Reliable information reaching here today from Nazi-occupied Lithuania reveals that mass-executions of Jews are taking place in practically every town in the Kaunas and Vilna districts. More than 10,000 Jews have been massacred by the Nazi authorities in five towns alone, the report discloses.
In the town of Shavli, the report states, approximately 7,000 Jews were massacred by the Nazi authorities. In Troki about 2,000 Jews were executed. More than 1,000 Jews were murdered in Nowo-Wileika. About 600 Jews were killed in Niemenchin. The number of Jews slain in the township of Eishyshok totals 180. In many other Lithuanian townships practically all Jews have been ruthlessly exterminated.
“Of the 70,000 Jews who were in Vilna prior to the occupation of that city by the Nazi armies, only 35,000 remain,” the report continues. “A large number of them have been deported to Ponar, a small town in the neighborhood. The Jews in the Kaunas ghetto are also being deported to ghettos and camps in the province.”
The report informs that before executing the Jews, the Nazis strip them of their clothes. The mass-executions are performed by machine guns. In several places, the Nazi police asked local non-Jewish school boys to help them in carrying out the executions which Nazi photographers calmly filmed. The boys, the report adds, were rewarded with property taken from the executed Jews.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
