EinsatzgruppenFollowed Wehrmacht (German Army) as they invaded Soviet territory during Operation BarbarossaTasked with the elimination of “undesirable populations” from captured lands to prepare for German settlementVictims: Jews, Gypsies, Communists Precurors to/Inspiration for extermination camp system
Compiled by Karl Jager Commander of the Security police for LithuaniaSummary Records 137,346 deaths July 2, 1941 to December 1, 1941 Delineations:a. Jewish Men, Women and Childrenb. Communists, Gypsies, etc...c. Ethnicity/Religion/Nationality
a. Data Organization: Creating the database i. Compiled as a spatiotemporal geodatabase ii. The challenge: modeling these events in a mappable fashion iii. Geocoding of Historical German placenames 1. Multiple gazetteers 2. Problematic nature of mapping former Shtetls: a. Informal Jewish settlements b. Many were completely obliterated by the EG, and thus, no longer exist c. PLACE AS EVENT 3. GEOnet Nameserver for Lat/Long 4. Imported into ArcGIS as X/Y cords iv. For unmatched place names, used various internet sources Recovered all but one problem point (Jahiunai). v. Graphs breaking down death counts by group 1. Show graphs 2. Fits secondary research question: Was there an order to commence the final solution? When was it given? (hypothesis: yes) a. Clear shift in targeting from political to blatantly civilian (including Women/Children)
i. Different patterns of movement depending on scale of analysis 1. ‘Small scale’ = Show big map, linear progression a. Small scale both temporally and spatially b. Long-term trend was linear (HQ’s) Higher spatiotemporal detail = more chaotic distribution 1.
Show “EG in 10 seconds” a. Semi-autonomous units b. Clearly imparts more information than tabular data and textual reports alone