On June 22nd, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarosa, pushing the war into Soviet territory. But behind the military units was not just logistics or security control. It was the Enz Group and mobile execution squads carrying a different mission. The elimination of civilian groups deemed undesirable.
In Ukraine, violence quickly moved beyond the military scope. It became an organized process of destruction, operating behind the front lines, expanding one town at a time. It was within this process at Beirva that the final limit of humanity was [music] crossed. Not because of the scale of numbers, but because of the object of the violence.
90 children ranging from [music] a few months to 7 years old left abandoned in a desolate school after their parents had been executed. The question posed is not only who pulled the trigger but what happens when killing is no longer an impulsive act but becomes [music] an administrative decision debated and signed off within the machinery of power.
This is not just a story about a single massacre, but proof of how Nazi warfare legalized violence into duty and demoted human beings to objects that could be processed for elimination. Occupation and the emergence of the killing machine. On July 16th, 1941, [music] the German 6th Army entered Bilatva, meeting almost no organized resistance.
The city quickly fell into a power vacuum. The Soviet civil administration had [music] disintegrated while a stable replacement administrative structure had not yet [music] been established. In that context, in late July 1941, a tile commando belonging to Einat’s [music] group of sea was deployed in Beerva.
This unit operated under the command of SS Obus [music] Tonfura August Hefner, the man directly responsible for organizing and executing violent activities behind [music] the lines in the area. Organizationally, the tile [music] commando was not a homogeneous force. Its composition included SS officers and soldiers, [music] waffen SS units, along with Ukrainian auxiliary forces recruited locally.
This structure allowed the unit to both maintain centralized SS command and expand control capabilities thanks to indigenous manpower. The actual [music] function of the tile commando at Billetva was not to establish administrative order or ensure military security. The unit’s [music] core mission was to conduct targeted killing campaigns primarily aimed at the Jewish community in the area while simultaneously eliminating individuals [music] accused of being political enemies including former Soviet officials and those suspected of
opposition. These [music] activities were deployed with logistical support from the vermarked. The regular German army provided transport vehicles, temporary detention sites, [music] and ensured area control, creating conditions for the execution squads to perform their tasks [music] without interruption.
That coordination shows that the killings at Bilaturk were not [music] isolated acts, but took place within the framework of the occupation mechanism [music] established from the very early days. From this moment, Bilatva was no longer simply [music] an occupied city, but the place where the Nazi machine began to shift from military [music] control to the execution of organized violence.
The massacre of adults during the two days of August 19th [music] and 20th, 1941, the execution force at Belarka proceeded with the organized shooting of nearly all remaining adult Jews in the city. The victims were gathered and escorted in [music] small groups to the outskirts where mass graves had already been dug.
The preparation of burial sites before the [music] execution shows this was not an immediate violent reaction but a planned decision lying within the logic of occupation and social restructuring through violence of the Nazis. The execution took place according [music] to a stable sequence. A German officer cadet present at the scene later testified that the shootings were carried out in order with [music] no signs of chaos.
The victims were brought out in a fixed rhythm. Nine people were [music] shot in each turn while the next nine stood waiting before their turn came. This organization aimed not only to [music] optimize killing efficiency, but also helped the perpetrators detach the act of shooting from personal emotion. Violence was turned [music] into a sequence of repetitive operations where each person only needed to complete their part in a pre-esigned process.
Those being shot knelt or stood by the edge of the pit. Shots were fired [music] from close range. After each turn, bodies fell directly into the grave. Some wounded were shot again before [music] the pit was covered with earth. Here, death no longer carried the randomness or chaos of war, but took on [music] the appearance of an administrative procedure executed to the end.
The goal was not to suppress or deter, but to completely erase the presence of a [music] community from the social space. Estimates based on post-war documents show that about 800 to 900 adult [music] Jews were shot dead just in the initial execution waves during these two days. With that speed [music] and scale, the adult Jewish community at Beer Turkva basically ceased [music] to exist after August 20th, 1941.
This was not only destruction in [music] terms of life, but the total shattering of the social, economic, and family structure of a community that had [music] existed there for generations. The temporary survival of this group of [music] children marked an important transitional phase of violence at Beerva.
