WARNING: Contains disturbing material
In Bila Tserkva, a city in Ukraine, around ninety young children were locked up in appalling conditions on the 20th of August. Their parents had been murdered as part of the ‘Holocaust by Bullets’. Now the Nazis had to decide what to do with the children. Men from the German Army's 295th Infantry Division had been disturbed by what they had seen. Their officers had submitted a report to 6th Army HQ seeking directions.
It appears that orders for the execution of the children were received on the 21st, although a written reply by Generalfeldmarschall Walter von Reichenau was not made until the 26th.
The incident reveals some of the problems that the SS were encountering with their methods of execution. For the SS, the ‘problem’ now emerging was the ‘strain’ on their own men. The men of the Einsatzgruppen might have initially embraced their role, but as the daily executions continued, they were finding it increasingly difficult. The recent decision to include children in the murders found many of them unprepared. In consequence, the SS now began looking for new methods of mass murder.
