Deportations to the "Reichskommissariat Ostland" in 1941/42
Kowno (Kaunas/Kauen)
On November 23, 1941, a deportation transport with 1,000 Jewish men, women and children on board left from Vienna Aspang Station. However, this transport never arrived in Riga, its original destination.
The transport from Vienna was, like some of the deportation transports from the "Altreich" destined for Riga, for reasons which never became clear diverted to Kaunas in Lithuania, and handed over to Einsatzkommando (EK) 3. This unit of Einsatzgruppe A, with massive participation of local men, now set about "making Lithuania free of Jews" from June 1941 onwards, and murdered altogether 130,000 people. Immediately after arrival the deported Viennese Jews were shot in Fort IX, a part of the Tsarist fortifications where in the meantime regular massacres had taken place, carried out by Lithuanian volunteers under the command of members of the EK 3.
Of the 1,000 deportees from Vienna no one is known to have survived.
Excerpt of the report of the commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) and the Sicherheitsdienst
(secret service) in Kaunas, director of Einsatzkommando (EK) 3 (task force 3), SS Standartenführer Jäger,
referring to "the comprehensive list of executions carried out in the area of the EK 3 up until December 1, 1941".
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