IV. Marching route and mass shootings of Einsatzkommando 9 to 20 October 1941

A few days after the initial attack on the Soviet Union, the Einsatzkommando 9 from Pretszch/Dueben began moving on the 26 or 27 June 1941.  It was moving to Warsaw, where it arrived on 28 June 1941.  There the already mentioned Ordnungspolizei Squad [Ordnungspolizei = Order Police] (the 3rd squad of the 2nd company of Police Reserve Battalion 9) led by Polizeihauptwachtmeister Neubert was placed under it.  Now the Einsatzkommando marched northeast toward East Prussia and once spent the night on Reich soil near the East Prussian city Treuburg.  Here Dr. Filbert made it known to the Kommando leaders that among the tasks of the Einsatzkommando was most importantly shooting all Jews in the occupied territories.  He informed them that Hitler had ordered these killings and closed his speech with demands for unconditional obedience and the comment that a soldier at the front had no choice in his position.  The accused Greiffenberger, Schneider and Tunnat realized that the mass murders so ordered were not for military purposes, but that they were supposed to result in the annihilation of a group considered inferior by national socialist views.  All of the accused were fully conscious that they were supposed to participate in criminal acts.  But there were no objections to the execution order.  On 1 July the Einsatzkommando crossed the Reich border en route to Vilnius and reached the town Varina, 70 km southeast of Vilnius, where they spent the night in tents in the woods.  On the next day, they reached Vilnius.

A. Section Command Grodno/Lida

At the forest camp in Varina, Dr. Filbert ordered a partial Kommando of about 20 men under the leadership of Obersturmbahnfuehrer Haupt of the Polizeireferat, to march via Grodno and Lida to Vilnius and to “overhaul from a security police standpoint” the named towns in the sense of the order to execute Jews.  In executing this order, Haupt had at least 80 men arrested in Grodno or Lida (more probably Lida), who had been denounced to members of the Kommando as Jews by complaisant inhabitants, gathered them in a vacant lot, led them about 2 km into the countryside where bomb craters seemed appropriate for covering over the victims.  The arrested men were driven in groups of five to the edge of a crater and were forced to stand facing it.  They were shot by carbine salvos without being blindfolded.  To the extent they did not fall into the crater on their own, the next victims were forced to throw them in prior to being shot themselves.

The level open land made it possible for inhabitants, in spite of the execution site being blocked off, to watch from a street from a distance of  300 to 400 meters.  Drivers of the Kommando squad, among them the witness Ulmer, also watched the proceedings.

Haupt’s squad returned after a few days, on 5 July,  to the main Einsatzkommando in Vilnius, which had in the meantime occupied a section of the building of the Soviet Secret Police (NKVD).  Dr. Filbert and most of the Kommando members with rank of SS-Fuehrer were quartered in a hotel.

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