| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Einsatzgruppen

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 10 months ago

 

Einsatzgruppen: the Killing Squads

 

"One hundred at a time, people were selected and told that they were going to wash up. They were told to undress and were promised new clothes after the bath. But when they reached the trenches the guards fell on them, beating and chasing them until they fell over each other and were immediately shot... The cries from the children and mothers were deafening, but the murderers calmly proceeded with their work."

~ William Mishell (Holocaust survivor)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

                                                     Einsatzgruppen Murder a Woman and Her Child

 

In 1941, a new terror emerged. Previous to this time, the Jews had been persecuted, mistreated, and denied their rights. However, they still had much to lose. The Einsatzgruppen were divided into units with three thousand volunteers each who traveled behind the army. As Hitler's empire stretched across Europe, the Einsatzgruppen murdered entire towns of Jews. From 1941 to 1942, when the Einsatzgruppen were finished with their gruesome work, 1.4 million Jews had been killed, however, this was just the beginning...many more would lose their lives in the Concentration Camps.

 

There were many reasons why Hitler established the death camps. For one, the Einsatzgruppen's raids were extrememly public. Villages from surrounding villages could see, hear, and even photograph the unfolding manslaughter. Also the time it took to shoot or burn an entire village was expensive and time consuming. The final reason was addressed in SS Kommandant Rudolf Hoss's memoir, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, " [There were] many suicides among the ranks of the the Special Action Squads who could no longer mentally endure wading in the bloodbath. Some of them went mad. Most...drank a great deal to help them get through this horrible work."

 

Read More about the Mobile Killing Units:

Einsatzgruppen 

The Einsatzgruppen Table of Contents 

Einsatzgruppen 

The SS Einsatzgruppen 

 

 

Return to The Final Solution

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.