At that time, [music] the killing had gone far beyond the framework of conventional war, but was still seeking final legitimization [music] to step across its ultimate boundary. At Belarkva, the scariest thing wasn’t the speed of the killing, but the systems ability to pause [music] death just to ensure that it would proceed according to procedure.
The problem of children [music] and the delay of death. After the execution, waves [music] of adult Jews at Belva ended on August 19th and 20th, 1941. The German occupation apparatus faced a group of victims not processed in [music] the initial plan. About 90 Jewish children ranging from a few months old to about [music] 7 years old, all of whom had lost their parents in the previous shootings.
This group of children [music] was temporarily detained in a civilian building of the town, usually identified as a school. Postwar [music] documents and testimonies show that detention conditions quickly fell into an inhumane state. a total lack of food, [music] medical care, and the presence of any guardians.
Some older children scraped lime from the walls to eat, [music] a sign of prolonged starvation. Infants and young children cried continuously for hours. [music] On August 20th, 1941, Catholic and Protestant chaplain [music] belonging to the 295th Infantry Division were led by frontline [music] soldiers to this location.
Unlike previous execution reports, the condition of the children caused the chaplain [music] to view this as an ethically unavoidable issue. They immediately sent an official [music] report up to the division’s military commander requesting clear instructions on how to handle it. From [music] this moment, the issue was no longer seen as a situation on the ground, but became an administrative file in [music] the military chain of command.
Lieutenant Colonel Helmouth Groskerth, Chief of Staff of [music] the 295th Division, sought to delay the decision and moved the matter to a higher level. Documents show that Grosk did not oppose the execution [music] system in general, but argued that the killing of children required clear approval from Supreme [music] Command. The final decision was forwarded to Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, commander of the Sixth Army.
Reichenau [music] rejected all petitions for delay and confirmed that the execution must continue. The order was conveyed with the argument that the process already started could not stop halfway and needed to be [music] completed properly. The delay in the fate of the Jewish children at Bilatva [music] therefore did not reflect an effort to save lives but was the result of a consultation process within the military chain of command.
It [music] was this delay that clarified the nature of violence at Beard Cirka. It was not an impulsive act at the scene, but a decision considered, transferred up, approved, and legitimized at the highest [music] level of the occupation apparatus. Executing [music] children, the final phase. When the order from the army level was confirmed, the fate of the group of Jewish children at Bilerva [music] entered the final phase.
What is notable lies not in the kill order [music] itself, but in how it was deployed, orderly, familiar, and completely fitting [music] the process that had run smoothly in execution campaigns behind the front since the summer of 1941. The execution order was [music] transmitted through Paul Global, commander of Sonda Commando 4A, the unit that had directly participated in the shootings of adult Jews [music] at Billet Circa previously.
The chain of command was not broken. [music] There was no indication that this was an exceptional or abnormal decision [music] in the operational practice of Ein’s group and units. On the contrary, the resolution [music] of the children group was integrated into the same familiar administrative military [music] framework.
The implementation phase was assigned to the Ukrainian auxiliary [music] police force. The use of local forces reflected not only a calculation regarding manpower, [music] but also revealed a strategy of dispersing the responsibility for killing a recurring characteristic in Nazi mass [music] shooting campaigns in Eastern Europe.
Violence was delegated, but the power of decision remained entirely in the hands of the [music] German occupation apparatus. The children were taken to the execution [music] site by tractor, a transport vehicle commonly seen in collective killing campaigns in the east. According to sources, the execution [music] took place between about 3:30 and 4:00 in the afternoon the next day after the entire administrative consultation and delay [music] process had concluded.
Choosing daytime instead of proceeding in the secrecy of night showed this was not an impulsive or hidden act but a final step [music] that had been fully legitimized. Postwar testimony [music] of August Hefner, an SS officer present at Beir revealed the psychological dimension of this [music] phase. He described children being shot multiple times, screams ringing [music] out during the execution and especially the trembling of the very people directly pulling [music] the triggers.
This detail carries significant analytical meaning. It shows that [music] even in a system that normalized violence, killing children still created a moral boundary that [music] not every individual crossed smoothly. However, that personal hesitation was not [music] enough to slow down or break the process approved by superiors.
