tuberculosis as well as to an unprecedented mortality rate (43,239 funerals
in Warsaw in 1941).
The German invasion of the Soviet Union brought in the most horrifying
link in the chain of the endless suffering of the Jewish masses – the
Ausrottung, that is, the physical destruction of Jews, who are purportedly
“responsible” for the war, with the campaign conducted on a scale unknown
to past generations. The second stage strikes one with its ruthlessness and
unparalleled consistency, which is worthy of a better cause.⁸²⁶
In this report we desire to provide a chronologically and factually accurate
overview of some of the campaigns conducted during the second stage.
It shall serve as only an excerpt from the brown book of the Hitlerite beast’s
crimes, which have already taken a toll on 700,000 Polish Jews.
Vilna
The commonplace looting of Jewish flats, already known from areas of
German activity in other occupied territories, this outright robbery and plunder
combined with the raping of Jewish girls, other sex offences and massacres
of the entire civilian population – this marked the beginning of the Hitlerite
administration in Vilna in the second half of last year. Along with the introduction
of the disgraceful yellow patches, the period of night-time roundups
of men began, who were dragged to “work” or actually to be subjected to
various and sophisticated tortures. The Germans did not fail to impose levies
in the order of a few million, which the Polish population significantly
helped to pay.
But a minor incident was enough for Jewish Vilna to be reduced to rubble
and for almost all of its residents to be brutally murdered. In early November,
in a moment of inattention the šauliai⁸²⁷ shot German soldiers who happened
to be passing by, instead of Jewish labourers. The Germans used that incident
as a pretext to set the destructive machine in motion, that is, to launch
the campaign to physically destroy the Jews. According to testimonies by
826 Meaning that Germans were killing Jews with ruthlessness and consistency worthy of
a better cause.
827 Šauliai (šaulys – Lithuanian for rifleman) – members of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union,
which was a voluntary paramilitary organisation established in 1919. During the German
occupation the Union played a significant role in the capturing of Jews in ghettos and
their transport to execution sites.
