The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XXI

The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union

This comprehensive survey of how the Germans murdered most of the Jews in the occupied territories of the USSR between 1941 and 1944 describes the organization and advance of the Einsatzgruppen, and the cooperation of the Waffen-SS, the German military administration, German police battalions, and police units composed of local volunteers. The three phases in the killing operations are delineated: June 22, 1941 to winter 1941/42, when most of the Jews in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, eastern Belorussia, eastern Ukraine, Moldavia, and the occupied areas of the RSFSR were killed; spring 1942 to the end of 1942, when most of the Jews in western Ukraine and Belorussia, and the southern areas of the RSFSR, were killed; and the beginning of 1943 to the summer 1944, when the Jews who had survived until then were killed. Large numbers of local residents voluntarily collaborated with the Germans throughout the occupied areas. Details are given on where, when, and how the murders were executed in various towns. Of the some 2,750,000–2,900,000 Jews who came under German rule in the USSR, very few survived, mostly in the western regions.