1941: Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor: Holocaust Monument

Holocaust Monument.

On June 22, the German army invaded the Soviet Union and mass extermination of Jews began. The decision to annihilate rather than exile the Jews had been made.

Four mobile killing units (einsatzgruppen) were assigned to execute communist officials, gypsies, and Jews. Three of these unit commanders held PhDs.

Jews in small towns were killed almost immediately. In larger areas, the elderly and weak were chosen first. Able-bodied persons were used for slave labor until they too were killed.

Germans encouraged local populations to kill Jews and confiscate their property. Auxiliary police comprised of local collaborators from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine became indispensable.

Jews were rounded up and taken outside the city. Forced to strip naked, they were then shot. Victims fell into mass graves, some even before they were dead.

According to an official German report, 33,771 Jews were machine-gunned on September 29-30, at Babi Yar, Ukraine. Gassing of Jews began on December 8, at Chelmo extermination camp in western Poland.

On December 7, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The next day the United States declared war on Japan. . This historical marker was erected in 1992 by Los Angeles Museum of The Holocaust; American Congress of Jews from Poland; and Survivors of Concentration Camps.. It is in Fairfax in Los Angeles in Los Angeles County California