EINSATZGRUPPEN
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The main purpose of einsatzgruppen was to defend and mantain order in the area behind the front lines. In order to do so such groups as communists, gypsies, and other unwanted elements would be targeted and exterminated. With the war on the Eastern front, four of such groups were created; Group A - in Baltic countries, B in Belarus, C in Kyiv and D in Southern Ukraine. In each of these regions many civilians had joined not for their sympathy for the Germans but out of their deep hatred for the Communists and anything that had to deel with the Bolshevik regime.

Each einsatzgruppe was composed of 1000 man, out of which around two hundred would be hired from the local police. Another 150 would be hired as truck drivers and others as translators or mechanics. The rest of the group would be composed of various Gestapo and SS units. Most of the notticible deeds of einsatzgruppen in Ukraine was licvidation of 150.000 prisoners in Lviv's getho and 200.000 in Kyiv.

Operation Report with regards the civil population
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Operational Situation Report USSR No. 112

The Chief of Security Police and Security Police
Berlin, October 13, 1941.
50 copies...............(36th copy)

OPERATIONAL SITUATION REPORT No.112
..............................Einsatzgruppe C Location: Kiev

Bolshevism and Jewry

The population's attitude towards these two problems in the areas of Kiev, Poltava, and Dniepropetrovsk is the same as has been observed elsewhere in Ukraine. The population rejects Bolshevism almost without exeption, since there is practically no family which has not lost one or more members through Bolshevik deportation or killing. Also, the Ukrainians had been free farmers and independent in ancient Russia and have not forgotten that everything was taken from them when forced into the collective farms. The number of Ukrainians who joined the Communist party out of conviction is suprisingly low. Only the young people who have neither seen nor heard of anything else but Communism and its "successes and achievements" allow themselves to be captivated by the Communist ideology. Yet even in his group one finds few fanatics and really convinced fighters. German propaganda will not have difficulty in promoting a complete change in this attitude. In order to begin the process of such a re-education, and as long as the powerful battle is till fresh in the minds of the Ukrainians, propaganda, lectures, performances, films, radio and periodicals should be introduced. The Ukrainian rejects Judaism together with Communism, as it was mainly Jews who were officials of the Communist Party. The Ukrainians has the opportunity to discover that practically only the Jews enjoyed the advantages connected with membership in the Communist Party, especially in its leading positions. The population is, however, unaware of real anti-Semitism based on rural and ideological principles. There are no leading personalities and no spiritual impetus within the Ukrainian population to trigger off persecution since all remember the harsh puishments inflicted by the Bolsheviks against anyone who attacked the Jews. For instance, whoever called the Jews "Zhyd" (Yid) (which was at that time a curse word) and not "Evrei" (Hewbrew), was sent to prison. However, if an impulse comes from any side and should the population be given a free hand, an extensive persecution of the Jews could result.

Yitzak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski and Shmuel Spector
editors. The Einsatzgruppen Reports. New York,
Holocaust Library. 1989, pg. 187-188.