Origin and Content of DOK 239

[Aryan Scholar]

My apology for jumping into this thread at this point, but wouldn't this German be Joachim Hamann?

Welcome. Let's examine the ramifications of your statement.

(Unreliable) Wikipedia:

Joachim Hamann

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joachim Hamann (18 May 1913 in Kiel – 13 July 1945) was an officer of the Einsatzkommando 3, a killing unit of Einsatzgruppe A, responsible for thousands of Jewish deaths in Lithuania. Hamann organized and commanded Rollkommando Hamann, a small mobile killing unit composed of 8–10 Germans and several dozens of local Lithuanian collaborators.[1]

Hamann was of Baltic German parentage.[2] Trained as a chemist, he had difficulties finding a job due to the Great Depression. He joined SA in August 1931, NSDAP in December 1932, and SS in July 1938.[3] He served in the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland and Battle of France as a paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger).[4] He returned to Berlin where he joined the SS and completed training courses. In March 1941, he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant).[3] After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hamann organized and commanded Rollkommando Hamann which killed at least 39,000 Jews in various locations across Lithuania[1] and 9,102 people, almost all of whom were Jews, from the Daugavpils Ghetto.[5] Hamann's superior, Karl Jäger, documented these killings in the Jäger Report. Nevertheless Martin C. Dean sets the death toll of Rollkommando Hamann to 60.000 murdered people in Lithuania alone.[6]

Hamann left Lithuania in October 1941 and continued his SS career.[7] In 1942, SS-Hauptsturmführer Hamann participated in the Operation Zeppelin, a scheme to recruit Soviet POWs for espionage behind Russian lines.[8] From 1943 he worked at Amt IV of RSHA (Gestapo). He was involved in apprehending and executing suspected members of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler.[7] He was appointed aide to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Director of the Reich Main Security Office.[4] In January 1945, Hamann was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer.

After the war, Hamann committed suicide.[4]

[source]

HOLOCAUST IN LITHUANIAN PROVINCE IN 1941, Arūnas Bubnys, pag. 16:

Jäger wrote in his report, extermination of the Jews “could be achieved only thanks to the flying squad of selected men and commanded by Obershturmführer Hamann who clearly understood my goals and was capable of ensuring co-operation with Lithuanian partisans and corresponding civil institutions”.

[source]

Definition of "partisan":

2A member of an armed group formed to fight secretly against an occupying force, in particular one operating in German-occupied Yugoslavia, Italy, and parts of eastern Europe in the Second World War.
‘the partisans opened fire from the woods’
as modifier ‘it is not in the nature of partisan warfare to produce victory in the field’

[source]

Could aemathisphd explain and show exactly who is this Lithuanian armed group formed to fight secretly against the German-occupied forces in Lithuania which cooperated with Obershturmführer Hamann's flying squad to exterminate Jews in Lithuanian?

As to carcasses lying around in the open suggesting catastrophic mortality, the same would apply to human corpses lying around in the open, according to your logic. So what is supposed to have produced a catastrophic number of corpses lying around in the open? (...) Is there any evidence to catastrophic disease mortality among Jews in the Trakai district at the time in question? And why would Jews have been dying in masses from disease only a few months after the start of German occupation?

Yes, mortality by disease due imprisonment and malnutrition:

HOLOCAUST IN LITHUANIAN PROVINCE IN 1941, Arūnas Bubnys, pag. 55:

On 26 August 1941, Director of the Police Department V. Reivytis asked SS Obersturmführer J. Hamann what to do next with the Jews who had been detained all over Lithuania. V. Reivytis, among other things, pointed out that contagious diseases were spreading among the detainees at the speed of lightning, while in Kaišiadorys one fatal case has even been recorded.

[source]

Could aemathisphd or Roberto explain and show exactly why Lithuanian police department Reivytis choose Obersturmführer Hamann to request help on 26th August 1941 about the situation of the imprisoned Jews all over Lithuania?

[aemathisphd]

Concerning the use of the term "partisan." Jäger writes in his report on the first page that executions were performed of Jews "durch die lit. Partisanen," i.e., by the Lithuanian partisans; and in the next paragraph "mit den lit. Partisanen," i.e., with the Lithuanian partisans.

