Felix Landau – Einsatzkommando  

War Diary – Selected Extracts

Part One Service in Lemberg

Lemberg 3 July 1941

On Monday 30 June 1941, after a sleepless night I volunteered for a number of reasons to join an Einsatzkomando (EK). By 9 o’clock I had heard that I had been accepted.

It was not easy for me to leave. Suddenly everything had changed in me. I almost thought that I would not be able to tear myself from a certain person. I felt acutely how attached one can become to another human being. As usual our departure was delayed several times but at 17.00 hours we finally left. We stopped one more time and once again I saw the person who has become so dear to me.

Then we set off again. At 22.30 we finally reached Cracow. The accommodation was good. No creature comforts whatsoever. You can actually become a soldier in just a few hours if you want to.

We then passed through Przemysl. The town was still burning -on the street we saw shot-up German and Russian tanks. It was the first time I had seen two-tier Russian tanks.  After a short time we set off again towards Millnicze. It was becoming increasingly clear that the troops had recently been through.

At 21.30 on 1 July 1941 we arrived in Millnicze, we stood around aimlessly without any plan. We quartered ourselves in a Russian military school. It was still burning here too. At 23.00 hours we finally went to bed. I set up my bed and kipped down. Naturally I enquired whether it was possible to send letters but unfortunately it wasn’t.

On 2 July 1941 we were woken at 6.00 as at the front. There were women and children standing by burning houses and rummaging around in the rubble. During the journey we came across more Ukrainian soldiers. As we got closer to the Russians the smell of decaying corpses got stronger and stronger.

At 4.00 pm on 2 July 1941 we arrived in Lemberg. First impression: Warsaw harmless in comparison. Shortly after our arrival the first Jews were shot by us. As usual a few of the new officers became megalomaniacs; they really enter into the role wholeheartedly. We took over another military school in the Bolshevik quarter.

Here the Russians must have been caught in their sleep. We quickly gathered together the bare essentials. At midnight after the Jews had cleaned the building, we went to bed.

3 July 1941. This morning I found out that we can write and it looks as though the post will actually be dispatched. So while listening to wildly sensual music  I wrote my first letter to my Trude. While I was writing the letter we were ordered to get ready. EK with steel helmets, carbines, thirty rounds of ammunition.

We have just come back. Five hundred Jews were lined up ready to be shot. Beforehand we paid our respects to the murdered German airmen and Ukrainians. Eight hundred people were murdered here in Lemberg. The scum did not even draw the line at children.

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009