In Juli 2018 we took an 11 days trip to see the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The capitals were our main targets, we always look for three things: city culture, mainly alternative, rock and metal, architecture and WW2 history. Mainly the Jewish history.
As for east Europe – the whole area was a playground for Nazi extermination. The most horrible crimes against the Jews were there. Anti Semitism is so old and rooted in the culture, what caused a local help to the Nazis. In fact, the most horrible pogroms were not made by any German. The east countries did produce the most horrible acts against the Jews.
The main extermination ground, torture, concentration and crime scene were here – in East Europe.
On the way to (Beautiful!) Vilnius, near a city called Kaunas, there is a hill. It is observing for miles into the horizon, and it is a perfect location for an army post.
It was constructed in the 19th century by the occupying Soviet Union. It was used as a prison.
The place dug in the hill and creates the perfect, long corridor with sells, to keep prisoners. It is always wet (underground) and can be protected perfectly.
During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania started in 1941, it was used as a place of extermination of Jews and other prisoners.
In this place, on the 18.8.1941 the Nazis carried on the murdered the educated scholars of Kaunas Jewry
In May 1942 began Sonderaktion 1005 operation, to hide all evidence of mass extermination by the Nazis.
Prisoners all across East Europe were forced to dig out mass graves and burn the bodies inside them.
The same happened here The same happened in the Ninth Forth.in the Ninth Forth.
One of these groups managed to escape. More about this estate can be discovered here
The visit to this site was paralyzing. One can imagine a concentration camp as a huge company, but this small piece of land, used to kill so many, this small piece of land, used to contain so much evil is something that changed the way I saw the way the Holocaust was executed.
