Posted on 06/28/2011 5:57:08 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Seriously, I could look at those photos for hours. The ones I post from the microfilm are mostly pretty poor quality. These could have been taken yesterday, but for the subject matter.
Just stumbled across a great collection of photos from the early part of the German Invasion of Lithuania.
Far too many to post.
http://www.vilnaghetto.com/gallery2/v/lithuania/Lithuania_early_invasion.jpg.html
Thanks...amazing pics. Appreciate the hard work by all. We MUST not forget.
I remember stumbling upon quite a few photos in the past from Bydgoszcz Poland before during and after the War. Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) was close to the then German border so it was over-run on September 3, 1939. The city was about half Polish and half German with some Jews mixed in at the time. When the Wehrmacht rolled thru, all the Germans pointed out the business and political leaders among the Poles. These were subsequently rounded up and shot in the Old Town Square. Naturally, the Poles returned the favor when the Red Army came a callin’.
BTW, I was a foreign exchange student in that town in high school. My friend has a bunch of photos on facebook that he took at the ruins of a former Luftwaffe munitions plant on the outskirts of town.
I could be wrong, but I think the three characters looking at the map in photo 2 may be Hoth, Bock and Guderian.
Many don’t realize the significance of the Pogroms that will take place in the Baltics and other places in the east as the Germans advance. These were not just cases of German Order Police or Einsatzkommandos committing these crimes, but they were cases of the population of the occupied area taking active part in the round up, beating and murder of Jews in their town. In Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes, there is a picture of a man known as the “Death-dealer of Kovno”. He is a local Lithuanian who was released from jail as the SS moved in and encouraged to participate in the Pogrom in Kovno. The picture shows the man posing with a line of Jews he had beaten to death with the crowbar in his hand.
By the way, I’ve enjoyed the pictures you have posted as well. Thanks for that. I wish I had easy access to a scanner in the hotel, I would at least put up the picture I just described.
I think you are right. The one on the left definitely looks like Hoth. Hoth reminds me of my 8th Grade History teacher Mr. Sontag.....whom I was convinced was an escaped Nazi.
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