Rollkommando Hamann was a small mobile unit that committed mass murders of Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...

 in the countryside in July–October 1941. The unit was also responsible for a large number of murders in Latvia from July through August, 1941. At the end of 1941 the destruction of Lithuanian Jewry was effectively accomplished by the Rollkommando in the countryside, by the Ypatingasis būrys

Ypatingasis burys

Ypatingasis būrys or Special SD and German Security Police Squad was a Nazi killing squad of approximately 50 men, also called the "Lithuanian equivalent of Sonderkommando", operating in the Vilnius Region...

 in the Ponary massacre

Ponary massacre

The Ponary massacre was the mass-murder of 100,000 people, mostly Polish Jews, by German SD and SS and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators Sonderkommando collaborators...

, and by the Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas in the Ninth Fort

Ninth Fort

The Ninth Fort is a stronghold in the northern part of Šilainiai elderate, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is a part of the Kaunas Fortress, which was constructed in the late 19th century. During the occupation of Kaunas and the rest of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, the fort was used as a prison and...

 in Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

. In about six months an estimated 80% of all Lithuanian Jews were killed. The remaining few were spared as labor force and concentrated in urban ghettos, mainly the Vilna

Vilna Ghetto

The Vilna Ghetto or Vilnius Ghetto was a Jewish ghetto established by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the occupied Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic , during the Holocaust in World War II...

 and Kaunas Ghetto

Kaunas Ghetto

The Kovno ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 40,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort...

s.

Organization

The group consisted of 8–10 Germans from Einsatzkommando 3, commanded by SS Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

 Joachim Hamann, and several dozens of Lithuanians from the 3rd company of the Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas

Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas

Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas was organized by the Provisional Government of Lithuania in 1941 as basis for future independent Lithuanian Army, but Nazi authorities soon reorganized the battalion into auxiliary police...

 (TDA), commanded by Bronius Norkus. The unit had no permanent structure and was called for ad hoc

Ad hoc

Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....

missions in various towns in Lithuania. Hamann himself rarely participated in actual killings. The Jäger Report

Jäger Report

The Jäger Report was written on 1 December 1941 by Karl Jäger, commander of Einsatzkommando 3, a killing unit of Einsatzgruppen A which was attached to Army Group North during the Operation Barbarossa...

 documents mass executions carried out by the unit in 54 locations across Lithuania. From July 13 to August 22, 1941, the commando operated out of Daugavpils

Daugavpils

Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. Daugavpils literally means "Daugava Castle". With a population of over 100,000, it is the second largest city in the country after the capital Riga, which is located some...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

. During this time, the commando murdered 9,102 people, almost all of whom were Jews, from the Daugavpils Ghetto

Daugavpils Ghetto

Following the occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941, the Daugavpils Ghetto was established in an old fortress near Daugavpils. Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia and the principal city of the Latgalia region. Daugavpils was located in southeastern Latvia on the...

.

Operations

Usually the unit arrived already after the local Jews were rounded up and gathered in a more secluded area, usually a forest or a distant field, by local Nazi authorities and "Lithuanian partisans

Lithuanian partisans (1941)

Lithuanian partisans is a generic term used during World War II by Nazi officials and quoted in books by modern historians to describe Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazis during the first months of the occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany...

." Sometimes a small, temporary ghettos were set up for gathering the Jews from several nearby towns. Jews selected for executions were marched to the location, usually about 4–5 km (2.5–3.1 ) away from where they lived, and shot. Sometimes men were shot first, while women and children were executed towards the end of 1941. The corpses would be disposed of in pits dug in advance and the loot (clothes and other property of those killed) would be divided among the perpetrators. Such killings became known as "actions" .