October 29, 1941: Nazi Germany's SS carries out its largest massacre of Lithuanian Jews, in the city of Kaunas. Unlike many of of their massacres, this was not in reprisal for an act of resistance. They just did it.
It started on October 4, when the Nazis destroyed a ghetto, killing almost all of its inhabitants. On October 28, SS-Rottenführer (section leader) Helmut Rauca, acting under the orders of SS-Obersturmführer (senior storm leader) Joachim Hamann, selected 9,180 Jewish men, women and children, about 1/3rd of the population of the largest ghetto in Kaunas. This included 2,007 men, 2,920 women, and 4,273 children. The next day, they were shot at the Ninth Fort, in huge pits dug in advance.
The Soviet Union's Red Army retook Kaunas on August 1, 1944. It would take until 1991 for Lithuania to liberate itself from Communism.
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October 29, 1941 was a Wednesday. This was also the day on which former New York Yankees player Harvey Hendrick committed suicide. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball season had ended 23 days earlier, with the New York Yankees winning the World Series over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start for another 3 days. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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