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Gestapo Leader Reaches Lithuania “to Suppress Jewish Anti-nazi Activities

July 20, 1941
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The Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Lithuania is reported to be in panic over the arrival at Kaunas of the notorious Gestapo official, Richmann, who is in charge of Jewish affairs at the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin.

Richmann, who was born in the German colony of Sarona in Palestine, and who speaks a fluent Hebrew, is responsible for the arrests of thousands of Jews in Germany and for the merciless eviction of Jews from Vienna and the Protectorate to the Lublin district. His arrival at Lithuania is reported as being for the purpose “of suppressing Jewish anti-Nazi activities.”

The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung which reached Lisbon today from Berlin, reports that “many Jews in Kaunas have already been punished for the crimes they committed under the Bolshevik regime”. The German newspaper implies that executions of a large number of Jews have taken place. It adds that “the Jews who constituted forty percent of the Kaunas population are no longer seen in the street.”

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