"Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
David Thompson
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#61

Post by David Thompson » 06 Aug 2008, 17:19

Everyone - Please avoid personal comments in posts.

Tony Meadows
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#62

Post by Tony Meadows » 06 Aug 2008, 18:32

other more recent atrocities are just as horrific and should be condemened too,i am commenting on WW2 specifically and this particular subject as this is what this page is about...

though i am in total agreement about no taking of human lfe being more or less important than any other.


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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#63

Post by Hauptmann Kloss » 06 Aug 2008, 21:21

Simon K wrote:...No genocide that I am aware of from UK.
I would not live in a country which sanctioned something like genocide, or I would be doing something about it,if I did.
I already told you Kenya in the fifties. With concentration camps (known notabene since Boer Wars) for Kikuya and death toll in tens of thousands.
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#64

Post by David Thompson » 06 Aug 2008, 22:58

Let's stay on topic. We have open threads on British concentration camps during the Boer war and in Kenya:

Boer War?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=100485
Allegations about British concentration camps in Kenya
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=128008

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Hauptmann Kloss
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#65

Post by Hauptmann Kloss » 07 Aug 2008, 01:00

David Thompson wrote:Let's stay on topic. We have open threads on British concentration camps during the Boer war and in Kenya:

Boer War?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=100485
Allegations about British concentration camps in Kenya
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=128008

You are absolutely right. This is a common knowledge. It was just reminder on my part, setting proper historical context for the event described in the topic.
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#66

Post by Bergmolch » 15 Sep 2008, 00:02

He doesn't seem to be the same guy to me.
1 and 2 are depicting the same person for sure, 3 and 4 maybe but I'm not sure.
Anyway these are not 4 pics of the same person.

The only thing that looks a bit strange to me is: how comes that the Lituanian Jews page is able to list all the names of the perpetrators of that massacre?
Looks a bit unbeliveable to me but I can be wrong.
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Sid Guttridge
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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#67

Post by Sid Guttridge » 15 Sep 2008, 09:32

Hi Bergmolch,

If the perpetrators were local, it is not impossible that many names are known, especially in view of the extensive German photographic evidence not usually present in such cases. Besides, I am not sure the page claims to know the names of "all" the perpetrators.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#68

Post by Bergmolch » 15 Sep 2008, 13:29

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi Bergmolch,

If the perpetrators were local, it is not impossible that many names are known, especially in view of the extensive German photographic evidence not usually present in such cases. Besides, I am not sure the page claims to know the names of "all" the perpetrators.

Cheers,

Sid.
Hi Sid,
Thanks for your reply.
The thing that seems unlikely to me is that we are not even able to name only ONE of the perpetrators, the Dealer, but on that site we have maybe 100 names of "perpetrators" (Notice that regarding the Dealer they attached a picture that as said probably doesn't depict that very same man, so looks like the list is not accurate and reliable as they would let us think).

Cheers
T

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#69

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 16 Sep 2008, 02:17

Contrary to Michael's formulation, the Lithuanian Provisional Government met in cabinet on 27/6/41 and declared that:
Minister žemkalnis reported on the extremely cruel torture of the Jews in the Lietūkis garage in Kaunas. Decided: Notwithstanding all the measures which must be taken against the Jews because of their Communist activity and harm to the German Army, partisans and individuals should avoid public executions of Jews. It has been learned that these actions have been committed by people who have no connection with the [Lithuanian] Activists’ Staff, the Partisans’ Staff, nor the Lithuanian Provisional Government. [Lietuvos Laikinoji vyriausyb÷, 18.]
Source: Footnote 160 of this on-line paper: http://www.komisija.lt/Files/www.komisi ... ersion.pdf

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#70

Post by David Thompson » 16 Sep 2008, 02:50

Thanks, Jonathan.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#71

Post by michael mills » 16 Sep 2008, 03:37

How is this quote contrary to my formulation?

Look at what it says:
Notwithstanding all the measures which must be taken against the Jews because of their Communist activity and harm to the German Army, partisans and individuals should avoid public executions of Jews.
It is clear that the "Lithuanian Provisional Government", whoever they were, considered that the Jews killed in the Lietukis garage were guilty of Communist activity.

