Artifact of the Month

Einsatzgruppe armband

The word "Einsatzgruppen" can be roughly translated as "Special Task Forces". They were originally formed by Reinhard Heydrich to secure government buildings and documents following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938. After the occupation of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, the Einsatzgruppen was disbanded.

Four units of Einsatzgruppen were reformed after the invasion of Poland. The units were organized by Reinhardt Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and SD (Sicherheitsdienst or Security Service). They operated under the direct control of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) rather than the commanders of the army they accompanied.  The personnel of the Einsatzgruppen came from the SS, the SD, the Gestapo (Secret State Police), and other police units.

In 1941 Einsatzgruppe A was sent to the Baltic countries and northern Russia; Gruppe B went to the central front; Gruppe C to the Ukraine and Kiev; and Gruppe D to the Crimea and southern Russia.

The Einsatzgruppen units were formed to accompany the German Army into the occupied East and to exterminate Jews, gypsies, Soviet officials, and other elements of the civilian population regarded as "racially" inferior or "politically undesirable".  Their technique was brutal. Jews were rounded up, and transported to a wooded area or a ravine. Sometimes the captured people dug their own graves.  The men, women and children were stripped, shot and buried.  One of the most brutal mass exterminations was at a ravine named "Babi Yar," near the Ukranian city of Kiev:

After the war all of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen who were caught were tried at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg before Military Tribunal II-A. The Tribunal convened 78 times, and the trial lasted approximately eight months. All of the defendants pleaded not guilty –all were found guilty on all counts against them except for three men who were found guilty on only three counts.

This is an armband from Einsatzgruppen C.  It was acquired by Darrell English in the mid 1980’s in upstate New York and is on permanent loan to Hatikvah. To the best of our knowledge, Hatikvah is the only Holocaust museum that has an Einsatzgruppe armband on display.

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