

Maybe so, but where there are likely possibilities there's no need to consider the unlikely ones, unless there is evidence pointing to the latter. Which is not the case here.

Because one explanation for the absence of two important explicit references in the letter to corroborate its origin and content is DOK 239 was fabricated.

That may be a theoretically possible explanation, but it is an unlikely one for various reasons. One are that many documents pertaining to the period in question have not been found, e.g. because they were destroyed. Another is that the DMO might have had an interest to get rid of documents in his possession that pointed to his having collaborated with occupation authorities. Yet another is that the contents of DOK 239 are in themselves innocuous, their incriminating character following only from contextualizing them with the other evidence I mentioned. Yet another is that the documents never seems to have been published before it was found by historians in the Lithuanian State Archive. It would make no sense for a hypothetical forger to manipulate a document or create a false document and then make no use of it. Forged documents are not usually kept in someone's drawer until they are filed in some archive, where there's a good chance of no one ever discovering them.

Indeed, but if a forger inserts three forged documents in an archive he would increase the risk of the forgery being uncovered. One single forged document is more difficult to be uncovered than three. As more documents a forger makes to corroborate a forged document, more references he needs to fabricate in the forged documents to make the original forged document appear authentic and accurate.

The risk of discovery may be higher, but so would be the benefit if the forgery is not detected. Anyway, that scenario is merely hypothetical, and there's no evidence of any kind that might support it. On the contrary, all evidence somehow related to the DMO's letter suggests its authenticity.

In fact the DOK 239 was discovered by Gruyter, which if a forgery then it is serving the intention of the forger, and regardless of being a forgery or not, its authenticity and accuracy cannot be corroborated by two previous documents which are supposedly the origin of DOK 239.[/quote]

Actually the intention of the forger would be ill-served by keeping a document in the drawer until it was placed in an archive where it might be discovered only decades later or not at all (if it had not been for the fall of the Soviet Union, the DMO's letter would probably still be slumbering in a Lithuanian archive).

The forger benefits the from absence of corroboration to have his forgery uncovered while the genuine author do not benefits from absence of corroboration to have his letter authenticated.

The hypothetical forger would have benefited more from creating three forged documents compatible with each other. And, as it makes no sense to forge documents and then not use them, he would have somehow made his forgeries available to the public.

As to the authenticity and accuracy of DOK 239, the two documents referred to therein might tell us something about the former, but they tell us nothing about the latter. Besides, there's a better way of verifying the document's authenticity and accuracy. It consist in contextualizing it with a document completely independent of and unrelated to it (as opposed to the Regional Commissioner's letters, which are related to DOK 239) and with other evidence as to what happened in the areas in question and brought about the mass graves described.

(...) while on the other hand it's not unlikely that the receiver destroyed them (it would have been in his interest as his possession of these letters was evidence of collaboration with an occupying power).

This assumption is in contradiction with the origin of DOK 239:

Letter (Nr. 1057) from the Main Health Administration (District Medical Officer of the Trakai District), signed Paskevicius, to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, Wulff (received on 12.7.1942) dated 8.7.1942

DOK 239 is a letter received by Horst Wulff in 12 September 1942 from Dr. Paskevicius, not the contrary.

I wasn't referring to Wulff but to Paskevicius, in whose possession the letters referred from the Regional Commissioner would have been.

In accordance with what? Gruyter presents the DOK 239 as a letter sent from the Main Health Administration to Regional Commissioner Vilna Land, which indicates Dr. Paskevicius received the previous letter from the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land as civil servant working for the Main Health Administration.

That's just what I said. The previous letter was received by Paskevicius, thus in his possession. If not in his possession, then in the possession of the entity he worked for, and thus accessible for him.

Why should Dr. Paskevicius kept in his personal possession a letter addressed to the Main Health Administration instead to leave archived in the respective department where he worked for?

My argument is that Paskevicius had no reason to keep the Regional Commissioner's letter(s) either in his possession or in the files of the entity he worked for. They were evidence to his having collaborated with the German occupiers.

Paskevicius, as I said, would have had an interest in destroying these documents as they were evidence of his having collaborated with the German occupiers.

Reductio ad absurdum: then the ten of thousands of civil servants working for the Lithuanian government should have the same interest as the Lithuanian government collaborated with the German National Socialists until the Soviet occupation in 1944.

Except that the Paskevicius' collaboration concerned a delicate matter because, as can be established on hand of other evidence, it was related to mass crimes committed in areas for which Paskevicius was responsible. Someone familiar with these mass crimes might have wanted to know how Paskevicius had responded to the Regional Commissioner's letters. Besides, how do you know how many Lithuanian civil servants worked for the German occupiers, and how do you know that documents received by these civil servants from German authorities were as a rule preserved for posterity?

