Kauen main camp (aka Kaunas, Kovno, Kowno, also Slobodka)

ENThere has been little academic research into the history of the Kauen ghetto and concentration camp. However, there have been many autobiographical accounts on the topic. As historian Christoph Dieckmann has shown, the Kauen concentration camp arose as the result of a complicated relationship between the German civilian administration in Lithuania, the regional representatives of the Reichsführer-SS (RFSS), the Commander of the Security Police and Sicherheitsdienst (BdS) in Lithuania who reported to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the “Wirtschaftsstab Ost,” and the regional Wehrmacht administration. It was located, as was the ghetto before it, in the northeastern area of Kaunas (in German: Kauen; in Yiddish: Kovno; in Rus sian: Kowno), known as Viljampole or Slobodice, to the east of the small Neris River. The transformation of the Kauen ghetto into a concentration camp was the result of an order given by the RFSS, Heinrich Himmler, to the Higher- SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Ostland, Friedrich Jeckeln, and the chief of the SSBusiness Administration Main Offi ce (WVHA), Oswald Pohl, on June 21, 1943. Himmler’s aim to give the SS control of ghetto life and labor deployment in Kauen had two goals: first, to furnish a more efficient application of German policy in the Reichskommissariat Ostland (RKO), above all the economic and security aspects, and, second, to expand his power. He also required that by August 1, 1943, all Jews in ghettos within the RKO were to be put into concentration camps. This would apply only to those Jews of working age—the others were to be selected and murdered.