Koniuchy massacre

As raiding intensified in the summer of 1943, men of Koniuchy organized an unarmed night guard.[21] In early fall 1943, the village was visited by four Lithuanian policemen and the men agreed to organize an armed self-defence group. According to later testimony by its leaders, the group grew from an initial 5 or 6 members to 25–30 men.[9] There is no reliable data on the group's weapons.[22] Soviet sources, trying to justify the massacre, claimed that the village had three machine guns and automatic rifles.[23] One of the leaders of the village self-defence unit, Vladislavas Voronis, in his post-war trial by NKVD, trying to minimize his anti-Soviet activities, claimed that the group had only eight rifles and ten sawed-off shotguns.[23] Rimantas Zizas evaluated both claims as unlikely and claimed that at least some weapons should have been provided by the Lithuanian policemen of the 253rd Police Battalion which had an outpost in Naujosios Rakliškės.[23] Similarly, there is no agreement on fortifications of the village. Memoirs by Jewish partisans claim that the village was fortified with trenches and watch towers and even had a German contingent; these claims are refuted by Polish and Lithuanian authors.[10][11][24][25]

There were several incidents between the partisans and the men of Koniuchy. In October 1943, a group of six armed Soviet partisans took three cartloads worth of food, clothes, and other items. The villagers stopped the partisans on a bridge over Šalčia and took back the property.[23] There is some evidence that two partisans were killed in the incident.[26][8] In January 1944, a Soviet partisan was killed in Didžiosios Sėlos in an operation by the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police that involved a few men from Koniuchy. Soviet sources claimed that the partisan was captured, transported to Koniuchy, tortured, and later executed.[26] Similarly, Soviet sources implicated men from Koniuchy in attacks on Soviet partisans in Visinčia and Kalitonys.[26] Post-war testimony by locals shows that the partisans sent two or three open letters to the residents of Koniuchy urging them to surrender their weapons and cease anti-partisan activities, and vowing reprisals if they refused.[27]

The partisan view of the village was summed up in a November 2008 interview by Sara Ginaitė, former Jewish partisan and a professor at York University, who stated that the village had a "record of hostility to the partisans" and that "the villagers were not unarmed civilians, but rather collaborators and combatants against Soviet partisans".[8] The collaboration was denied by the villagers who claimed that only a few men in the village were armed with rifles for self-protection.[3]

On 29 January 1944, around 5 a.m., the village was attacked by Soviet partisan units under the command of the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement in Moscow.[1] The order to attack was given by Genrikas Zimanas.[28] The raid was carried out by 100–150 partisans from various units including Jewish partisans.[1] According to Zimanas report of 31 January, the attack was carried out by partisans from the so-called Vilnius Brigade, "Death to Occupiers" (part of Kaunas Brigade), "Margiris", and a special group of the GRU of the General Staff of the Red Army (also known as Platoon no. 14).[1][7][29] The Vilnius Brigade included partisan groups "Death to Fascism", "Avengers", "To Victory", "Fight", "Thunder", and a unit named after Adam Mickiewicz).[28][30] A log of partisan activity recorded that 30 fighters from "Avengers" and "To Victory" participated in the massacre.[11][31]

Rimantas Zizas identified captain Michaił Cejko from the "Death to Occupiers" unit as the commander of the attack.[32][33] Cejko claimed the command in his autobiography completed in August 1944 and the command was mentioned when he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War (2nd class) in April 1944. Cejko was a Belarusian who served in the 37th Rifle Division, was captured by the Germans, and escaped from a POW camp in Kalvarija.[32]

The commemorative monument erected in Koniuchy lists 38 names, among them 11 women and 15 children under the age of 16.[4] The youngest murdered child was 1.5-year old girl shot while held in her mother's arms.[34] Another dozen of villagers was injured.[4] According to reports of the Lithuanian Security Police, 36 houses, 40 granaries, 39 barns, and one banya were burned down, 50 cows, 16 horses, about 50 pigs, and 100 sheep were slaughtered.[4][16] By one account, only six houses remained standing in the village.[35] The same security police report also claimed that two murdered villagers were Lithuanian policemen and that one partisan was killed and three were injured – this is contradicted by Zimanas' reports that claimed no casualties on the Soviet side.[36] The surviving villagers received a government benefit of 500 Reichsmarks.[37]

After the war, Soviet partisans barely mentioned Koniuchy in their memoirs.[38][39] Even partisan personnel files maintained by Soviet security agencies often neglected to mention the person's involvement in the massacre.[40][41] Jewish partisans wrote a few contradictory accounts of the Koniuchy events. In a 1969 book Kauno getas ir jo kovotojai (Kovno Ghetto and Its Fighters) Dmitri Gelpernas and Mejeris Elinas (Meir Yelin) portrayed the massacre as a fierce battle "for every house" with well armed "Hitlerites".[35][33] Fierce fighting was also described by Isaac Kowalski (1969) and Rozka Korczak in her Russian memoir published in 1977.[11] Chaim Lazar in his book Destruction and Resistance (published in 1985 in New York) wrote that the village was to be destroyed completely and described how half-naked people jumped out the windows to escape the bullets.[25][42] In 1988, Paul Bagriansky published a graphic account of the events that included mutilation of eight villagers' corpses.[11] More accounts were recorded after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, including by Abraham Zeleznikow (1993).[43] Survivor accounts were first published by the Lithuanian daily Respublika in 1990.[14]

According to a report by the Lithuanian Auxiliary Police, 52 auxiliaries from the 253rd Battalion armed with machine guns went to Koniuchy at 7 a.m., but failed to intercept the partisans.[7][44] Soviet partisans also threatened to attack the nearby villages of Butrimonys, Janonys, Pasalis, and Šauliai.[7][44] On the other side of the Rudniki Forest, the partisans attacked Kiemeliškės and took provisions[7] and the Lithuanian police attempted to ambush the partisans in the Klepočiai village.[44] Other ambushes were also unsuccessful.[7]

The Lithuanian Auxiliary Police considered reprisal actions against villages supporting the Soviet partisans. Locals identified a couple of residents from Didžiosios Sėlos and Visinčia as participants in the attack on Koniuchy.[45][34] According to reports of the Lithuanian Security Police, about 40 policemen from the 253rd Battalion surrounded Didžiosios Sėlos, searched for weapons, and severely injured two residents.[46] A letter from an officer of the 253rd Battalion to his superior openly suggested to deal with Didžiosios Sėlos in the same manner as two Belarusian villages near Vidzy that were destroyed by the battalion during an anti-partisan operation in October 1943, but it was avoided.[46][47] Soviet partisans were afraid of a reprisal action by the Germans and some units left their bases. Zimanas even suggested that the partisans might retreat to forests near the Lake Narach where units commanded by Motiejus Šumauskas were based. The situation normalized by early March 1944.[5][48]