On the 7th August 1941, in front of a huge crowd in Zhitomir in Ukraine, two judges were
led to the gallows by the Nazi SD, and they were then executed in front of a huge crowd
of people.
These were men who had suffered greatly throughout the launching of Operation Barbarossa, and
they were just two victims of millions of the Nazis as Hitler launched his invasion
of the Soviet Union.
A number of those that day who were forced to watch the executions of Mosche Kogan and
Wolf Kieper were prisoners and were made to do so by the German Army, before they too
were marched to their deaths and were shot by the German soldiers.
Join us today as we look at the Executions of the Ukrainian Judges Of Zhitomir.
As always to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
When the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa, their invasion into the Soviet Union even
Joseph Stalin the Soviet Dictator was shocked and surprised.
Previously the two nations had agreed to a non aggression pact, and it was believed that
they would not fight each other for at least 10 years under the molotov Ribbentrop pact.
But when the Germans rampaged into the Soviet Union on the 22nd June 1941, it would be the
largest land offensive in history with over 10 million soldiers taking part.
The plan was to conquer the western part of the Soviet Union and to then repopulate it
with germans as part of the lebensraum or living space program, as Hitler wanted Germans
living in lands to the east.
The Nazis also wanted to acquire resources for their war effort, and they wanted the
oil reserves of the caucasus and also the agriculture in the areas to feed their soldiers
and also people back home.
They would though have murderous intention, and they wanted to exterminate the native
slavic people, and also continue the persecutions of the jews in lands which they would seize.
The operation had been planned for around a year, and to begin with 3.8 million Axis
forces would invade the Soviet Union along an almost 3,000 kilometre front and they were
supported by 600,000 vehicles including tanks and artillery, and they also had over 600,000
horses at their disposal.
But during the offensive, the Eastern Front would open up and this would see the most
brutal and bloody battles in the whole of the Second World War.
Some of the battles fought here such as Stalingrad and Kursk saw a huge amount of bloodshed,
and also cities such as Leningrad were forced into years long sieges by the German forces,
in which the civilian populations starved to death and suffered heavily.
One German soldier wrote of his experiences on the eastern front, ‘Heavy fire starts
as expected around 0500 hours.
I am sitting in B-position [beobachter, or observer] and am able to see our impending
doom as no one else can.
The sap [short trench dug from the front-trench] is right at the edge of the forest.
From here, the terrain slopes gently down to the Weta River.
That damn river looks like it will drink a lot of blood (perhaps mine too).
Behind the river is an enormous anti-tank trench filled with barbed wire.
Well camouflaged bunkers line the trench.
The firing is coming from them.
Death is rolling toward us.
A crushing wall of fire crawls slowly, very slowly, up the hill.
These schweine shoot with a precision that could have only been learned through intensive
training.
Halfway up the hill, the fire-wall now reaches a tree-covered farmhouse.
Cracking and splintering is heard when tree branches, wooden beams, and bricks go swirling
through the air.
The stinking fire-wall moves on.
Do not lose your nerves now, Hannes!
I estimate that death will be arriving any minute now.
Everybody has been warned.
We claw our fingers into the dirt.
We have sweat on our forehead out of fear.
God.
if we were at least able to defend ourselves!
And then all hell breaks loose.
There is a howling, an enormous roar, thundering, cracking, and the humming of thousands of
splinters.
Foul-smelling smoke floods into our trenches.
Did this last seconds or minutes?
I cannot say.
I pull my nose carefully out of the dirt to see that the firewall has moved on.
I remain deaf for minutes.
There is something wet on my face — blood!
Thank goodness it is just a scratch.
Our position is in chaos.
The tree trunks we used for cover have been torn to shreds.
Portions of the trenches have been filled back up with dirt.
One position received a direct hit.
Two comrades were killed and three were wounded.
Overall, we are lucky; it could have gone worse.”
The Germans initially had successes, and they would capture around 5 million Soviet Red
Army soldiers, and then around 3.3 million Prisoners of war were deliberately starved
by them, or they had them executed.
Some Red Army commissars were sent to concentration camps where they were then slaughtered inside
make shift killing chambers, but the Germans wanted to kill as many as they could without
firing a bullet as they implemented the hunger plan.
This would solve German food shortages and exterminate civilians and natives through
starvation, but after advances by the Wehrmacht, Nazi death squads would arrive in villages,
towns and cities and they would cause chaos.
The Einsatzgruppen were paramilitary SS execution squads, who would tail the Wehrmacht offensives
and when they captured lands they would deal with the civilians.
In Soviet territory they would slaughter millions, and they would order civilians out of their
homes, before ordering many to dig graves on the edges of settlements.
Following these pits being dug, the victims were then led into the pits where the executioners
stood with their weapons on the edge, and they would shoot them.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in this manner, but months after the launch
of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis would rampage into Ukraine and specifically into the city
of zhitomyr.
The city would during the war become home to Heinrich Himmler’s Ukrainian headquarters,
and it was said of this that, the district was ‘a laboratory for…
Himmler's resettlement activists…
the elimination of the Jews and German colonization of the East—transformed the landscape and
devastated the population to an extent that was not experienced in other parts of Nazi-occupied
Europe besides Poland.
[While]… [u]ltimately, the exigencies of the war effort and mounting partisan warfare
behind the lines prevented Nazi leaders from fully developing and realizing their colonial
aims in Ukraine…
In addition to the immediate destruction of all Jewish communities, Himmler insisted that
the Ukrainian civilian population be brought to a 'minimum.’
But inside of the city the SD and the SD would establish their rule and regime on the people
of the city and they would throughout organise mass executions of the population in Zhitomir.
They would round up and arrest jews inside of power and high profile jobs, and many of
these were then executed.
Two of those who suffered horrifically were Mosche Kogan and Wolf Keiper.
These two men were members of the Soviet Regional Court, and they were then rounded up as they
were both jewish.
The Nazis targeted those jews who were in positions of power, and they were then executed.
Kogan and Kieper were arrested by the SD at the beginning of August 1941, and they were
then tortured and imprisoned for a short period.
However at the same time, there were more than 400 Jewish men who had been rounded up
by the Germans, and the commander had then gathered these men in a market square in Zhitomir
where many people were also there to witness.
In the square was a huge gallows that had been made, and Mosche Kogan and Wolf Kieper
the two jewish judges were led out by German soldiers.
There was a van parked underneath the gallows, and then the two former judges who were wearing
rough looking clothes were ordered to climb on the back of the truck.
The roof of the vehicle formed a scaffold and then with many looking on the sentence
of death was read out.
With the 400 Jewish men looking on and thousands more civilians, the executioner’s placed
the ropes around their necks and final checks were made.
Let’s remember the these two men in the eyes of the law hadn’t done anything wrong
except the fact they were jewish and in positions of power.
The order was then given for the trucks to back away, and they reversed away and the
two former judges were left hanging.
The Nazis utilised executions like this in public to terrorise the population, and more
would of this would happen as the 400 jewish men that were gathered were then marched following
the hanging to the horse cemetery outside of Zhitomir.
Following this they were then shot and were executed by the SD and the German soldiers.
The executions of the Ukrainian judges and civilians of Zhitomir were shocking and they
aimed to terrorise the population inside of the city.
Mosche Kogan and Wolf Kieper were victims of the Nazis and their brutal persecutions
of jews in soviet cities and towns, and they would be two of millions who were slaughtered
or who were sent to concentration camps.
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