How it was

One of the most important methods in the ideological and propaganda war against the Jews was to identify them as people who resisted the "new order". It was announced that the all Jews were partisans and that Jewry represented the ideological, personnel, and organizational base of the resistance.

The continual use of the term "war against the partisans" exerted a decisive influence on the mentality of the German army. Actions such as burning villages together with their inhabitants, mass killings of hostages, and participation in the extermination of Jews were perceived as legitimate measures in the struggle against partisan activity.

Four Einsatzgruppen ("operations groups") were attached to units of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front. They were expected to perform "special duties" to secure the rear of the army or the army group they were

accompanying, i.e. uncovering and annihilating anyone in the rear resisting the occupation regime. After negotiations between the Army and SS in March-May 1941, agreement was reached on the methods the Einsatzgruppen were to employ in the Soviet Union. Special measures were permitted against the civilian population "within the frame of their assignment and on their own responsibility"*. Command of the Einsatzgruppen was the responsibility of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA) within the SS. These decisions enabled the SS to operate with complete freedom on all Soviet territory under Germany Army control.

* R. Headland, Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943, London: Associated University Presses, 1992, p. 137. See also: Y. Arad, "The Holocaust of Soviet Jewry in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union", Yad Vashem Studies, XXI (1991), pp. 5-6.

The annihilation of Jews in Ukraine took place in several stages. According to instructions, in the first weeks, along with high- and middle-ranking Party members and people’s commissars, it was only Jews who were Party members or who worked for the government who were to be killed. However, by July-August 1941 there were oral instructions from Berlin that entire Jewish populations were to be included – not only the men, but also women, children, and the elderly. It was in Ukraine on August 19, 1941, in the city of Bila Tserkva, that children were shot en masse for the first time. These were small children, from a few months to seven years old.

The Einsatzgruppen, moving eastwards behind the Army front line, sought to eradicate any Jews in their field of operation. Doing so immediately was not possible – there were Jews living in a great many cities, towns and villages, and the number of Nazi execution squads was insufficient.

All the while, the Wehrmacht continued to advance at great speed. As the front moved further to the East, in fall 1941, areas of Western Ukraine up to the River Dnieper fell under the control of the German civil administration – the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Jews who had not been liquidated were moved into ghettos. Those able to work were exploited for the needs of the Reich until 1943 when the Germans retreated, liquidated the ghettos, and "cleansed" these areas one final time. Left-bank Ukraine, which remained a war zone and the rear of the front, was the domain of the German military administration: the Wehrmacht and SS. In these areas, Jews were killed at a far greater rate, usually without first moving them into ghettos, with mass executions conducted on the outskirts of the places occupied. Very quickly, there appeared "Babi Yars" on the edge of a great many Ukrainian cities. The Einsatzgruppen, teams of security police, and the SD reported regularly to RSHA chief Heydrich on their activities, which were going "generally very well". By the time the Germans took Kyiv, tens of thousands of people had already been killed.