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The Koniuchy (Kaniūkai) massacre was a massacre of Polish and Byelorussian[1] civilians, including women and children,[2] carried out by a Soviet partisan unit along with a contingent of Jewish partisans[1][2][3] under their command during the Second World War in the Polish village of Koniuchy (now Kaniūkai, Lithuania) on 29 January 1944. According to the findings of the Institute of National Remembrance, at least 38 Polish civilians were killed and about a dozen injured. The massacre of Koniuchy and murder of its inhabitants was documented by one of the attacking partisans, Chaim Lazar. According to Lazar the village was to be destroyed completely[4] as an example to others, and even the livestock was to be killed.[5][6] According to Kazimierz Krajewski there were no fortifications in the civilian community and the self-defense force was equipped with some rusty rifles.[7]
The Lithuanian authorities launched an investigation into the massacre in 2004.[8]
Background
Before the Second World War the village belonged to Second Polish Republic, after the Soviet invasion of Poland it was briefly transferred to Lithuania which was then occupied by the Soviets on 3 August 1940. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the remaining Soviet forces hid in the local forests, forming partisan groups.[9] The village of Koniuchy was located on the edge of the Rūdininkai forest, where multiple partisan units operated.[9] The units raided nearby villages regularly in order to obtain essential supplies, creating friction with the local population.[10] The village of about 60 households and 300 inhabitants was not fortified but the villagers were armed with a few rifles. A small local self-defence unit was created in the autumn of 1943 to defend the village against repeated Soviet partisans' raids. According to Soviet and Jewish sources, the villagers constituted a pro-Nazi threat to the partisans. Local villagers denied that there was any collaboration with the Germans and have said that only a few men in the village were armed with rifles for self-protection.[1] Historian Kazimierz Krajewski has said that the only crime of the inhabitants was that they had enough of "the daily - or, rather, nightly - robberies and assaults" and had decided to defend themselves against these.[11][12]
Massacre
On 29 January 1944, the village was attacked by Soviet partisan units under the command of the Central Partisan Command in Moscow, who had received information on a German garrison that was stationed there, although as it turned out the German garrison had been abandoned before the attack.[13] The Soviet units surrounded the village and then attacked at five o'clock in the morning. The attack lasted between one and a half to two hours.[14] The raid was carried out by 100–120 partisans from various units including 30 Jewish partisans from the "Avengers" and "To Victory" units under the command of Jacob (Yaakov) Prenner.[15] One of the groups was from the Kaunas Brigade of Lithuanian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (subordinate to the South Branch of the Lithuanian Communist Party) while others were from the Vilnius Brigade.[14]
Between 30 to 40 villagers were killed and dozen more were wounded, and in addition many houses were looted and burned.[8][16] According to Chaim Lazar, one of the partisans who participated in the massacre, the village was to be destroyed completely[17] as an example to others, and even the livestock was to be killed.[18]
Investigation and controversy
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance initiated a formal investigation into the incident on 3 March 2001, at the request of the Canadian Polish Congress.[19] The institute examined a number of archival documents including police reports, encoded messages, military records and personnel files of the Soviet partisans. Requests for legal assistance were then sent to state prosecutors in Belarus, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and Israel. The IPN investigation was closed in February 2018. The official reason for the closure was that the investigators were not able to establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" that any perpetrators of the massacre were still alive, and as a result concluded that there was no one who could be charged with a crime.[20]
The Lithuanian prosecutor general subsequently opened its own investigation into the massacre in 2004.[8] As part of its investigation, Lithuanian prosecutors sought out Jewish veterans of the partisan movement. One of these was Yitzhak Arad, a former Israel Defense Forces brigadier general, an expert on the Holocaust in Lithuania, and former chairman of Yad Vashem. Arad had also served as a member of a commission appointed by Lithuania's president in 2005 to examine past war crimes. In response to the investigation, Yad Vashem issued a protest saying it focused on "victims of Nazi oppression" and suspended Israeli participation in the commission which Arad was part of.[21][13][22] Following wide international, and some domestic, criticism the Lithuanian investigation was closed in September 2008.[23]
Commemoration
In May 2004, a memorial cross commemorating the event was erected in Kaniūkai with the names of the victims.[9]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Suziedelis, Saulius A. (7 February 2011). Historical Dictionary of Lithuania. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810875364.