See: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jäger-B ... sstück.jpg


It makes no sense that these would be anti-Nazi partisans shooting Jews in June 1941 in Kaunas.

[Roberto]

My apology for jumping into this thread at this point, but wouldn't this German be Joachim Hamann?

Welcome. Let's examine the ramifications of your statement.

(Unreliable) Wikipedia:

Joachim Hamann

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joachim Hamann (18 May 1913 in Kiel – 13 July 1945) was an officer of the Einsatzkommando 3, a killing unit of Einsatzgruppe A, responsible for thousands of Jewish deaths in Lithuania. Hamann organized and commanded Rollkommando Hamann, a small mobile killing unit composed of 8–10 Germans and several dozens of local Lithuanian collaborators.[1]

Hamann was of Baltic German parentage.[2] Trained as a chemist, he had difficulties finding a job due to the Great Depression. He joined SA in August 1931, NSDAP in December 1932, and SS in July 1938.[3] He served in the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland and Battle of France as a paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger).[4] He returned to Berlin where he joined the SS and completed training courses. In March 1941, he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant).[3] After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hamann organized and commanded Rollkommando Hamann which killed at least 39,000 Jews in various locations across Lithuania[1] and 9,102 people, almost all of whom were Jews, from the Daugavpils Ghetto.[5] Hamann's superior, Karl Jäger, documented these killings in the Jäger Report. Nevertheless Martin C. Dean sets the death toll of Rollkommando Hamann to 60.000 murdered people in Lithuania alone.[6]

Hamann left Lithuania in October 1941 and continued his SS career.[7] In 1942, SS-Hauptsturmführer Hamann participated in the Operation Zeppelin, a scheme to recruit Soviet POWs for espionage behind Russian lines.[8] From 1943 he worked at Amt IV of RSHA (Gestapo). He was involved in apprehending and executing suspected members of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler.[7] He was appointed aide to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Director of the Reich Main Security Office.[4] In January 1945, Hamann was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer.

After the war, Hamann committed suicide.[4]

[source]

Some articles on Wikipedia are reliable, others less so, which means that a general judgment about Wikipedia as being "unreliable" is inappropriate.

Regarding Hamann's activities under Jäger's command in Lithuania see part 3 of my Jäger Report series
(http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... ort-3.html) and Arunas Bubnys' article under
http://www.docscopic.info/flashoflight/ ... ce_ENG.pdf. Hamann's Rollkommando was in charge of making rural Lithuania free of Jews. Doing that in Vilnius and nearby towns or cities was the task of the Teilkommando des EK.3 in Wilna mentioned on page 5 of the Jäger Report. Relevant names in the latter context are those of Peter Eisenbarth, Erich Wolff, Martin Weiss and August Hering.

HOLOCAUST IN LITHUANIAN PROVINCE IN 1941, Arūnas Bubnys, pag. 16:

Jäger wrote in his report, extermination of the Jews “could be achieved only thanks to the flying squad of selected men and commanded by Obershturmführer Hamann who clearly understood my goals and was capable of ensuring co-operation with Lithuanian partisans and corresponding civil institutions”.

[source]

Definition of "partisan":

2A member of an armed group formed to fight secretly against an occupying force, in particular one operating in German-occupied Yugoslavia, Italy, and parts of eastern Europe in the Second World War.
‘the partisans opened fire from the woods’
as modifier ‘it is not in the nature of partisan warfare to produce victory in the field’

[source]

Could aemathisphd explain and show exactly who is this Lithuanian armed group formed to fight secretly against the German-occupied forces in Lithuania which cooperated with Obershturmführer Hamann's flying squad to exterminate Jews in Lithuanian?

