Algirdas Klimaitis
Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Algirdas Jonas Klimaitis[nb 1] (28 December 1913 – 29 August 1988)[1] was a Lithuanian paramilitary commander who was infamous for his role in the Kaunas pogrom in June 1941 during World War II.[2]
Algirdas Klimaitis | |
|---|---|
Algirdas Jonas Klimaitis, August 1932 | |
| Born | December 28, 1913 |
| Died | August 29, 1988 (aged 74) |
| Occupations | Journalist, Lithuanian paramilitary commander |
| Parent | Pranas Klimaitis (father) |
During the interwar years, Klimaitis worked as a journalist for Lithuanian newspapers.[2] Before the Second World War, he was the editor of the tabloid Dešimt centų (Ten Cents). His attitudes shifted to anti-communism and antisemitism. He joined the Voldemarininkai movement.[1]
When Nazi Germany occupied Lithuania in June 1941, at the start of Operation Barbarossa, Klimaitis formed a military unit of roughly 600 members, which was not subordinate to the Lithuanian Activist Front or the Provisional Government of Lithuania,[3] and engaged in firefights with the Soviet army for control of Kaunas. On the evening of 23 June, most of the city was in the hands of the insurgents.[4]
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On the night of 25–26 June, the Kaunas pogrom, led by Klimaitis' unit, was instigated by Franz Walter Stahlecker, commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe A.[6] By 28 June 1941, according to Stahlecker, 3,800 people had been killed in Kaunas and a further 1,200 in surrounding towns in the region.[4] Klimaitis' men destroyed several synagogues and about sixty Jewish houses. Modern sources claim that the number of victims in Stahlecker's report were probably exaggerated.[3] The murder of Slobodka's rabbi, Rav Zalman Osovsky, is attributed to Jonas Klimaitis's gang.[7]
After the war, Klimaitis moved to Hamburg, Germany, where he was discovered in the late 1970s. Hamburg Police launched an investigation, but Klimaitis died in 1988,[8] before the case could be brought to trial.[4] In emigration, he gave his date of birth as December 28, 1910.[9]
Notes
- In non-Lithuanian texts, he is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Jonas Klimaitis. Stahlecker's report did not supply his first name.