Koniuchy massacre

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The Kaniūkai (Koniuchy) massacre was a massacre carried out by Jewish and Soviet partisans during the Second World War in the Polish village of Koniuchy (now Kaniūkai, Lithuania).

The Soviet partisans had often commandeered by force various supplies including food, clothes and cattle from the village. Due to these earlier raids and thefts, a small local self defence unit was created in the village. The village was not fortified, and the villagers were armed with only a few rifles. The village had about 60 households and about 300 inhabitants.

On January 29, 1944, Koniuchy was attacked by Soviet partisan units under the command of the Central Partisan Command in Moscow. The raid was carried out by 100-120 partisans from various units including 50 Jewish partisans from the Kaunas Ghetto and the Vilnius Ghetto under the command of Jacob Penner and Shmuel Kaplinsky. Men, women and children were massacred indiscriminately and most of the households destroyed. According to findings from the IPN (investigation still in progress), at least 38 people were killed and a dozen or so injured (with at least one victim dying later), although earlier reports stated higher numbers of deaths. Notified about the assault, the 253rd battalion of the Lithuanian Security Police soon arrived at Koniuchy but did not find any Soviet partisans.[1]

The attack was carried out by the Soviet partisan units 'Death to the Fascists' and 'Margirio' from the Vilnius Brigade of the Lithuanian Partisan Staff and 'Death to the Invaders' of the Kovno Brigade. Following the attack, a message sent from Genrikas Zimanas (Henoch Ziman) head of the 'South' Partisan Brigade to Antanas Sniečkus communist leader and chief of Headquarters of the Lithuanian Partisan Movement, read as follows: "On January 29, a joint group of Vilnius and Kovno partisans, as well as a special group from General Headquarters burned down the most ardently resistant village of the Eišiškės County, Kaniūkai."

There are controversies surrounding the significance of the Koniuchy incident. The events at Koniuchy have been described by Chaim Lazar in Destruction and Resistance (1985) in which he claimed 300 people had been murdered. This number has been questioned by some historians who reduced the number of victims.^{[citation needed]} Many Russian sources try to minimize the significance of this crime.^{[citation needed]}

In Poland and Lithuania, the Koniuchy massacre is treated as one of the many examples of totalitarian crimes against humanity. The Institute of National Remembrance initiated a formal investigation into the incident on March 3, 2001. The institute examined a number of archival documents including police reports, encoded messages, military records and personnel files of the Soviet partisans. Requests for legal assistance were then sent to state prosecutors in Belarus, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and Israel. In May 2004, a monument commemorating the crime was erected in Kaniūkai with the names of the 34 victims.