Editing Final Solution (section)

===''Bezirk Bialystok'' and ''Reichskommissariat Ostland''===
{{see also|Reichskommissariat Ostland}}
Several scholars have suggested that the Final Solution began in the newly formed district of ''[[Bezirk Bialystok]]''.<ref name="M2004">{{cite journal |first=Marcin |last=Markiewicz |journal=Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej |department=Komentarze Historyczne |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611232035/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/download.php?s=1&id=3922 |archive-date=11 June 2011 |access-date=9 February 2016 |url=http://www.ipn.gov.pl/download.php?s=1&id=3922 |at=68/96 in PDF |publisher=Biuro Edukacji Publicznej IPN |title=Bezirk Białystok (in) ''Represje hitlerowskie wobec wsi białostockiej'' |trans-title=Bezirk Białystok (in) Nazi repressions against the Białystok countryside |via=direct download 873 KB from the Internet Archive |volume=35-36 (12/2003–1/2004) |issn=1641-9561 }} ''Also in:'' {{harvp|Roseman|2002|p=111}}: "During the Wannsee meeting, the number of Jews in Białystok (i. e., in ''Bezirk Bialystok'')—subject to Final Solution—was estimated by Heydrich at 400,000. In Lithuania: 34,000. In Latvia: 3,500. In [[Belorussia|White Russia]] (excluding Bialystok): 446,484, and in USSR: 5,000,000. Estonia was listed in the minutes as being already ''[[Judenfrei]]'' (see ''[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/wannsee.asp Wannsee Protocol]'', Nuremberg)."</ref> The German army [[Białystok Ghetto|took over Białystok]] within days. On Friday, 27 June 1941, the [[Orpo battalions|Reserve Police Battalion]] 309 arrived in the city and set the Great Synagogue on fire with hundreds of Jewish men locked inside.{{sfnp|Browning|1998|p=12}} The burning of the synagogue was followed by a frenzy of murders both inside the homes around the Jewish neighbourhood of Chanajki, and in the city park, lasting until night time.<ref name="bialystok1">{{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/bialystok/5,history/?action=view&page=6 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017013243/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/bialystok/5,history/?action=view&page=6 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2013-10-17 |title=Białystok – History |publisher=[[Virtual Shtetl]] [[Museum of the History of Polish Jews]] |via=Internet Archive |page=6, paragraph #3 |id=According to records, about 5,000 Jews died at that time.<sup>[7.2]</sup> See:  {{harvp|Browning|1998|page=12}} – Weis and his officers subsequently submitted a false report of the events to [General] Pfugbeil ... 2,000 to 2,200 Jews had been killed.<sup>[8]</sup>}}</ref> The next day, some 30 wagons of dead bodies were taken to mass graves. As noted by Browning, the murders were led by a commander "who correctly intuited and anticipated the wishes of his [[Führer]]" without direct orders.{{sfnp|Browning|1998|p=12}} For reasons unknown, the number of victims in the official report by Major Weis was cut in half.<ref name="bialystok1"/> The next mass-shooting of Polish Jews within the newly formed ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' took place in two days of 5–7 August in [[Pińsk Ghetto|occupied Pińsk]], where over 12,000 Jews were murdered by the [[Waffen-SS|''Waffen SS'']],<ref name=Boneh>{{cite web |title=The Holocaust and the Destruction of the Jews of Pinsk (4 July 1941 – 23 December 1942) |publisher=The Jewish Community of Pinsk |url=http://www.pinskjews.org.il/eng/history03.asp |first=Nachum |last=Boneh |work=The Book of Pinsk. Chapter 3: The Oppressors in Action |access-date=20 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912192040/http://www.pinskjews.org.il/eng/history03.asp |archive-date=12 September 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> not the ''Einsatzgruppen''.<ref name="YV1941"/> An additional 17,000 Jews perished there in a [[ghetto uprising]] crushed a year later with the aid of [[Belarusian Auxiliary Police]].<ref name="En5">{{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/he/article/pinsk/5,-/?print=1 |title=Pińsk |publisher=[[Virtual Shtetl]] |work=Elektroniczna Encyklopedia Żydowska |id=English version |at=Translation: המאמר לא זמין בשפה זו, נכון לעכשיו |access-date=20 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912191757/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/he/article/pinsk/5,-/?print=1 |archive-date=12 September 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

An Israeli historian [[Dina Porat]] claimed that the Final Solution, i.e.: "the systematic overall physical extermination of Jewish communities one after the other—began in Lithuania" during the massive German chase after the Red Army across the ''Reichskommissariat Ostland''.<ref name="Porat159">{{Cite book |author-link=Dina Porat |first=Dina |last=Porat |chapter=The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects |editor-first=David |editor-last=Cesarani |title=The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=0-415-15232-1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LeGAgAAQBAJ&q=80%2C000 |via=Google Books |page=[https://archive.org/details/finalsolutionori0000unse/page/161 161] |url=https://archive.org/details/finalsolutionori0000unse/page/161 }}</ref> The subject of [[the Holocaust in Lithuania]] has been analysed by Konrad Kweit from [[USHMM]] who wrote: "Lithuanian Jews were among the first victims of the Holocaust [beyond the eastern borders of occupied Poland]. The Germans carried out the mass executions [...] signaling the beginning of the 'Final Solution'."<ref name="Kwiet">{{Cite journal |first=Konrad |last=Kwiet |title=Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941 |journal=[[Holocaust and Genocide Studies]]|volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=3–26 |year=1998 |doi=10.1093/hgs/12.1.3}} and {{cite conference |first=Konrad |last=Kwiet |title=The Onset of the Holocaust: The Massacres of Jews in Lithuania in June 1941 |type=Annual lecture |conference=J. B. and Maurice Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=4 December 1995}} Published under the same title, but expanded in {{cite book |title=Power, Conscience and Opposition: Essays in German History in Honour of John A Moses |editor1-first=Andrew |editor1-last=Bonnell <!-- et al.--> |location=New York |publisher=Peter Lang |year=1996 |pages=107–21}}</ref> About 80,000 Jews were murdered in Lithuania by October (including in [[Wilno Voivodeship (1926–39)|formerly Polish Wilno]]) and about 175,000 by the end of 1941 according to [[Einsatzgruppen reports|official reports]].<ref name="Porat159"/>