If Dr. Paskevicius did not want to be associated with the German National Socialists to be later incriminated then he would not sent any letter to the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land.

In 1942, when the letter was sent, Paskevicius need not have had such concerns. In 1944 things would have been different.

Horst Wulff, on the other hand, may have fled from the Soviets without bothering or having had the time to destroy all the documents in his possession. Besides, his having inquired about mass graves in a given area for health reasons and having received a response to such inquiry would not incriminate him in a legal sense, i.e. there's no crime he would have committed by such actions. Knowledge of facts or circumstances related to a crime is not a crime.

So DOK 239 is not authoritative evidence which shows a crime occurred (as there is no mention of cause of death) but only describes what could be the consequence of a criminal action (as there is mention of mass graves and graves).

Got it.

Nobody claimed that DOK 239 is authoritative evidence of mass murder all by itself. The document's value lies in that it corroborates the Jäger Report as concerns mass killings in the areas mentioned by the DMO, which must have been the cause of the Jewish mass graves mentioned by Paskevicius because a) the location of the mass graves suggests people having been taken to a comparatively remote rural location to be killed without the killing being witnessed by locals and b) there is no other possible cause for these mass graves that is borne out by evidence.

So the locations exist. AS forgot to mention that another document completely independent of, the Jäger Report, mentions mass killings in the areas where Paskevicius mentioned the existence of mass graves:

(...)

Your argument being?

Let's first establish a common agreement about what the origin and content of DOK 239 means before discuss if other authoritative evidence corroborates or not DOK 239.

I don't think there are any more open questions about what the meaning of the origin and contents of DOK 239 means. We can therefore proceed to contextualize it with other evidence of the kind used by historians applying the historical method.

Not while common agreement is not reached.

At the moment the meaning of "carcasses" in the context of the letter is being discussed.

The meaning of "carcasses" in the context of the letter has been clarified. It refers to dead bodies of animals and not, as you incorrectly assumed, to pieces of human corpses. And as to waiting until we reach a "common agreement", that is unlikely to happen, so we might as well stop the discussion at this place.

[Roberto]

Dr. Paskevicius

The letter offers little detail about who is the author of the letter and why he wrote the letter. Gruyter just say the letter was signed by a person called Paskevicius (or Paškevičius in Lithuanian language), a doctor presumably working in the district medical office of the Trakai district in 1942, part of what Gruyter name as Main Health Administration. This name is slightly inconsistent with the name of health department of the Lithuanian government in 1942, The Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

1939: The Year that Changed Everything in Lithuania's History, Šarūnas Liekis, pag. 373:



[source]

It's not "Gruyter", as I mentioned in my previous post. And if Hoppe and Glass referred to the "Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs" as the Main (Lithuanian) Health Administration (Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung) they were stating nothing wrong, as the Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs obviously fulfilled the functions of a main health administration. Besides, Paskevicius (or Paškevičius in Lithuanian language) may have used that term himself when identifying the sender in his letter, as the letter was written in German and addressed to a German.

[Aryan Scholar]

It's not Gruyet, first of all. De Gruyter is a publisher. The persons who put the document collection together are Berg Hoppe and Hildrun Glass.

Second, while the cause of death does not follow from the DOK 239, it follows from the contextualization of the document with the Jäger Report in the footnotes. So Hoppe and Glass are not inducing their readers in error.

The District Medical Officer of Trakai (Troki) informs the Regional Commissioner Vilna Land on 8 July 1942 about size and location of mass graves of Jews shot in his rural district

In accordance with only the content and origin of DOK 239 regardless of any footnote, is the above statement from Berg et al true or false?

You seem to assume that "carcasses" are pieces of human bodies. But that is not correct, and the latter line of your quote doesn't suggest what you maintain. It uses the examples "pieces of carcasses" and "pieces of human bodies" as possible contexts in which the respective terms are used. The definition of "carcass" under https://www.google.pt/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=TFM ... q=Carcass+ reads as follows:

noun
noun: carcass; plural noun: carcasses; noun: carcase; plural noun: carcases

the dead body of an animal.
"she saw the mud-covered carcass of a sheep"
synonyms: corpse, cadaver, dead body, body, remains, skeleton, relics; More
informalstiff;
archaiccorse
"a lamb carcass"
the trunk of an animal such as a cow, sheep, or pig, for cutting up as meat.
"the carcass has a high proportion of meat to bone"
synonyms: corpse, cadaver, dead body, body, remains, skeleton, relics; More
informalstiff;
archaiccorse
"a lamb carcass"
the remains of a cooked bird after all the edible parts have been removed.
humorous
a person's body, living or dead.
"my obsession will last while there's life in this old carcass"
synonyms: body, person, self; More
backside;
informalbutt;
vulgar slangarse;
vulgar slangass
"shift your carcass from the seat"
the structural framework of a building, ship, or piece of furniture.
the remains of something.
"automotive carcasses stripped of radios, hubcaps and even body panels"