It did not say that the killings were unjustified, or that the persons killed were not guilty; it said that the executions should not be carried out in public.

In other words, according to this source, the persons killed at the Lietukis garage were not innocent Jews rounded up at random. but rather persons guilty of Communist activity. That opinion of the "Lithuanian Provisional Government" is perfectly consistent with the version of events presented by a former member of the Lithuanian Activist Front who witnessed the events, which version I quoted; namely that the persons killed at the garage were members of the Soviet administration or other collaborators who had been captured at the Lietukis garage when they had gone there seeking transport to escape from Kaunas.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#72

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 16 Sep 2008, 19:22

Michael, you're ignoring this part:
It has been learned that these actions have been committed by people who have no connection with the [Lithuanian] Activists’ Staff, the Partisans’ Staff, nor the Lithuanian Provisional Government.
Your claim above that these killings represented widespread Lithuanian nationalist feeling, comparable to Hungarian nationalist actions in 1956, are not therefore supported by the documentation.

Moreover, the Provisional Government DID condemn the "cruel torture" and murders, yet you feel unable to do likewise, and defend your reluctance by referring to a supposedly widespread Lithuanian public opinion which we can now see was not reflected by the Lithuanians' own Provisional Government.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#73

Post by michael mills » 17 Sep 2008, 06:28

Did it condemn cruel torture and murders?

The quoted statement refers to "cruel torture". but it does not condemn it.

Nor is there any reference to "murders". Rather, there is a reference to "executions of Jews", indicating that whoever made the statement regarded the killings as legal, as right and proper, not as a criminal act.

Furthermore, the statement expressly justifies the killings on the basis of the Jews' "Communist activities" and "harm to the German Army"; that does not look like a condemnation to me.

The only criticism in the statement is of the public nature of the lynchings; it calls for the "executions" not to be carried out in public.

If the Lithuanians who carried out the lynchings at the Lietukis garage were not partisans or other persons linked to the "Lithuanian Provisional Government", then they were private citizens, acting on their own initiative and according to their own motivation. That supports the version of events according to which the lynchers were persons whose family members had been deported and were now seeking revenge on members of the Soviet security apparatus and other collaborators.

Note that the quoted statement accepts the possibility that private members of the population had an animus against Jews and might take violent action against them, when it says that executions of Jews "by partisans and individuals" should not be performed in public.

Thus, the statement supports the interpretation that there was ill feeling against the Jews within parts of the Lithuanian population, independent of German influence.

Face up to it, Jonathan, Hitler and German National Socialists were not the only people who disliked Jews. Negative feelings about Jews were widespread among East European populations, for various reasons. In Lithuania, the main reason for anti-Jewish feeling was the perception that the Jews of Lithuania had as a group collaborated with the Soviet occupiers in the oppression of the ethnic Lithuanian population.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#74

Post by Sid Guttridge » 17 Sep 2008, 12:39

Hi Guys,

For those wanting more details, I highly recommend the independent Lithuanian historical documentary DVD "Staptieji XXa Archyvai" (Secret Files of the 20th Century).

This four CD set, which is fully subtitled in English, includes a whole DVD devoted to a two-hour investigation of the "Lietukio garazas" incident. It includes all the known contemporary photos of the incident and reconstructs the garage using computer graphics to show where each was taken. It goes through Lithuanian, German and Soviet archives, surviving primary and secondary witnesses, and academics to provide a comprehensive overview of what is known (or not) about the incident.

The production is to a high standard fully equatable with, for example, many British historical documentary series.

See: www.eln.lt/idomioji/xxa_archyvai1.html

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: "Death Dealer of Kavnas(Kovno)"

#75

Post by Jonathan Harrison » 17 Sep 2008, 20:21

The quoted statement refers to "cruel torture". but it does not condemn it.
It says "extremely cruel torture". It then goes on to distance itself from the killings and states that the killers do not represent the nationalist movement.

It is also important to state that pogroms were not USSR-wide. They were exceptional occurrences so to use them as evidence of wider feeling is inappropriate. It would be like someone like Goldhagen claiming that Kristallnacht was evidence of national feeling across Germany.

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