On This Day in Jewish History: June 21st, 1942 ☠

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Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler wrote a letter which ordered the liquidation of the Jewish ghettos in Nazi-Occupied Soviet Territories.

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In his letter to Ostland’s high ranking SS and Police Leader, Himmler wrote, “All Jews who may still be found in ghettos in the Ostland must be confined in concentration camps… All non-essential inhabitants of the Jewish ghettos are to be referred to the East… The reorganization in concentration camps is to be completed by August 1, 1943.” .

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The Nazis controlled around 1100 ghettos located throughout eastern Europe, 250 of which were located in German occupied Soviet Union. .

It is worth differentiating between the two key periods of Nazi ghettoization in Eastern Europe. The first took place between September 1939 and the summer of 1941. This second period concerns ghettos established following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941. At this time, roughly 500,000 Jews lived in Ostland.

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Himmler’s 1943 order initiated a process and culminated in the liquidation of the ghettos in Bialystok, Vilna, Minsk and Riga, all of which took place over the next four months. All the ghettos that, on this day, Himmler ordered liquidated, were directly connected to the Nazi execution of the Final Solution. .

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Text Source:

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/final-solution-in-depth

Image Source:

https://notesfrompoland.com/2018/06/29/poles-and-the-holocaust-new-research-old-controversies/

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