Template:POTD/2007-10-08

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Einsatzgruppen
NOTE: File:Einsatzgruppen_Killing.jpg was determined to be non-free and therefore ineligible to be Picture of the Day.

A member of Einsatzgruppe D is just about to shoot a Jewish man kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. The photograph was found in the personal album of a German soldier, with the inscription on the back reading, "The last Jew in Vinnitsa". Present in the background are members of the German Army, the German Labor Service, and the Hitler Youth. The Einsatzgruppen were paramilitary groups operated by the SS before and during World War II. According to their own records, they were responsible for killing over one million Jewish people, almost exclusively civilians.Photo credit: Unknown, courtesy of the USHMM