October 29, 1941: The Kaunas Massacre

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. 

August 31, 1994: The Russians Pull Their Last Troops Out of the Baltics

August 31, 1994: The Russian Federation pulls the last of its armed forces out of the "Baltic States": Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. These countries had gained their independence from the Russian Empire after World War I, but it didn't last.

On September 28, 1939, under threat of invasion, Estonia signed a treaty of "mutual assistance" with the Soviet Union, which allowed the establishment of Soviet military bases there. Latvia, under similar duress, did so on October 5; Lithuania, on October 10.

On June 14, 1940, the day the Nazis marched into Paris, the Soviets issued an ultimatum to Lithuania, demanding the replacement of the Lithuanian government, and that the Red Army be allowed into the country. The government decided that, with Soviet bases already in Lithuania, armed resistance was impossible and accepted the ultimatum.

The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on August 3, 1940; the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic followed on August 5; the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, on August 6.

During the Eastern European phase of World War II, which the Soviets named the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis killed 120,000 people in Lithuania, 85,000 in Latvia, 10,000 in Estonia.

With the Eastern European revolutions of 1989 in mind, on March 11, 1990, Lithuania's Supreme Council declared independence from the Soviet Union. Latvia did the same on May 4. The Soviets responded with military force, but Lithuania fought them to a stalemate. Latvia's independence was recognized by the United Nations on August 21, 1991, followed by Lithuania's and Estonia's on September 17.

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved. On August 31, 1993, the last Russian troops left Lithuania. A year later, the last Russian troops were pulled out of Latvia and Estonia.

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August 31, 1994 was a Tuesday. Major League Baseball was the only North American sports league that was supposed to be in its regular season, but the Strike of '94 had just begun. So there were no scores on this historic day.

August 23, 1989: The Baltic Way

The chain in Lithuania. Note the flag.

August 23, 1989: On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the Baltic Way, also known as the Chain of Freedom, was undertaken.

A human chain of about 2 million people stretched 420 miles between the capitals of the "Baltic States," which had been under Soviet rule since 1940, except for Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944: Vilnius, Lithuania; Riga, Latvia; and Tallinn, Estonia.

For the most part, they got away with it: The Soviets responded with intense rhetoric, but no military or economic action.

But when these same countries tried to break away from the Soviet Union over the next 2 years, they were hit back, hard. But with their domestic situation in disarray, the Soviets couldn't continue, and had to fall back. Lithuania regained its independence on March 11, 1990. Latvia declared independence on May 4, 1990, but the Soviet Union did not recognize it until September 6, 1991, after the August Coup. Estonia's was recognized on August 20, 1991.

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August 23, 1989 was a Wednesday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-1 at Yankee Stadium. Mike Boddicker outpitched Andy Hawkins. Don Mattingly went 1-for-4. Dave Winfield missed the entire season due to a back injury.

* The New York Mets lost to the San Francisco Giants, 5-0 at Shea Stadium. It took 3 Giant pitchers to pitch a 5 hit-shutout: Rick Reuschel allowed 3 hits over 6 innings, Craig Lefferts 2 over 2, and Steve Bedrosian pitched a perfect 9th. David Cone took the loss. Matt Williams hit a home run.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 1-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. This was one of the longest games ever played: 22 innings. Pascual Pérez pitched 8 innings for the Expos, and Orel Hershiser 7 for the Dodgers. Alfredo Griffin went 0-for-9 for the Dodgers, on top of an 0-for-4 the night before, his batting average dropping from .272 to .263 in 2 days. Rick Dempsey, better known as a good-fielding but not really good-hitting catcher for Baltimore, led off the top of the 22nd inning with a home run to end the scoreless duel.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Tony Gwynn did not play.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Milwaukee Braves, 3-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Cal Ripken went 0-for-4. So did Robin Yount. Paul Molitor went 1-for-4.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Marty Clary pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-4 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Astros, 6-1 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds went 0-for-1 with 3 walk. No, he wasn't yet the big bulky slugger that he would become.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Rookie Ken Griffey Jr. went 0-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-5 at Wrigley Field in Cincinnati. This was Pete Rose's 4,219th game in a Major League Baseball uniform, as a player and/or a manager. It would also be his last.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-7 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 6-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 5-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Dave Stewart outpitched Kevin Brown. Rickey Henderson went 2-for-4 with a walk.

June 22, 1941: The Nazis Invade the Soviet Union

June 22, 1941: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union, breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty that the countries had signed nearly 2 years earlier.

It was called Operation Barbarossa, named for Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was called Kaiser Rotbart, German for "Emperor Red Beard" -- in Latin, then the dominant language of Europe, "Caesar Barbarossa." He seemed superhuman until his death in the Third Crusade.

The Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806, founded by Charlemagne (who was more French than German), was called the First Reich by modern Germans, and it lasted over 1,000 years. Following the unification of Germany in 1871, the Second Reich was proclaimed, but it only lasted until defeat in World War I in 1918, 47 years later.

