April 09, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The First Large Scale Killings - Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre
Special staff was trained to carry out
specific acts of the “Jeckeln System” to make the execution well ordered and
clean.
The first murder of the 23,600 Jews that
happened in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa is known in history as
“Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre” and is the first large-scale mass murder that
would launch the unfolding of the gruesome plan of Final Solution.
Ironically enough it was carried out within
the Soviet grounds (which would later become number one enemy of Germans) that
would then be followed by series of such massacres such as Babi Yar (a ravine
in Kiev) Massacre where 33,771 Jews were massacred, Rumbula (Rumbula forest
near Riga, Latvia) Massacre where 25,000 Jews were murdered and so on.
At the Rumbula massacre that took place on
November 30th and December 8th of 1941, the “Jeckeln
System” was carried out to its last detail in perfection.
The Jews that were to be executed were
first awakened early in the morning by the men from Security Service or the
Sicherheitsdienst or simply SD which the primary intelligence department of the
SS and the Nazi Party.
These poor wretches were then organized
into columns of either 500 or 1000 and were then made to march to the killing
grounds.
The killing ground could often be as far as
10 or even more kilometers from the place where they were housed.
The troops that accompanied the Jews to the
killing grounds belonged not to the SD but the Order Police or Ordnungspolizei
and often abbreviated to Orpo.
One must not confuse Orpo with your average
state police whose primary function is to maintain state law and order and
traffic safety.
Orpo police force in Nazi Germany
encompassed total law-enforcement and emergency-respond state machinery.
Over and above this Orpo took part in
military operations such as the Invasion of Poland and Operation Barbarossa by
organizing into battalion-sized military formations.
A battalion in Wehrmacht army comprised of
roughly 500 men that were armed with light infantry weapons and sometimes with
heavy machine guns.
Light infantry included side arms such
Walther, Luger, Mauser, Beretta semi-automatic pistols (Hitler had shot himself
with his Walther PPK in his bunker in Berlin).
Light infantry also included rifles such as
Karabiner, Gewehr, Mosin-Nagant among others.
Sometimes submachine guns are also a part
of the armory of light infantry thereby shaping Orpo into more of a
semi-military organization rather than a police force designed for internal law
and order.
The unit later “progressed” to the task of
policing and herding the captives and Jews meant for slaughter, their mass
deportations and mass executions.
It would not come as a surprise to anybody
that the Orpo came under the supervision of Heinrich Himmler who was the Chief
of German Police and Minister of Interior.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the International
Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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