On 22 June 1941, Hitler broke the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact as his troops marched into the Soviet Union. Behind the invading army, mobile forces called Einsatzgruppen were deployed, assigned the task of killing those in the conquered territories who were considered subhuman or politically dangerous.
Across Poland, the Baltics, the Ukraine and parts of Russia, Jews whose families had resided in the same area for generations were forcibly rounded up by these forces and marched from their homes. Roma and Sinti (both subgroups of the Romani people), Poles, Communists and Jews interned in ghettos were also herded into such groups, often arbitrarily. They were informed that they were being resettled to work in labour camps and were generally permitted to take some belongings with them. Once a few miles from their homes or from the ghetto walls, however, the true nature of their fate became apparent.
Usually in a wooded area, but sometimes by the roadside, the men were ordered to dig a pit. These men and the women and children who accompanied them were then forced to hand over any valuables and to undress. Finally, they were lined up along the edge of the pit and systematically shot dead by members of the Einsatzgruppen. Anyone who tried to flee was pursued and usually also killed, so they could not bear witness to the atrocities being perpetrated.
Vilna, in Lithuania, was home to around 60,000 Jews, over a third of whom were killed by units from Einsatzgruppe A during the summer of 1941. Unknown to those who remained in Vilna, believing their compatriots had indeed been resettled, the corpses of the dead lay in pits just over six miles away at Ponary. It was common for groups of up to 500 Jews to be executed at once by the death squads, but the murders committed at Babi Yar in the Ukraine demonstrated that there were few limitations when it came to the annihilation of Jewish communities. Over a period of just two days in September 1941, 33,771 Jews from the nearby city of Kiev were killed at this location.
Massacres such as those at Ponary and Babi Yar took place across Eastern Europe following the invasion of the Soviet Union. It is estimated that by the end of the war, up to 2 million Jews and other victims had been killed by the Einsatzgruppen, the majority buried in makeshift pits. Months before the first Jews entered the gas chambers that now widely signify the horror of the Holocaust, premeditated murder was already being committed.