JUNE 25 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JUNE 25

1941

Kaunas Pogrom was a massacre planned by Nazi-organized units of Lithuanian activists in the city of Kaunas and its surrounding areas. On the morning of the massacre,  Nazi SS Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker arrived in Kaunas and gave a long, virulent speech at the headquarters of the Lithuanian Security Police, instigating the Lithuanians to solve the "Jewish problem".  During the next five days mobs of Lithuanians tortured and killed Jews at random.  In the aftermath of the blood bath, some  3,800 Jews had been slaughtered in Kaunas and a further 1,200 in other towns in the immediate region.

1943

The last recorded Jews were liquidated from Stanislawow Ghetto:  Just before the liquidation of the Ghetto, a group of Jewish insurgents managed to escape. They formed a partisan unit called "Pantelaria" active on the outskirts of Stanisławów. The two commanders were young Anda Luft pregnant with her daughter Pantelaria (born in the forest) and Oskar Friedlender. Their greatest accomplishment was the ambush and execution of the German chief of police named Tausch. The group was attacked and destroyed by the Nazis in mid winter 1943–44. Anda and her new baby girl were killed.

1944

The Battle of Osuchy began near Osuchy, Poland between Nazi German and Polish resistance forces. It was one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, a part of the Zamość Uprising. It took place near the village of Osuchy in the Solska Wilderness on June 25-26, 1944 during the German anti-partisan Operation Hurricane II. The battle ended with the defeat of the local resistance forces which suffered heavy casualties.  It is estimated that about 400 out of the 1,200-strong partisan forces that engaged the Germans on 24–25 June were killed (approximately half of the Polish losses during the Sturmwind II). Of the remainder, survivors were sent to Nazi concentration camps,  many surrendered and were tortured for information about the resistance; and others were executed on the spot.   However, the Nazi Germans could still not eliminate all the Polish resistance.  In July the Polish resistance launched Operation Tempest, which freed the towns of Szczebrzeszyn and Zamosc.  Soon afterward, the Soviet Lublin-Brest Offensive cleared out the Germans from much of the region.