21 Nov. 45

cleansing activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete annihilation of the Jews. Special detachments reinforced by selected units-in Lithuania partisan detachments, in Latvia units of the Latvian auxiliary police-therefore performed extensive executions both in the towns and in rural areas. The actions of the execution detachments were performed smoothly."


"The sum total of the Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105. During the pogroms in Kovno 3,800 Jews were eliminated, in the smaller towns about 1,200 Jews." "In Latvia, up to now a total of 30,000 Jews were executed. Five hundred were eliminated by pogroms in Riga." (L-180)

This is a captured report from the Commissioner of Sluzk on October 30, 1941 which describes the scene in more detail. It says:

".. The first lieutenant explained that the police battalion had received the assignment to effect the liquidation of all Jews here in the town of Sluzk, within two days .... Then I requested him to postpone the action one day. However, he rejected this with the remark that he had to carry out this action everywhere and in all towns and that only two days were allotted for Sluzk. Within these two days, the town of Sluzk had to be cleared of Jews by all means.... All Jews without exception were taken out of the factories and shops and deported in spite of our agreement. It is true that part of the Jews was moved by way of the ghetto where many of them were processed and still segregated by me, but a large part was loaded directly on trucks and liquidated without further delay outside of the town .... For the rest, as regards the execution of the action, I must point out to my deepest regret that the latter bordered already on sadism. The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality on the part of both the German police officers and particularly the Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, but also among them White Ruthenians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. The White Ruthenians were in greatest distress to free themselves from the encirclement. Regardless of the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also tradesmen, were mistreated in a terribly barbarous way in the face of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians themselves were also worked over with rubber clubs and rifle butts. There was no