So while the term may be used for human bodies (in a humorous sense) or for parts or remains of inanimate objects, it is generally used to designate dead bodies of animals, whereas the term "corpse" is generally used to designated dead bodies of human beings. Also, please mind that "carcass" is a translation from the German term "Kadaver". And for that term the German Duden (http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kadaver) has the following definitions:

toter Körper eines Tiers, auch menschliche Leiche - dead body of an animal, also a human corpse)
(abwertend) [verbrauchter, kraftloser] menschlicher Körper - (derogatory) [spent, forceless] human body

Synomyme zu Kadaver - Synonyms of "Kadaver"
Aas, Tierleiche; (Jägersprache) Luder - carrion, animal corpse; (in hunter speech) "Luder" (which literally means "hussy" or "minx"

So there's no basis for assuming that the German term "Kadaver", translated as "carcass", refers to pieces of human bodies. It usually refers to dead bodies of animals. And it is reasonable to assume that it was used with this meaning in the letters containing the Regional Commissioner's questions to the DMO, because from a medical-hygienic perspective animal carcasses may be as much a health hazard as human corpses. (...) Again, you misunderstood the term "carcass" as meaning a part of a human corpse, which is not what it means, see above. And what's important here is the original term "Kadaver", which may refer to a dead human body, or to a living human body in a derogatory sense, but usually refers to the dead body of an animal. (...) The erroneous assumption underlying this statement is that that "carcasses" are pieces of human bodies. Not so. The term "carcasses" ("Kadaver", in German) is generally used as meaning dead bodies of animals. Where did you read anything about carcasses or corpses still lying in the open being buried in already existing graves, by the way? The term "alle im Frühjahr noch nicht begrabenen Leichen und Kadaver" translates as "all corpses and carcasses not yet buried in the spring". It says nothing about where those corpses and carcasses should be buried. (...) This statement is also based on the erroneous assumption that "carcasses" are pieces of human corpses. What is more, it makes no sense that Wulff would inquire about "corpses and pieces of corpses". What makes sense, for the reasons explained, is his inquiring about dead bodies of both humans and animals. (...) The meaning of "carcasses" in the context of the letter has been clarified. It refers to dead bodies of animals and not, as you incorrectly assumed, to pieces of human corpses. And as to waiting until we reach a "common agreement", that is unlikely to happen, so we might as well stop the discussion at this place.

You completely miscomprehended my assumption. Here is my explanation in the most shortest manner as possible for what the word carcasses means in the context of DOK 239:

The word carcasses used in the subject of the letter means carcasses of dead people and not dead animals because it was not used in opposition but in conjunction with the word corpses ("burial of corpses and carcasses" instead of "burial of corpses or carcasses"); the content of the letter do not have any explicit or implicit reference to any animal but implicit and explicit reference to dead people ("Jewish mass grave", "individual graves" with few "corpses"); the dictionary definition of the word carcasses do not exclude human bodies (see the definitions you post above, such as "a person's body, living or dead"); the content of the text have an implicit reference for carcasses and corpses being buried in the same grave ("corpses and carcasses yet to be placed in a grave"); unburied carcasses of dead people is a health issue more concerning than unburied carcasses of dead animals.

Do you agree to use the argument to the best explanation to determine what the word carcasses means in the context of DOK 239?

Argument to the best explanation

McCullagh sums up, "if the scope and strength of an explanation are very great, so that it explains a large number and variety of facts, many more than any competing explanation, then it is likely to be true."

[source]

If so, please, insert your explanation in the most shortest manner as possible bellow instead to reply to my explanation above, so both explanations can be compared later to determine which one is the best to explain the meaning of the word carcasses in the context of DOK 239:

The word carcasses used in the subject of the letter means carcasses of dead animals and not of dead people because [insert your best explanation in the most shortest manner as possible here]

[Aryan Scholar]

Your reply is not logical. The indifference of the cause of death to there being a health concern due to the presence of corpses is precisely the reason why the cause of death need not have been of interest to either Paskevicius or Wulff, and was not addressed in the former's letter. (...) Maybe so, but where there are likely possibilities there's no need to consider the unlikely ones, unless there is evidence pointing to the latter. Which is not the case here.

