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Audio testimony - Murder in Linkuva



Collaboration of the local population with the Nazis in the killing of Jews and Gypsies occurred in many countries, perhaps motivated by the idea that material advantages would result. In many cases, including in Lithuania there was direct collaboration in the killing of the Jewish population.
This page will eventually show video testimony by an elderly Lithuanian woman who lived in Linkuva and was 27 years old at the time of the massacre in Linkuva. She was interviewed outside her home in Linkuva. The camerman is Harold Rhode and the translator is Regina Kopilevich.

With many thanks to Harold Rhode for providing a copy of this video testimony. The audio clip here is a 6 minute segment of this interview in MP3 format. Download here (1.1 Mb download).

A transcript of this part of the conversation is shown below

Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: She says that the young people, they were covered with wires...
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: And the children and the elderly were brought by carts ...
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: which were full...
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: Those elderly people, they used to keep the children on their ...(inaudible).
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: Our people killed them ... our people.
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: She says that the children, they were not killed, they were buried alive ...
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: She is from 1914, she was born 1914 .. so ... she was twenty seven.
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: My husband was in the war. (10 second blank segment on tape)
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: We were going past the place of the killing. They were marching aside with their rifles. Somebody who was not able to walk, they just beat them.
Cameraman: Were the Germans here when this happened?
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: There were no Germans.
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: There were no Germans (again)
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: By themselves they did it.
Cameraman: This was before the Germans came?
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: The Germans came, and then they left. There were some few of them.
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: She remembered the ... (searching for word).. repressions .. when the people were taken to Siberia.
Cameraman: Why did they do this?
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: They wanted to get the .. (posessions)
Cameraman: .. but had they ever done anything like that to the Lithuanians
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: She says there were also many of our people, they were also killing the Lithuanians ... who were (members of) the Communist party.
Cameraman: Where was the place they marched the Jews?
Witness: (Lithuanian) - pointing .. (long conversation)
Translator: On the road to the forest.
Cameraman: And where is the forest .. that way?? (Witness confirms)
Witness: (Lithuanian)
Translator: It was all our people, it was our people, ... the crazy ones.

Killing of Jews in Kovno
Killing of Jews by the Lithuanian population in Kovno. The killing was filmed by the SS.

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