- ^ a b Polonsky, Antony; Michlic, Joanna B. (11 April 2009). The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Princeton University Press. ISBN 1400825814.
- ^ Narodowej, Instytut Pamięci. "Informacja o śledztwie dotyczącym zbrodni popełnionej w Koniuchach". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (in Polish). Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ Stachura, Peter (17 June 2004). Poland, 1918-1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic. Routledge. ISBN 9781134289493.
- ^ Sowjetische Partisanen 1941-1944: Mythos und Wirklichkeit Bogdan Musial Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2009, page 547
- ^ Bogdan Musial Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrussland Innenansichten aus dem Gebiet Baranovici 1941-1944 Cover: Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrussland Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2004, page 28
- ^ Chodakiewicz, Marek Jan (8 September 2017). Intermarium: The Land Between the Black and Baltic Seas. Routledge. ISBN 9781351511957.
- ^ a b c Historical Dictionary of Lithuania, Saulius A. Suziedelis, page 146-147, "The Koniuchy incident gained international notoriety when Lithuanian prosecutors opened an investigation into the massacre in 2004... In the West and among Jewish groups, the Koniuchy affair was seen as an attack on the heroic Soviet antifascist resistance"
- ^ a b c Tumavičius, Andrius (February 2014). "Kaniūkų kaimo tragedija" (PDF). Atmintinos datos (in Lithuanian). Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
- ^ Zeleznikow, John. "Life at the end of the world: a Jewish Partisan in Melbourne." Holocaust Studies 16.3 (2010): 11-32.
- ^ [1]
- ^ pg. 511
- ^ a b Melman, Yossi (7 August 2008). "Nazi Hunter: Lithuania Hunts Ex-partisans, Lets War Criminals Roam Free". Haaretz. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
- ^ a b [2]
- ^ "Operations Diary of a Jewish Partisan Unit in Rudniki Forest 1943–1944". Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
- ^ [https://books.google.com/books?id=2NnoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT26&dq=Chaim+Lazar+%27%27Destruction+and+Resistance%27%27+Koniuchy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGlu-NmvPbAhUCba0KHXOLC5kQ6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=Chaim%20Lazar%20Destruction%20and%20Resistance%20Koniuchy&f=false}}
- ^ Stachura, Peter (17 June 2004). Poland, 1918-1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic. Routledge. ISBN 9781134289493.
- ^ Sowjetische Partisanen 1941-1944: Mythos und Wirklichkeit Bogdan Musial Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2009, page 547
- ^ Marc Perelman. Poles Open Probe Into Jewish Role In Killings. Group Fingers WWII Partisans. The Forward. 8 August 2003.
- ^ [3]
- ^ Lana Gersten and Marc Perelman. Tensions mount over probe into Jewish 'war crimes'. Haaretz. 8 July 2008.
- ^ Sara Ginaite. ‘Investigating’ Jewish Partisans in Lithuania. The Protest of a Veteran Jewish Partisan. Jewish Currents. September 2008.
- ^ Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, John-Paul Himka and Joanna Michlic, pages 339-342.
Further reading
- Lazar, Chaim (1985). Destruction and Resistance: A History of the Partisan Movement in Vilna. Translated by Galia Eden Barshop. New York: Shengold Publishers. ISBN 978-0884001133.
- Kowalski, Isaac (1969). A Secret Press in Nazi Europe: The Story of a Jewish United Organization. New York: Central Guide Publishers. OCLC 925932918.
- Collection of various letters and reports
- Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, "Koniuchy: A Case Study" Intermarium: The Land between the Baltic and Black Seas (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Transaction, 2012), pp. 500–519
- Mark Paul, "Civilian Massacres—The Case of Koniuchy" Tangled Web: Polish-Jewish Relations in Wartime Northeastern Poland and the Aftermath, Part 3 (Toronto: PEFINA Press, 2017) posted at: http://www.kpk-toronto.org/obrona-dobrego-imienia/
- Report from IPN on Poland