Reference

Historical Timeline

A chronological record of published historical events.

1941

Sept. 11, 1941

Mass shooting of the Jews of Seirijai, Lithuania

Baraučiškė village, Seirijai district, LithuaniaOn September 11, 1941, a unit from the 1st Battalion, commanded by Bronius Norkus and Juozas Obelenis, arrived in Seirijai from Alytus. Local members of the Lithuanian self-defense unit, identifiable by their white armbands, marched the Jewish population to the killing site in Baraučiškės Forest, approximately 3 kilometers from Seirijai, and guarded them during the executions. Men were taken to the site first and shot from the edges of pits into which they had been placed. Women and children were subsequently taken to the site and shot in a separate pit. According to the Jäger Report, 953 Jews were murdered in Seirijai on September 11, 1941: 229 men, 384 women, and 340 children.

Sept. 29, 1941 – Sept. 30, 1941

Babyn Yar Massacre

On 29–30 September 1941, members of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, under the command of SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, together with personnel from the headquarters of Einsatzgruppe C and two battalions of Police Regiment South, massacred the Jews of Kyiv at the Babyn Yar ravine. The victims were ordered to report for supposed resettlement, forced to surrender their belongings and undress, and then taken in groups into the ravine, where they were shot. According to Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Report No. 106, 33,771 Jews were murdered over the two days.In August–September 1943, as part of Sonderaktion 1005, approximately 300 prisoners from the Syrets camp were forced to exhume and burn the bodies from the mass graves at Babyn Yar in an attempt to destroy evidence of the killings.