An Eyewitness Account of Vilna Exterminations
In 1941 Hitler chose Lithuania as his first focus for the mass extermination of all Jews. These events took place deep in the woods 5 miles west of Vilnius in the area known in Lithuanian as Paneriai or in Polish as Ponary. The immediate neighborhood was populated by meager Poles who were the first to become aware of the Nazi "actionen" being carried out here.
Diarist, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole, lived in an area that allowed him full view of not only the road and train tracks, but also the three extermination pits that were 50 yards in diameter and 3 feet deep, pits originally dug by the Soviets and intended to become aircraft fuel storage tanks.
As a bystander and witness Sakowicz begins keeping daily records from the first day he hears shots ring out across the woods. He keeps tallies of the numbers of individuals brought to the site, indicating men, women, children, elderly, and infirm, and reports runaways, beatings, and random shootings on the road or tracks. Sakowicz also has the ability to identify the national identities of those executed whether Jews, Lithuanians, or Poles as all ethnic groups were potential targets of the Germans for infractions and mistrust existed between all ethnicities.
He substantiates the active involvement of Lithuanian men (Shaulists) acting solely as the riflemen, with 300 Lithuanian men from Vilnius conscripted for this purpose. The Nazis remain in charge but the Lithuanians are the executioners.
Sakowicz reports facts only without emotion. His diary papers were stored in bottles and buried in the ground around his shack. Once uncovered, they were published first in 1999 in Polish and then in 2005 in English. It is believed the complete diaries have either not been located or were destroyed for their indictment against the essential participation of the Lithuanians in the Paneriai massacres.
Sakowicz was shot on the road on his bicycle under unknown circumstances and he is buried in Vilnius in Rasu Cemetary.
Includes Insight into Jedwabne-Like German Non-Recording of All Their Massacres
The diary of the Pole, Kazimierz Sakowicz, is unique in that it is the only known surviving diary that records the mass shootings of Jews by Germans (and their local collaborators) in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. Sakowicz and Editor Arad note that the Karaites, a Jewish sect, were declared non-Jews by the Nazis and spared. (p. 18). The shootings at Ponary (near Wilno) were not only of Jews, but also of Poles, especially prominent ones, and later of members of the Polish Underground. Sakowicz quotes some Shaulists who said that Jews about to be shot cry and plead for their lives, while Poles don't. (p. 114).
In early October 1943, Sakowicz recorded the practice, by Germans and their Lithuanian (Shaulist) collaborators, of separating the last few Jews from those massacred before their eyes, and (briefly) sparing their lives in exchange for their going out and uncovering fellow Jews in hiding. He commented: "It seems that separating 4-5 Jews and temporarily offering them their lives yields good results for their executioners...excellent results for the executioners and a fatal ending for the Judases." (p. 127). (How many cases of fugitive Jews not surviving the war, automatically blamed on Polish denunciations, were actually the deeds of Jewish denouncers--coerced or not?)
On another subject, Editor Yitzhak Arad discusses a particular group of shootings, the largest of which was labeled an anti-criminal action despite the inclusion of child victims. He comments: "Six small Aktionen, the last in the first great wave of murder that began with the occupation of the city, were conducted in Wilno in December 1941. There is nothing in either Jewish sources or the Einsatzgruppen reports about an Aktion in late November or early December that would correspond to Sakowicz's December 5 diary entry about 360 prisoners, mainly women and children." (pp. 40-41).
Now consider the fact that Jan T. Gross has argued that the Germans couldn't have been responsible for the massacre of Jews at Jedwabne because, according to him, no Einsatzgruppen or other German records mention the Germans as committing the deed. His argument is, at best, an argument from silence. Moreover, the deeds recorded by Sakowicz show that the Germans are perfectly capable of massacring at least hundreds of people, yet for one reason or another failing to record that particular event in their Einsatzgruppen or other reports. [Note also, for purpose of numerical comparison, that the number of Jedwabne victims was very likely less than 360.]
The massacres of Poles at Naliboki and Koniuchy by Soviets and Jews are beyond the purview of this diary. However, Editor Yitzhak Arad candidly admits that: "Jews constituted a substantial proportion of the Soviet partisans in Rudnicka Forest." (p. 125).
Editor Arad excuses the banditry of fugitive Jews by saying that they needed to live. (p. 92). What he forgets is the fact that the local non-Jews also needed to live--to retain their possessions in order to survive the occupation. Moreover, Jewish bandits were very aggressive, and not lacking in provisions. Sakowicz comments (July 1943): "...attacking individual houses in the villages and even whole villages (Zwierzyniec). They also carry out attacks on the roads...They stole shoes and food and are ruthless. The villagers escaped and begin to defend themselves, turning Jews over to the Lithuanians...a manhunt...About 30-40 Jews were killed...Both the Jews and the Bolsheviks are well-armed...The attacks by Jews were not dictated by necessity, that is, lack of money. No, during the manhunt the Lithuanians found considerable sums of money on the bodies...In the forest, there are cows..." (pp. 95-97).
Unfortunately, Sakowicz's diary breaks off in late 1943, probably because more recent entries have not survived or been located. He was killed later in the war.
Shocking document
I've decided to read this book because I visited Vilnius (Lithuania) last month and there I visited the KGB museum. The museum is very impressive, but where it does show a lot of wrongs of the KGB (when the Soviets were in power in Lith.), it hardly mentions anything at all about the significant role local Lithuanians played in the Holocaust during WW II. I stumbled upon this title by surfing Amazon, and then decided to order it. The 'Ponary Diary' is hard to digest realy. It is an almost casual diary of a Polish journalist who lived in the area of the infamous killing fields of Ponary. What I found so hard to digest, is the matter-of-fact style in which the entries are written. There is no emotion whatsoever, Sakowicz could have been describing the local cattle slaugther-house. But maybe it is a good thing he writes in such a distanced way, so the facts (the things he actually witnessed with his very own eyes) don't get blurred. I'm glad I read this book, but I would not want to read it again. It is that hard to take. (What bothered me also a bit, was the fact that nothing was written by way of an epilogue, of what happened to those sadistic Lithuanian and German mass-murderers. They remain nameless and faceless for the most part).
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