Most of the actions – especially those from late August onwards – focused on Jews, with Jaeger’s entries usually made in this format “Nov. 3, 41 – Lazdijai - 485 Jews, 511 Jewesses, 539 J children - [total] 1,535.” An entry of 29 October is a good example, in Jaeger’s words, of how the executions were intended to eliminate Jews: “Oct. 29, 41 -Kauen - F. IX - 2007 Jews, 2920 Jewesses 4273 Jewish children (cleansing of superfluous Jews from the ghetto) - [total] 9,200.” In entry after entry, Jews are listed as the execution victims, always named as a special category. Throughout the campaign, which was in Jaeger's term systematic, the scope escalated - with daily murder totals climbing and the victims expanding from mainly adult male Jews to include all Jews. Jewish women and children were increasingly targeted through August. Another indication of the escalation in the actions against Jews is the fact that only 200 of the 2,000 non-Jewish victims killed during the five months of actions were executed after the third week in August. Not all the Jewish victims were local, as we know: in fact, nearly 5,000 of the victims were transported from cities in Germany and Austria, heading for Riga but diverted to Kovno and executed there on 25 November and 29 November: “Nov. 25, 41 - Kauen - F. IX - 1159 “ 1600 “ 175 “ (evacuees from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt am Main) -2,934” and “Nov. 29, 41 - “ “ 693 “ 1155 “ 152 (evacuees from Vienna and Breslau) - 2,000.”
There are indications that the Jewish victims were not passive but resisted the actions being undertaken against them. At Zagare, on 2 October, Jaeger states that 2,236 Jews were killed, adding that “as these Jews were led away, a mutiny took place, which nonetheless was immediately put down. 7 partisans were wounded” (that is, Lithuanian collaborators with the Germans). Jaeger also wrote that “Attempts to escape, which took place every now and then, were prevented exclusively by my men at the risk of their lives.” Note that these specific cases involve Jewish victims, targeted for execution, reacting with force or trying to escape the Germans to prevent their being killed - and not organized Jewish resistance to the German occupation, which only evolved later than the time period covered by Jaeger's report.
In a few cases, Jaeger provided an additional rationale, beyond eliminating Jews to render Lithuania free of Jews, as a pretext for the mass murder actions. For example, Jaeger described a few of the executions as reprisal actions, in which a large number of Jews was selected for killing in response to a purported shooting or for supporting Soviets. These instances included the murders carried out on 18 August at Fort IV in Kovno – which claimed the lives of “689 Jews, 402 Jewesses, 1 fem. Pole, 711 intell. Jews from the ghetto” and which Jaeger described “as a reprisal for an act of sabotage.” In Jewish sources, however, this action is explained as “the intellectuals action,” in which, according to Avraham Tory’s diary, “The Jewish Council is obliged to provide today 500 Jews, namely, men from the educated classes, to be brought to the authorities at the Ghetto gate.” Also in Kovno, on 4 October, the Germans killed 1,845 Jews – among them 818 children – in a “punishment operation” because “a German policeman was shot at in the ghetto.” Again, Jewish sources, and historians, differ with the pretext stated by Jaeger, explaining this action as the planned liquidation of the city’s small ghetto, with holders of Jordan-scheinen (work cards) saved from the killing, which also included burning of the Jewish hospital with patients inside. As we know from earlier discussion in this thread, in the Great Provocation action of 2 September in Vilna, which claimed over 3,700 Jewish victims, the Germans claimed that a shooting had occurred at the corner of Glezer and Wielka, provoking a reprisal; according to Jaeger, this was a “Special operation because Jews had shot at German soldiers,” although most historians doubt any such shooting occurred. The report also includes an action on 11-12 September in Uzusalis, which Jaeger described as a “Penal operation against inhabitants who fed Russ. partisans and some of whom were in possession of weapons “; 43 non-Jews were shot in this action - no Jews were victims of this "penal operation," almost all of the executions of Jews being for the express purpose of "cleansing" Lithuania of its Jewish population. Jaeger also listed a shooting involving a lone partisan, in which case 3,200 Jews, 5 Lithuanian Communists, 1 Pole, and 1 partisan were murdered in Rokiskis on 15-16 August.
Accordingly, of more than 130,000 Jewish victims, 7,000 or so were said by Jaeger to have been shot in reprisals, that is, innocent people killed on account of purported actions taken by other unidentified persons in alleged anti-German actions, which Jaeger left non-specific. Just three of the 110+ actions are described in any way as relating, however tenuously, to partisans acting to oppose the German occupation and there are no specific details given for such oppositional action, making the rationale flimsy in comparison to the overwhelming majority of the cases. After 22 August, the victims included over twice as many Jewish women and children as Jewish men - a proportion further rendering groundless the latter-day arguments that the killings were organized against partisans. Almost all victims, too, were taken from cities, small towns, or villages to rural killing sites - rather than being found operating in partisan units in the countryside (in Kovno, most victims were killed in two forts on the outskirts of the city). To reiterate, 98% of the victims reported by Jaeger were Jews, mostly described as being killed simply as Jews.
As noted earlier in this thread, Jaeger’s report did not cover all the Jewish victims of the German extermination actions of summer and fall 1941. As EK9, not Jaeger’s EK3, operated in Vilna during July, the totals for Vilna are not complete (many of these unlisted executions are included in the Eriegnismeldungen). Also the Yom Kippur action in Vilna, which EK3 did carry out, is missing from Jaeger’s report. Nor were Jews shot or killed in other ways in the cities, for example, during roundup actions, always listed. And December’s killings, which were not as large as those of the earlier fall, came after the report was submitted and thus do not figure in the totals.