The men referred to as "Lithuanian partisans" by Jäger were not pro-Soviet partisans fighting the German occupation (it's not likely that there were many of those in the early days of that occupation). They were Lithuanians who had taken up arms against the Soviet occupation and thus earned the title "partisans". The term is generally used by those on whose side the partisans are or are supposed to be. For instance, in his radio broadcast on 3 July 1941 (translation under http://www.go2war2.nl/artikel/4628/Radi ... 7-1941.htm) Stalin stated the following:

In areas occupied by the enemy, partizan units must be established, motorised as well as on foot and sabotage groups must be formed to engage the hostile army,to unleash partisan warfare everywhere, to blow up bridges and roads, to disable telephone and telegraph lines and to set fire to woods, depots and convoys. In the occupied areas, an untenable situation must be created for the enemy and his henchmen, they must be persecuted and destroyed at each step and all their measures must be made to fail.

The term is also used by the partisans themselves, e.g. the Yugoslavian Партизани and the Italian partigiani.

Opponents of partisans, on the other hand, usually refer to them in less flattering terms, such as "bandits" or "terrorists". For instance, in Himmler's report to Hitler dated 29 December 1942 (facsimile under http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/sowjetuni ... tionen.php), pro-Soviet partisans are referred to as "Banditen".

As to carcasses lying around in the open suggesting catastrophic mortality, the same would apply to human corpses lying around in the open, according to your logic. So what is supposed to have produced a catastrophic number of corpses lying around in the open? (...) Is there any evidence to catastrophic disease mortality among Jews in the Trakai district at the time in question? And why would Jews have been dying in masses from disease only a few months after the start of German occupation?

Yes, mortality by disease due imprisonment and malnutrition:

HOLOCAUST IN LITHUANIAN PROVINCE IN 1941, Arūnas Bubnys, pag. 55:

On 26 August 1941, Director of the Police Department V. Reivytis asked SS Obersturmführer J. Hamann what to do next with the Jews who had been detained all over Lithuania. V. Reivytis, among other things, pointed out that contagious diseases were spreading among the detainees at the speed of lightning, while in Kaišiadorys one fatal case has even been recorded.

[source]

A mass grave for one fatal case of contagious disease?

Could aemathisphd or Roberto explain and show exactly why Lithuanian police department Reivytis choose Obersturmführer Hamann to request help on 26th August 1941 about the situation of the imprisoned Jews all over Lithuania?

Contagious diseases could be transmitted from imprisoned Jews to non-Jews and were thus a cause of concern that Hamann was called upon to address. Which was what Hamann did, as mentioned by Bubnys on pp. 55-56 of his article (emphases added):

In the mid-August preparations were undertaken for the campaign of Jews slaughter. Following a confidential letter on the detention of the Jews by Director of the Police Department Reivytis No. 3, 80 Jewish men and 14 women were arrested in Kaišiadorys, 3,636 men and 85 women in Žasliai, and 282 Jews (among them 89 women) in Žiežmariai. The Jews arrested in Žasliai and Žiežmariai were delivered to Kaišiadorys.20 Thus, in the mid-August of 1941, a total of 824 Jewish men and women were arrested (the number of detained children is not specified). On 26 August 1941, Director of the Police Department V. Reivytis asked SS Obersturmführer J. Hamann what to do next with the Jews who had been detained all over Lithuania. V. Reivytis, among other things, pointed out that contagious diseases were spreading among the detainees at the speed of lightning, while in Kaišiadorys one fatal case has even been recorded.21J. Hammann’s reaction was instant. Jews of Kaišiadorys (also Žiežmariai and Žasliai) were killed on 26 August 1941 (other references indicate 27 August). Author [of the document] is not aware of the circumstances of this tragedy. Report by K. Jäger indicates that in Kaišiadorys 1911 Jewish men, women and children were executed. It is known that the Jews were being shot in Strošiūnai forest, about 3 km north form Žiežmariai, at Vladikiškiai Village. Victims were buried in three dozen metres-long ditches22.On 1 September 1941, the chief of Kaišiadorys Police Station reported to the Trakai County governor that the Jews of Kaišiadorys had been executed on 27 August 1941. They were executed by an auxiliary police squad which came from Kaunas and German soldiers.23 Apparently, it must have been the notorious J. Hamann’s “Flying Squad”. The governor of Trakai County in his turn informed the leadership of Vilnius County about the fact that “not a single person of Jewish nationality any longer remains in Kaišaidorys, Žasliai and Žiežmariai” and asked for the instructions “on handling the movable and immovable property that used to belong to the Jews”.24 The property of the executed Jews was temporarily placed under the authority of Rural District self-governments. After a few days the governor of Trakai County instructed the chiefs of rural district self-governments to draw up an inventory of all the property of the Jews by creating individual documents on each family. The local administration was also instructed to put up the immovable property of the Jews for lease in auctions to the local people, and sort out the movable property and retain it within the police authority until a special order came.25

