Massacre in Kovno: more than 9,000 Jews killed

The “great Aktion” in Kovno took place on October 28, 1941. The Jews of the ghetto were assembled in Democrats Square, SS Master Sergeant Helmut Raucke separated those fit for labor from the others. Workers were referred to the left, and non-workers – more than 9,000 men, women, and children – to the right. At dusk, when the sorting was completed, everyone on the right was sent to the “small ghetto”; those to the left were allowed to return to their homes. The next morning, the Jews who had been gathered in the “small ghetto” were marched to the Ninth Fort, where they were murdered by gunfire that toppled them into large pits prepared by Russian prisoners of war.