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Days after [[Operation Barbarossa]] commenced, Einsatzgruppen squads began carrying out mass shootings in the last week of June 1941.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1939-1941/operation-barbarossa Operation Barbarossa | Holocaust Encyclopedia]</ref> By 1944, 1.6 million of these Jews had died at the hands of the Germans and their allies and auxiliaries. Unlike the majority of the Holocaust's later victims who died in the industrialized mass murder of the death camps, the overwhelming bulk of Ukraine's Jews died in mass shootings during the initial stages of the war.

Days after [[Operation Barbarossa]] commenced, Einsatzgruppen squads began carrying out mass shootings in the last week of June 1941.<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1939-1941/operation-barbarossa Operation Barbarossa | Holocaust Encyclopedia]</ref> By 1944, 1.6 million of these Jews had died at the hands of the Germans and their allies and auxiliaries. Unlike the majority of the Holocaust's later victims who died in the industrialized mass murder of the death camps, the overwhelming bulk of Ukraine's Jews died in mass shootings during the initial stages of the war.

Einsatzgruppen squads were recruited from prisons and mental hospitals - [[men]] generally regarded as unfit for regular [[military]] service. Convicted murderers were promised having their convictions reduced to 8 years. Mental patients were given the opportunity to get outside the facility and a feeling of being useful to [[society]]. Married men were not considered fit because of the [[emotion]]al and [[psychological]] effect of murdering [[women]] and [[children]].

Einsatzgruppen squads were recruited from prisons and mental hospitals - [[men]] generally regarded as unfit for regular [[military]] service. Convicted murderers were promised having their convictions reduced to 8 years. Mental patients were given the opportunity to get outside the facility and a feeling of being useful to [[society]]. Married men were not considered fit for Einsatzgruppen because of the [[emotion]]al and [[psychological]] effect of murdering [[women]] and [[children]].

The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves.  When the Soviet Red Army threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes.  The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a minimum of one million.

The killings were done in first and second waves, with the bodies buried in mass graves.  When the Soviet Red Army threatened and carried out counter-offensives to reclaim lost territory, special units made up of concentration camp inmates (''sonderkomandos'') would return to the sites, dig up the bodies, and burn them in mass pyres, destroying the evidence of their crimes.  The number of individual persons killed by the Einsatzgruppen has been estimated at a minimum of one million.