[Roberto]

I didn't say that the document explicitly refers to "mass graves used to bury Jews". The argument is that "Jewish mass grave" would not have been a term used for a mass grave containing something other than dead Jews, for the reasons explained. And that, besides, the possibility of the mass graves in question containing something other than dead Jews is not borne out by other evidence, whereas all related evidence points to mass graves containing the bodies of Jews who had met a violent death.

Please, substantiate the "argument is that "Jewish mass grave" would not have been a term used for a mass grave containing something other than dead Jews" with authoritative (or even testimonial) evidence related to DOK 239. Please, quote the parts of the related evidence of DOK 239 which explicitly "points to mass graves containing the bodies of Jews who had met a violent death". Let's see it.

It is not known who exactly ordered the systematic killing of Jews in Semeliškių.

We know from the Jäger Report that it was someone from the Teilkommando des EK.3 in Wilna mentioned on page 5 of the Jäger Report, which was obviously in charge of Vilnius and communities in the surrounding regions such as Semeliškių. The man from the Teilkommando who ordered the killing could have been Peter Eisenbarth, Erich Wolff, Martin Weiss or August Hering. Unless our objective is to press charges against any of these individuals, it's irrelevant which of them gave the order.

It is not known who exactly carried the order, dug the mass grave and systematic killed the Jews in Semeliškių in 1941.

Mass graves were dug either by Lithuanian auxiliaries or by the Jews to be executed. The killing was done by Germans of the Teilkommando and/or Lithuanian auxiliaries. Unless our objective is to press charges against any specific individual involved in the killing, it's irrelevant whether we have further information about the mentioned details or not.

It is not known where exactly the mass grave in Semeliškių was dug and how many bodies were really buried there.

As to the location of the mass grave, the available evidence (including the shape of the area) points to the lower-lying part of the fenced in area containing the monument. As to how many bodies were buried there, the choice is between just the 962 Jews mentioned in the Jäger Report or those 962 plus an additional 58 or so later buried in the same grave. Not exactly a significant difference.

It is not known if all Jews of Semeliškių were really killed.

The Jäger Report suggests that they were, but maybe some survived the massacre in hiding. Either way it's irrelevant to this discussion.

It is not known if the mass grave in Semeliškių have just have the corpses of Jews, gentiles, animals or a combination of all.

The case for the corpses of 962 Jews and maybe an additional 58 gentiles (e.g. Soviet prisoners of war) is strong. The case for there also being animals in the grave, on the other hand, is rather weak and based on a far-fetched interpretation of DOK 239.

It is not known who erected the symbolic 1965 monument in the Dargonių forest cemetery.

That may be so as far as the knowledge of participants in this discussion is concerned, but it is also irrelevant.

Finally, you fail to accept the Lithuanian land register has no record of any Jewish mass grave in the Dargonių forest cemetery.

I have no problem with the Lithuanian land register not specifically mentioning a mass grave, actually. My argument is that the presence of a mass grave is implied in the place's identification as a place where Jews were massacred.

It seems no related evidence of DOK 239 can be shown which explicitly "points to mass graves containing the bodies of Jews who had met a violent death" in Semeliškių, but instead assumptions are being made based mostly on belief and leaps of faith.

Assumptions are based on reason and logic, not on belief and leaps of faith. The only known event in the area that could have created something meriting the designation "Jewish mass grave" was the massacre of 962 Jews recorded on page 6 of the Jäger Report.

None of the above changes the fact that "the place of massacre of the Jews" implies a mass grave at that place, meaning that "graves" means both individual graves and a mass grave (or only the latter, as the individual graves are mentioned elsewhere), and that the fenced-in area is much bigger than would correspond to the individual graves alone, which occupy only small fraction of the area.

