KLETNIA
Pre-1941: Kletnia, town and raion center, Orel oblast’, RSFSR; 1941–1943: Kletnja, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwartiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Kletnia, Briansk oblast’, Russian Federation
Kletnia is located about 90 kilometers (56 miles) west-northwest of Briansk. According to the 1939 census, there were 286 Jews residing in Kletnia (4.43 percent of the total population).
German forces occupied the town on August 10, 1941, almost two months after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. By this time, most of the Jews of Kletnia had managed to escape to the east. Jewish men liable for military service had been drafted into the Red Army. When the German occupiers reached the town, probably less than half of the pre-war Jewish population was still there.
During the entire period of the German occupation (from August 10, 1941, until September 1943), a military headquarters (Ortskommandantur) administered the town. It also established a local Russian administration and an auxiliary police force (Ordnungsdienst) recruited from the local population. In the fall of 1941, between 10 and 12 members of the Secret Field Police (Geheime Feldpolizei, GFP) Unit 729 operated in the area. They were mainly engaged in combating Soviet partisan activity, but their special tasks also included punitive Aktions against suspected partisans or those believed to be supporting them. There was also a German “Landesschützen” unit based in the town, which guarded the local sawmill factory that was supplying wood to the German forces at the front.1
A short time after the arrival of German troops, the military administration instituted several measures against the Jewish population, such as personal registration, marking them as Jews with special signs on their clothes, and using them for forced labor under very harsh physical conditions. It appears that by the end of 1941, the Germans had established a small ghetto in Kletnia. It consisted of a few buildings that were set apart in the town. The ghetto guards were Russian policemen. During the existence of the ghetto a number of the inmates died of hunger or disease.
In late March 1942, Sonderkommando 7a, under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Albert Rapp based in Klintsy, organized the liquidation of the ghetto. He traveled to Kletnia accompanied by more than 20 men of the Sonderkommando (both Waffen-SS and Security Police/SD) and was joined in Mglin by about 20 or 30 local Russian policemen.
In Kletnia, men of the Waffen-SS surrounded the ghetto, and local Russian policemen drove the Jews out of their houses. Under close escort, at least 100 men, women, and children were then gathered in a barn on the edge of town. Those unable to walk were carried on stretchers. A few days later, under the personal supervision of Rapp, all the Jews were made to undress and then were shot by members of the Sonderkommando into a ditch in the woods about 100 meters (328 feet) from the barn. Due to the fear of partisans in the region, some of the force was used to guard the killing site externally as well as to prevent any escape.2 In total, about 120 people were murdered.3
Rapp was tried after the war by the Landesgericht in Essen and sentenced on March 29, 1965, to life imprisonment.
SOURCES
Information on the fate of the Jewish community in Kletnia during the Holocaust can be found in the following publications: Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 635; A. Kruglov, “Unichtozhenie evreev Smolenshchiny i Brianshchiny v 1941–1943 gg.,” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve, no. 3 (7) (1994): 205–220; and Justiz und NS-Verbrechen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1979), vol. 20, Lfd. Nr. 588a, pp. 43–52.
Documents of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission can be found in the following archives: GABrO; GARF (7021-19-3); USHMM; and YVA.
NOTES
1. LG-Ess, 29 Ks 1/64, verdict of March 29, 1965, against Albert Rapp, published in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 20, Lfd. Nr. 588a, pp. 43–52.
2. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 20, Lfd. Nr. 588a, pp. 43–52. This account of events in Kletnia is based mainly on the evidence of German witness Ri., who was a member of Sonderkommando 7a.
3. Il’ia Al’tman, Zhertvy nenavisti: Kholokost v SSSR 1941–1945 gg. (Moscow: Fond Kovcheg, 2002), p. 98. Witnesses before the court in Essen give estimates ranging from 30 to 250 victims; see Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 20, Lfd. Nr. 588a, pp. 51–52.