Dr. Paskevicius and Horst Wulff could be discussing DOK 239 mass graves and graves with corpses and carcasses without to know anything about the cause of death of such corpses and carcasses.

Do you agree?

That's just what I said. The previous letter was received by Paskevicius, thus in his possession. If not in his possession, then in the possession of the entity he worked for, and thus accessible for him. (...) My argument is that Paskevicius had no reason to keep the Regional Commissioner's letter(s) either in his possession or in the files of the entity he worked for. They were evidence to his having collaborated with the German occupiers. (...) Except that the Paskevicius' collaboration concerned a delicate matter because, as can be established on hand of other evidence, it was related to mass crimes committed in areas for which Paskevicius was responsible. Someone familiar with these mass crimes might have wanted to know how Paskevicius had responded to the Regional Commissioner's letters. Besides, how do you know how many Lithuanian civil servants worked for the German occupiers, and how do you know that documents received by these civil servants from German authorities were as a rule preserved for posterity? (...) In 1942, when the letter was sent, Paskevicius need not have had such concerns. In 1944 things would have been different.

In accordance with Voren, about 20000 civil servants worked for the German occupiers.

Undigested Past: The Holocaust in Lithuania, Robert van Voren, pag. 29:

[source]

It's not "Gruyter", as I mentioned in my previous post. And if Hoppe and Glass referred to the "Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs" as the Main (Lithuanian) Health Administration (Hauptgesundheitsverwaltung) they were stating nothing wrong, as the Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs obviously fulfilled the functions of a main health administration. Besides, Paskevicius (or Paškevičius in Lithuanian language) may have used that term himself when identifying the sender in his letter, as the letter was written in German and addressed to a German.

Actually the intention of the forger would be ill-served by keeping a document in the drawer until it was placed in an archive where it might be discovered only decades later or not at all (if it had not been for the fall of the Soviet Union, the DMO's letter would probably still be slumbering in a Lithuanian archive). (...) The hypothetical forger would have benefited more from creating three forged documents compatible with each other. And, as it makes no sense to forge documents and then not use them, he would have somehow made his forgeries available to the public. (...) As to the authenticity and accuracy of DOK 239, the two documents referred to therein might tell us something about the former, but they tell us nothing about the latter. Besides, there's a better way of verifying the document's authenticity and accuracy. It consist in contextualizing it with a document completely independent of and unrelated to it (as opposed to the Regional Commissioner's letters, which are related to DOK 239) and with other evidence as to what happened in the areas in question and brought about the mass graves described.

Nobody claimed that DOK 239 is authoritative evidence of mass murder all by itself. The document's value lies in that it corroborates the Jäger Report as concerns mass killings in the areas mentioned by the DMO, which must have been the cause of the Jewish mass graves mentioned by Paskevicius because a) the location of the mass graves suggests people having been taken to a comparatively remote rural location to be killed without the killing being witnessed by locals and b) there is no other possible cause for these mass graves that is borne out by evidence.

You are basically reasoning in a circle the mass killing mentioned in the Jäger Report corroborates DOK 239 authenticity which corroborates the mass killing mentioned in the Jäger Report: Why DOK 239 is authentic? Because it is corroborated by the mass killing mentioned in the Jäger Report. Why the mass killing mentioned in the Jäger Report is corroborated by DOK 239? Because DOK 239 is authentic. Why DOK 239 is authentic? Etc.

Circular Reasoning
circulus in demonstrando

(also known as: paradoxical thinking, circular argument, circular cause and consequence, reasoning in a circle)

Description: A type of reasoning in which the proposition is supported by the premises, which is supported by the proposition, creating a circle in reasoning where no useful information is being shared. This fallacy is often quite humorous.

[source]

Here are reasons why there is doubt about the authenticity and accuracy of the DOK 239:

- Dr. Paskevicius, the author of DOK 239, do not exist outside DOK 239.
- The "letter of 16 June 1942" Dr. Paskevicius received from Horst Wulff, do not exist outside DOK 239.
- "Ministerial Decree of 30.4.42 – II.c.3186", the reference for the subject discussed in DOK 239, do not exist outside DOK 239.
- Main Health Administration is inconsistent with The Health Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Can you offer any reasons why there is NO doubt about the authenticity and accuracy of DOK 239?