That would be true if there was a record of a Jewish mass grave in the Lithuanian land register of the Dargonių forest cemetery terrain. There is none.

Unless the Lithuanian authorities referring to the area as "the place of massacre of the Jews" assumed that the massacre's victims were left lying around for animals to feed on them (which is unlikely), and unless a realistic alternative explanation for the fencing-in of an area much larger than that corresponding to the few individual graves in the higher parts of that area can be provided, the reasonable assumption is still the one that "the place of massacre of the Jews" implies the existence of a mass grave in which the massacred Jews were buried.

And how do you explain the size of the fenced-in area including the monument, of which the individual graves occupy only a small fraction?

The Dargonių forest cemetery terrain includes 6 marked areas for individuals graves (see here and here).

That may be so, but the area is still much too large for just 6 individual graves.

No, reaching a conclusion based on several indicators, none of which is the conclusion itself. The other way round. You need to explain why you think that the above indications (including without limitation the depression) don't support my assumption.

For your assumption to be true you have to first prove the exactly location, dimension and content of the 30m long Semeliškių Jewish mass grave described in DOK 239.

Proof of the grave's location and contents follows from the conjunction of the various elements of evidence I have mentioned. Proof without taking those elements into consideration would require excavation, which is neither something I can do nor something that is reasonably necessary to support the conclusion that the grave in question is where I think it is.

That's right. So it can neither be assumed nor ruled out that there was a Soviet excavation at the place in question. The question remains open.

As it remains the absence of any evidence of a Soviet excavation occurring in Semeliškių.

Absence of evidence known to the participants in this discussion does not necessarily mean absence of evidence at all.

The source you quote cannot be taken as proof that the Soviet ChGK based its conclusions only on "anecdotal, hearsay and testimonial evidence", as there are publicly available examples of cases in which excavations and exhumations were carried out by Soviet investigators (and what is publicly available is probably just a fraction of what exists in this respect).

In the absence of any evidence of a Soviet excavation occurring in Semeliškių, the Soviet CHGK reports about Semeliškių can only come from "anecdotal, hearsay and testimonial evidence".

That conclusion might be reached after reading the whole report and not finding any mention of excavations there, but not on the basis of a published fraction of the report only.

I said that Germans gave the orders and were thus primarily responsible for the killing of civilians, which as we known from other evidence were Jews, in the Semeliškių. (...) So my assumption (that Germans were primarily responsible for the massacre) is duly substantiated, and there's no need to procure primary sources about specific individual perpetrators.

How do you know it was a German who gave the original order to kill civilians in Semeliškių if you do not even know the identity of the person who gave the original order?

Because there are two indications in this direction, one being the depositions of Lithuanian participants in the killing and the other being the information that the killing was done by the Teilkommando of EK3 in charge of Vilnius and the surrounding area. The rank and file of the Teilkommando and/or its auxiliaries may have included or been Lithuanians, but its commanders were Germans.

The other way round. Where is the proof that Wette, who is a noted historian, invented the statement in question? The source reference is the following (Wette, Jäger, p. 206):

Schreiben der Zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen vom 5.12.1989 an den Verf.; Anlage: Vermerk der Zentralen Stelle vom 2.5.1963 über die Überlassung einer Reihe von Originaldokumenten durch das Aussenministerium der UdSSR,

Translation:

Letter from the Central Bureau of the Federal States’ Judicial Administrations to the author dated 5.12.1989; attachment: note of the Central Bureau dated 2.5.1963 about the handing over of a number of original documents by the Foreign Ministry of the USSR.

What Soviet entity exactly and where in Lithuania exactly? I don't know. Maybe that is stated in the Central Bureau's note dated 2.5.1963 mentioned by Wette, see quote above. What is the relevance of this question?

The primary source for Wette statement is not authoritative evidence produced by the Soviets in 1944, but instead a "note of the Central Bureau dated 2.5.1963 about the handing over of a number of original documents by the Foreign Ministry of the USSR". It appears Wette made a conjecture based on an undisclosed statement in the note. So not really proof the Soviets know about the Jäger Report in 1944, even less the figure in the Soviet CHGK reports about Semeliškių comes from the Jäger Report.

