“I can state today,” Jäger writes in summary, “that the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania has been reached by Einsatzkommando 3. There are no Jews in Lithuania anymore except the work Jews and their families, which total “I intended to kill off these work Jews and their families too,” Jäger goes on with malicious bravado, “but met with the strongest protest from the civil administration (Reichskommissar) and the Wehrmacht, which culminated in a prohibition: these Jews and their families may not be shot dead!”In Kaunas in the final days before he issued his report, on 25 and 29 November 1941, Jäger had overseen massacres of Reich Jews shipped east from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna and Breslau, a total for the two days of 1,869 men, 2,716 women and 327 children, all shot into the killing pits of the Ninth Fort. Since Reich Jews shipped to Lodz had not been immediately killed, and since Himmler vehemently protested Jeckeln’s unauthorized killing of the Berlin Jews shipped to Riga, these prompt Kaunas massacres are anomalous.