When Adolf Hitler was awarded the title and powers of the Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he proclaimed a Third Reich, and called it "the Thousand-Year Reich," aiming for the same staying power as Charlemagne's empire.

It was said of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin that he trusted one man in his life, and it was Hitler. It may have been the 2nd-greatest mistake any leader of any nation on planet Earth has ever made.

The 1st was Hitler breaking that trust. Had he not done so, he could have kept most of his troops on the Western Front, and repelled any Allied invasion of the European continent, and maintained his hold on it indefinitely.

Instead, with enough never being enough for him, Hitler opened up an Eastern Front, with the aim of not just conquering the Slavic peoples, whom he considered racially inferior, but taking the Soviet oil reserves in the Caucasus to fuel his empire.

Instead, the Soviets dug in, and fought like their country depended on it -- which it did. They managed to stall the Nazi advance on the doorstep of their capital of Moscow. With victory in the Battle of Stalingrad (a city now named Volgograd), lasting from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the tide of war began to turn.

Hitler made the same mistake that Napoleon Bonaparte made in 1812: Trying to conquer Russia, and still having your troops there in the Winter, is a bad idea. You know how, in the 21st Century, American right-wingers call liberals "snowflakes"? Well, you know what stopped fascists in the 1940s -- on both the Eastern Front and the Western Front (the Battle of the Bulge)? Snowflakes. Lots and lots of snowflakes.

Speaking of which: Just 6 months after this, America joined the war, on the side of the British Empire (including Canada and Australia) and the exiled troops of France and other conquered nations. The Allies pushed the Nazis out of North Africa and Italy. On June 6, 1944, Allied troops invaded France. In the Spring of 1945, the Allies closed in from the West, the Soviets from the East. Hitler killed himself on April 30, and the Nazis surrendered on May 8.

The Soviets' contribution to the war, something Americans did not want to admit during the subsequent "Cold War," was incalculable. One thing that was calculated was the number of lives lost to the Soviet Union, military and civilian combined: Around 27 million. It is no wonder that they call it not "World War II," but "The Great Patriotic War." That defense, reversal and conquest -- not their achievements in spaceflight -- was, to borrow the phrase of Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, their finest hour.

Bernard Montgomery, who would become Britain's top military leader of World War II, would write, "Rule 1, on page 1 of The Book of War, is: 'Do not march on Moscow.' Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: 'Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.' It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives."

On the same day that the Nazis invaded, they began a rapid escalation of the Holocaust in Lithuania: By the end of the year, they would kill nearly 200,000 Jews in that formerly (and futurely) Soviet-controlled country, about 95 percent of its Jewish population. That population had once included maternal ancestors of mine.

And on June 28, the Nazis would begin the Iași pogrom, killing over 13,000 Jews in Romania, a nation from which a significant portion of Jews already in America had come. The comedian Zero Mostel once said, "Romanian-Jewish cooking has killed more Jews than the Nazis." Another comedian, Buddy Hackett, backed that up by visiting the infirmary on his first night in the U.S. Army, telling the doctor, "The fire's gone out!" It was his first time away from his mother's cooking: He said he didn't know what heartburn was until he didn't have it anymore.

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June 22, 1941 was a Sunday. CBS News TV journalist Ed Bradley was born on this day.

It was the off-season for the NFL and the NHL, and the NBA wasn't founded until 1946. But, being a Sunday, there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games, including doubleheaders:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at the old Yankee Stadium. This was the 35th game of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak, which would reach a record that still stands: 56 games. He and Red Rolfe hit home runs in support of Red Ruffing.

Rolfe's home run in the bottom of the 9th tied the game. Bobo Newsom was rattled by this, and subsequently hit Tommy Henrich with a pitch, gave up a double to DiMaggio, walked Bill Dickey intentionally, and walked Joe Gordon unintentionally to force Henrich home with the winning run. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you.

* The New York Giants swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Cardinals at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Jints won the 1st game 4-3, and the 2nd game 3-2.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The 1st game went 16 innings. Pete Reiser led off the top of the 16th with a single, and reached 3rd base when Lew Riggs' bunt was mishandled. Reiser then scored on Dixie Walker's groundout, and the Brooks were 2-1 winners. Dem Bums took the 2nd game 3-2.

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox won the 1st game 7-5, and the St. Louis Browns won the 2nd game 12-3.

* A doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Owner-manager Connie Mack must have forgotten to tell his Philadelphia Athletics that you gotta come out of the clubhouse to play the ballgame, because they lost the 1st game to the Chicago White Sox, 14-0. Three runs in the 2nd inning and 7 in the 3rd put the game away. Ted Lyons pitched a 7-hit shutout. But the A's got serious in the 2nd game, and won it 3-0. Phil Marchildon pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 6-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Bob Feller pitched a 7-hit shutout.

* A doubleheader was split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Pirates scored 4 runs in both games. In the 1st game, it was enough, as they beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1. It was not enough in the 2nd game, as the Phils won 7-4.

* And the Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Braves won the 1st game 6-5, and the 2nd game 3-2.