Actually a conjecture by Wette is rather unlikely. What is more realistic is that the document’s provenance (found by the Soviets in Lithuania in 1944) is stated in the note of the Central Bureau as being information provided by the Foreign Ministry of the USSR when handing over the document. Whether the figure in the Soviet CHGK reports about Semeliškių took the Jäger Report into consideration is not clear, but it remains a possibility. The precise figure stated in the reports ("precise" meaning as opposed to something like "about 1,000") could have resulted from an addition of Jäger’s figure and a figure for further killings established on hand of eyewitness testimonies. Or it could have resulted from the count of bodies extracted from the grave.

This means that, except for the working Jews and their families in the mentioned places, which do not include Semeliškių, Jäger's Einsaztkommando 3 killed each and every Jew at the places mentioned in the report.

Then who are the additional 58 "innocent citizens" (or "civilians") from the Soviet CHGK reports about Semeliškių if there was no more Jews in Semeliškių to be killed in accordance with the Jäger Report?

I don't know. They may have been prisoners of war or civilians executed for having helped pro-Soviet partisans. What is the relevance of this question?

You are offering authoritative evidence which you do not know what exactly it proves.

What authoritative evidence exactly are you referring to, and what is the relevance of your question?

The standard scholarly work on what happened to Lithuania's Jews during the German occupation seems to be The Holocaust in Lithuania between 1941 and 1944, by Arūnas Bubnys, D. Kuodytė, Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, 2005. Bubnys also wrote an essay about "Holocaust in Lithuanian Province in 1941", which is available under http://www.docscopic.info/flashoflight/ ... ce_ENG.pdf. Semeliškių (Semeliškés) is mentioned on pp. 52-53.

Semeliškes Ghetto existed for about two weeks. During the first days of October, about 20-30 Security Police and SD special force policemen came by lorry from Vilnius to Semeliškes. One German came with them by car. Together with the chief of Semeliškes Rural District and the chief of the Police Station, he went to examine the future place of killings. A trench was dug up about 2 km from Semeliškes in the direction of Trakai, near the lake. The German did not like the selected place, however, and he ordered to dig a trench in another place on the edge of the forest. While another trench was dug, the killers of the special force stayed in Semeliškes. The extermination of Semeliškes Ghetto was carried out on 6 October 1941.

What is the primary source for the above statements from Arūnas Bubnys? Who is the German above in the underlined sentences Arūnas Bubnys is talking about?

"Interrogation minutes of J. Ragavičius of 17 August 1970, LSA, doc.col. K-1, inv.sched. 45, file 1851, p.p. 155-157; interrogation minutes of B. Kapačiūnas of 11 September 1970, ibid., file 1847, p.p. 236-236 a.p.". The German mentioned is not identified, presumably because the interrogated persons didn't know his name. It may have been Peter Eisenbarth, Erich Wolff, August Hering or Martin Weiss (see my post under viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2916&start=80#p109880). Weiss is mentioned in connection with the Trakai massacre on p. 52 of Bubnys' article.

Another incognito perpetrator whose identity neither you nor Bubnys really knows, but believe it was really a German without proof because Ragavičius and Kapačiūnas said so in interrogations done in 1970.

Actually the depositions of Ragavičius and Kapačiūnas are relevant evidence and thus part of the proof, and what the interrogated Lithuanian individuals stated matches Jäger’s mention of the Teilkommando of his EK 3 as having carried out the massacre. As I said before, the Teilkommando’s rank and file and/or auxiliaries may have included or been Lithuanians, but the men giving orders were clearly Germans, otherwise Jäger wouldn’t have referred to the unit as a Teilkommando of his EK3. Besides, the names of German individuals belonging to that Teilkommando are known. It is highly unlikely that any of them would have left the organization and execution of a mass killing entirely to Lithuanians. As I wrote before, Martin Weiss is mentioned in connection with the Trakai massacre on p. 52 of Bubnys' article. Trakai is not far away from Semeliškių, so it stands to reason that Weiss gave the orders there as well.