Operation Barbarossa: Photograph of Nazi Atrocities

Authors

Object ID

2019.2.93

Object Name

Photograph

Date

1941

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Man hanging from tree during winter

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Photograph records a lone partisan hanging from a tree. A date on the back of the photo records the event as occurring December 1941. The village in which it occurred is illegible.

Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, marked the commencement of Operation Barbarossa. The Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - were overrun in short order. As the Wehrmacht pushed ever deeper into the Ukraine and Soviet Union, the four SS Einsatzgruppen death squads were close behind. Einsatzkommandos rounded up Jews, Communists, Gypsies and other “undesirables.” Men, women, and children were marched into the forest and shot over pits or ravines. “Terrorists” or “partisans” were executed by public hanging – often en masse – on makeshift gallows or railings of buildings, and left hanging for days on end; others were shot to death, still others were incinerated in barns. Egged on by the Nazis, local citizens could discharge their antisemitic rage at Jews, who were also blamed for their putative allegiance to the Soviet Union and the way locals were dealt with by the Soviet NKVD.

Dimensions

2 1/2 x 3 1/2"

Keywords

Operation Barbarossa, Soviet NKVD, Einsatzgruppen

Subcollection

Bullets

Recommended Citation

"Operation Barbarossa: Photograph of Nazi Atrocities" (1941). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.93.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1469