Ponary massacre
Encyclopedia
The Ponary massacre was the mass-murder of 100,000 people, mostly Polish Jews, by German SD
and SS and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators Sonderkommando
collaborators
(Special SD and German Security Police Squad Ypatingasis būrys
units)
during World War II
and the Holocaust in Reichskommissariat Ostland
. The executions took place between July 1941 and August 1944 near the railway station of Paneriai
, then in Poland
and now a suburb of Vilnius
, Lithuania. Some 70,000 Jews were murdered in Ponary, along with estimated 20,000 Poles
and 8,000 Russians
, many from nearby Vilnius.
into Poland
, the town of Ponary became part of the Wilno Voivodship, (Kresy
region). In September 1939, the region was taken over by the Soviets
, and after about a month transferred to Lithuania. After the annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union
, in June 1940, the Soviets began constructing an oil storage facility near Ponary in conjunction with a military airfield. That project was never completed, as in 1941 the area was occupied
by Nazi Germany
. The Nazis decided to take advantage of the large pits dug for the oil warehouses to dispose of bodies of unwanted locals. Their policy was to kill every Jewish individual in Lithuania, and the Baltic
countries became the first place Nazis would mass execute Jews. Out of 70,000 Jews living in Vilnius, only 7,000 would survive the war; the Jewish culture in Vilnius, one of the greatest in Europe, ceased to exist.
The massacre
s began in July, 1941, when Einsatzkommando 9 arrived in Vilnius, rounded up 5,000 Jewish men of Vilnius and took them to Paneriai where they were shot. Further mass killings, often aided by Lithuanian volunteers, from Ypatingasis burys
, took place throughout the summer and fall. In September, Vilnius Ghetto was created. By the end of the year, about 21,700 Jews had been killed at Paneriai. The pace of killings slowed in 1942, as slave workers were appropriated by Wehrmacht
.
The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war exhumation by the forces of Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front
the majority (50,000–70,000) of the victims were Polish and Lithuanian Jews
from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest were primarily Poles
(about 20,000) and Russians
(about 8,000). The Polish victims were mostly members of Polish intelligentsia
(teachers, professors of the Stefan Batory University like Kazimierz Pelczar
, priests like Romuald Świrkowski) and members of Armia Krajowa
resistance movement
. Among the first victims were approximately 7,500 Soviet POWs shot in 1941 soon after Operation Barbarossa
begun. At later stages there were also smaller numbers of victims of other nationalities, including local Russians, Roma and Lithuanians, particularly communists sympathizers and members of general Povilas Plechavičius
' Local Lithuanian Detachment who refused to follow German orders.
As Soviet troops advanced in 1943, the Nazi units tried to cover up the crime under the Aktion 1005 directive. Eighty inmates from the nearby Stutthof concentration camp
prisoners were formed into Leichenkommando ("corpse units"). The workers were forced to dig up bodies, pile them on wood and burn them. The ashes were then ground up, mixed with sand and buried. After months of this gruesome work, the brigade managed to escape on April 19, 1944. Eleven of the group survived the war; their testimony contributed to revealing the massacre.
, Józef Mackiewicz
, Kazimierz Sakowicz
and others. Nonetheless the Soviet regime, which supported the resettlement of Poles from the Kresy
, found it convenient to deny that Poles or Jews were singled out for massacre in Paneriai; the official line was that Paneriai was a site of massacre of Soviet citizens only. This Soviet generalization and distortion, as well as the fact that it was one of the biggest massacres of Poles in the East, led some - like Polish Prime Minister, Jerzy Buzek
- to compare this to the Katyn Massacre
. On 22 October 2000, a decade after the fall of communism, in independent Lithuania, an effort by a several Polish organizations resulted in raising a monument (a cross) to fallen Polish citizens, during an official ceremony in which representatives of both Polish and Lithuanian governments (Bronisław Komorowski, Polish Minister of Defence
, and his Lithuanian counterpart), as well as several NGOs, took place.
