Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941 also known as the Great Action was the largest mass murder

Mass murder

Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...

 of Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...

.

By the order of SS-Standartenführer

Standartenführer

Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...

 Karl Jäger

Karl Jäger

Karl Jäger was a Swiss-born SS-Standartenführer and Einsatzkommando leader who perpetrated acts of genocide.-Early life and career:...

 and SS-Rottenführer

Rottenführer

Rottenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in the year 1932. The rank of Rottenführer was used by several Nazi paramilitary groups, among them the Sturmabteilung , the Schutzstaffel and was senior to the paramilitary rank of Sturmmann.The insignia for Rottenführer...

 Helmut Rauca, the Sonderkommando

Sonderkommando

Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...

 under the leadership of SS-Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

 Joachim Hamann, and 8 to 10 men from Einsatzkommando 3, in collaboration with Lithuanian partisans

Lithuanian partisans (1941)

Lithuanian partisans is a generic term used during World War II by Nazi officials and quoted in books by modern historians to describe Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazis during the first months of the occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany...

, murdered 2,007 Jewish men, 2,920 women, and 4,273 children in a single day at the Ninth Fort

Ninth Fort

The Ninth Fort is a stronghold in the northern part of Šilainiai elderate, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is a part of the Kaunas Fortress, which was constructed in the late 19th century. During the occupation of Kaunas and the rest of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, the fort was used as a prison and...

, Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

.

The Germans and Lithuanians destroyed the small ghetto

Kaunas Ghetto

The Kovno ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 40,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort...

 on October 4, 1941, and killed almost all of its inhabitants at the Ninth Fort

Ninth Fort

The Ninth Fort is a stronghold in the northern part of Šilainiai elderate, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is a part of the Kaunas Fortress, which was constructed in the late 19th century. During the occupation of Kaunas and the rest of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, the fort was used as a prison and...

. Later that same month, on October 28, SS-Rottenführer Helmut Rauca of the Kaunas Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 (secret state police) conducted the selection in the Kaunas Ghetto

Kaunas Ghetto

The Kovno ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 40,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort...

. All ghetto inhabitants are forced to assemble in a central square of the ghetto. Rauca selected 9,200 Jewish men, women, and children, about one-third of the ghetto population. The next day, October 29, they shot these people at the Ninth Fort in huge pits dug in advance.