These details show that violence at Bilaturk was not [music] the act of people losing control, but the result of a system forcing [music] humans to kill even when they were trembling with fear. A system operating [music] regardless of any personal hesitation. Precisely at this point, moral responsibility no longer lay with the individual [music] trigger puller, but spread throughout the entire power structure that ordered, [music] organized, and legitimized the killing of children.
The execution of children at Belarkva [music] closed the entire chain of events starting from the shootings of adult [music] Jews previously. According to historical estimates, the total number of Jewish victims killed at Bilatka exceeded [music] 5,000 people. The death of the children group was not a deviation in the violence [music] machine, but the logical endpoint of a process that had been started, paused, [music] reviewed, approved, and completed according to the correct order of the German occupation [music]
apparatus. After the massacre, [music] who was punished, who was not? After the graves at Belarkva were filled, the question was no longer how the crime happened, but who was [music] punished and who was not. But just like the massacre itself, the answer [music] was not distributed evenly. Paul Global, commander of Sonda Commando 4A and a direct link in the execution chain at Bea Turka, was one of the [music] few to face clear legal consequences.
After the war, he was brought to trial at the Enzats group trial in Nuremberg, where mobile execution squads [music] were placed under international legal light for the first time. Global was sentenced [music] to death and hanged in 1951. This verdict carried important symbolic meaning.
It affirmed that mass killing [music] behind the front lines could not be justified as legitimate military action. Global was a rare exception [music] in a system where immunity was the rule. Field marshal Walter von Reichenau, [music] commander of the sixth army, the man who approved the final decision leading to the execution of Jewish children at Beertva, never had to stand before a court.
He died in early 1942 from a heart attack and stroke while the war was still [music] ongoing. This natural death closed all possibility of pursuing [music] criminal responsibility for one of the highest ranking figures who legitimized [music] genocidal violence within the framework of regular army command. That asymmetry is [music] even more evident when looking at the fate of the sixth army itself.
The unit that [music] once played the role of backing the execution squads at Beerta was almost completely destroyed at Stalingrad in early 1943. According to military [music] figures, about 147,200 German soldiers died or were wounded in this campaign. Over 91,000 were [music] taken prisoner by the Red Army, and only about 5,000 to 6,000 people among them survived to return to Germany after the war.
This was one of the most catastrophic [music] military defeats in modern history. However, [music] defeat on the battlefield does not equate to justice. The majority of those who participated in, [music] supported, or facilitated the violence at Beerta were never named in court. Some died in the war. [music] Some returned to postwar civilian life, and many others dissolved into the collective [music] memory of a society that wanted to forget rather than confront.
The final chapter of Belarkva, therefore, is not a story of proportionate [music] punishment, but of the void between crime and responsibility. A few individuals hanged, some died of illness, an entire army [music] crushed in war, but none of that can be considered a moral closure. At Belarkva, violence [music] did not end with justice, but dissolved into war, leaving a void of responsibility [music] that history must remember if we do not want to witness it repeat.
After the execution waves of adult Jews, the German occupation apparatus did not stop due to moral hesitation, but because an administrative [music] problem appeared without a final directive, the fate of the children. The killing was delayed to ensure [music] that the final decision fit the chain of command and the current power framework.
Belva shows that the Holocaust did not operate [music] primarily by individual fanaticism, but by organizational mechanism. The decision to kill children was formed through reports, transfers, consultations, [music] and approvals. It was that very process, not the moment of firing, where violence was [music] normalized.
Death became a procedure needing to be completed properly so the system could continue to operate without interruption. When children are killed after being discussed and approved, the line between war and genocide no [music] longer exists. Moral responsibility cannot be attributed to a single trigger puller but spreads throughout the entire structure that allowed delayed and then legitimized [music] that action.
At Belarkva, what was destroyed was not just human life, but the systems ability to set limits for itself. Beirva reminds us that genocide does not need chaos to happen. It needs order, approval, and a machine where no one takes full responsibility. When a system can determine that even children are just a problem [music] to be solved, then the moral boundary of war has vanished.
And do we realize that at the moment of decision or only when all procedures [music] have been completed and there is nothing left to save?