The site of the massacre is commemorated by a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, a memorial to the Polish victims and a small museum. The executions at Paneriai are currently being investigated by the Gdańsk
branch of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
.
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
and SS and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators 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...
collaborators
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
(Special SD and German Security Police Squad Ypatingasis būrys
Ypatingasis burys
Ypatingasis būrys or Special SD and German Security Police Squad was a Nazi killing squad of approximately 50 men, also called the "Lithuanian equivalent of Sonderkommando", operating in the Vilnius Region...
units)
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust in Reichskommissariat Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland
Reichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...
. The executions took place between July 1941 and August 1944 near the railway station of Paneriai
Paneriai
Paneriai is a neighborhood of Vilnius, situated about 10 kilometres away from the city center. It is the largest elderate in the Vilnius city municipality. It is located on low forested hills, on the Vilnius-Warsaw road...
, then in Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
and now a suburb of Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Lithuania. Some 70,000 Jews were murdered in Ponary, along with estimated 20,000 Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and 8,000 Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, many from nearby Vilnius.
Background
Following the incorporation of the Republic of Central LithuaniaRepublic of Central Lithuania
The Republic of Central Lithuania or Middle Lithuania , or simply Central Lithuania , was a short-lived political entity, which did not gain international recognition...
into Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
, the town of Ponary became part of the Wilno Voivodship, (Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
region). In September 1939, the region was taken over by the Soviets
Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...
, and after about a month transferred to Lithuania. After the annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, in June 1940, the Soviets began constructing an oil storage facility near Ponary in conjunction with a military airfield. That project was never completed, as in 1941 the area was occupied
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The Nazis decided to take advantage of the large pits dug for the oil warehouses to dispose of bodies of unwanted locals. Their policy was to kill every Jewish individual in Lithuania, and the Baltic
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
countries became the first place Nazis would mass execute Jews. Out of 70,000 Jews living in Vilnius, only 7,000 would survive the war; the Jewish culture in Vilnius, one of the greatest in Europe, ceased to exist.
Massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
s began in July, 1941, when Einsatzkommando 9 arrived in Vilnius, rounded up 5,000 Jewish men of Vilnius and took them to Paneriai where they were shot. Further mass killings, often aided by Lithuanian volunteers, from Ypatingasis burys
Ypatingasis burys
Ypatingasis būrys or Special SD and German Security Police Squad was a Nazi killing squad of approximately 50 men, also called the "Lithuanian equivalent of Sonderkommando", operating in the Vilnius Region...
, took place throughout the summer and fall. In September, Vilnius Ghetto was created. By the end of the year, about 21,700 Jews had been killed at Paneriai. The pace of killings slowed in 1942, as slave workers were appropriated by Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
.
The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war exhumation by the forces of Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front
2nd Belorussian Front
The 2nd Belorussian Front was a military formation of Army group size of the Soviet Army during the Second World War...
the majority (50,000–70,000) of the victims were Polish and Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...
from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest were primarily Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
(about 20,000) and Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
(about 8,000). The Polish victims were mostly members of Polish intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
(teachers, professors of the Stefan Batory University like Kazimierz Pelczar
Kazimierz Pelczar
Kazimierz Pelczar was a Polish academic and physician. Professor of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius and pioneer of oncology research and treatment, he was murdered in the Ponary massacre.- Biography :...
, priests like Romuald Świrkowski) and members of Armia Krajowa
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
. Among the first victims were approximately 7,500 Soviet POWs shot in 1941 soon after Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
begun. At later stages there were also smaller numbers of victims of other nationalities, including local Russians, Roma and Lithuanians, particularly communists sympathizers and members of general Povilas Plechavičius
Povilas Plechavicius
Povilas Plechavičius was an Imperial Russian and then Lithuanian military officer and statesman. In the service of Lithuania he rose to the rank of General of the army in the interwar period...
' Local Lithuanian Detachment who refused to follow German orders.
As Soviet troops advanced in 1943, the Nazi units tried to cover up the crime under the Aktion 1005 directive. Eighty inmates from the nearby Stutthof concentration camp
Stutthof concentration camp
Stutthof was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of 1937 German borders.Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo . The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of...
prisoners were formed into Leichenkommando ("corpse units"). The workers were forced to dig up bodies, pile them on wood and burn them. The ashes were then ground up, mixed with sand and buried. After months of this gruesome work, the brigade managed to escape on April 19, 1944. Eleven of the group survived the war; their testimony contributed to revealing the massacre.
Commemoration
Information about the massacre began to spread as early as 1943, due to the activities and works of Helena PasierbskaHelena Pasierbska
Helena Pasierbska-Wojtowicz is a Polish writer. Born in Wilno , member of Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego.During the Second World War she joined the Polish resistance organization and served as a curier and nurse. Took part in the Operation Ostra Brama...
, Józef Mackiewicz
Jozef Mackiewicz
Józef Mackiewicz was a Polish writer and commentator. He staunchly opposed communism, referring to himself as "anticommunist by nationality".- Life and career :...
, Kazimierz Sakowicz
Kazimierz Sakowicz
Kazimierz Sakowicz was a Polish journalist. Witness to the prolonged Ponary massacre, he chronicled much of it in his diary, which became one of the most known testaments to that atrocity of the Second World War, where about 100 000 of Jews, Poles and Russians were murdered by Germans and...
and others. Nonetheless the Soviet regime, which supported the resettlement of Poles from the Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
, found it convenient to deny that Poles or Jews were singled out for massacre in Paneriai; the official line was that Paneriai was a site of massacre of Soviet citizens only. This Soviet generalization and distortion, as well as the fact that it was one of the biggest massacres of Poles in the East, led some - like Polish Prime Minister, Jerzy Buzek
Jerzy Buzek
Jerzy Karol Buzek is a Polish engineer, academic lecturer and politician who was the ninth post-Cold War Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001...
- to compare this to the Katyn Massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
. On 22 October 2000, a decade after the fall of communism, in independent Lithuania, an effort by a several Polish organizations resulted in raising a monument (a cross) to fallen Polish citizens, during an official ceremony in which representatives of both Polish and Lithuanian governments (Bronisław Komorowski, Polish Minister of Defence
Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Poland
Ministry of National Defence is the office of government in Poland under the Minister of Defence. During the Second Polish Republic and World War II it was called the Ministry of Military Affairs...
, and his Lithuanian counterpart), as well as several NGOs, took place.
The site of the massacre is commemorated by a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, a memorial to the Polish victims and a small museum. The executions at Paneriai are currently being investigated by the Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
branch of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
.
See also
- List of massacres in Lithuania
- Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany
- Lithuanian Security PoliceLithuanian Security PoliceThe Lithuanian Security Police, also referred to as Saugumas , was a Lithuanian Nazi collaborationist police force that operated from 1941 to 1944. It had a staff of approximately 400 people, 250 of them in Kaunas and around another 130 in Vilnius....
(Lietuvos saugumo policija) - Bleiburg massacreBleiburg massacreThe Bleiburg massacre, which also encompasses Operation Keelhaul is a term encompassing events that took place during mid-May 1945 near the Carinthian town of Bleiburg, itself some four kilometres from the Austrian-Slovenian border....
External links
- Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto: wartime photographs & documents - vilnaghetto.com
- Ponary Forest via Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- US Holocaust Museum article on death of Vilna's Jews
- RTFT article on death of Vilna's Jews
- holocaustresearchproject
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnL0gQZa0tQ Tour of Ponar part 2
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ymAxQjLKmM&feature=related Tour of Ponar part 1
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEWPx5dfj8w&feature=related Yad Vashem interview about Ponar.
- Timothy Snyder, Neglecting the Lithuanian Holocaust, NYRBlog, July 25, 2011.
Further reading
- Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, eds., The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, Free Press, 1991, ISBN 0029174252
- Algis Kasperavičius, ""Lithuanian-Jewish relations in 1935-1944