Helmut Rauca | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rauca's identity photo from Canadian CBC broadcast (4 November 1982) | |
| Born | 3 November 1908 |
| Died | 29 October 1983 (aged 74) |
| Nationality | German Canadian |
| Occupation | Einsatzkommando in German-occupied Europe |
| Known for | His participation in the Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941 Becoming the first Nazi war criminal to be extradited from Canada |
| SS service | |
| Nickname(s) | Ruakh (The Devil)[1] |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Service |  Schutzstaffel |
| Years of service | 1936–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Hauptscharführer (master sergeant) |
| Unit | Einsatzgruppe A |
Helmut Rauca (3 November 1908 – 29 October 1983) was a Holocaust perpetrator instrumental in the murder of more than 10,000 Jews from the Kaunas Ghetto, Lithuania, during World War II. He was a member of Einsatzgruppe A in the rank of Hauptscharführer (master sergeant). As the Gestapo Jewish Affairs Specialist, Rauca was responsible for the selection of about one-third of the Ghetto inmates including men, women, and children, to be killed during the Große Aktion known as the Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941, perpetrated at the remote Ninth Fort on the outskirts of Kaunas. Feared for his ruthlessness, he was nicknamed "Ruakh" by inmates (a play on his surname - Yiddish for "demon" or "devil").[1]
After the war, Rauca emigrated to Canada legally in 1950. He had become a Canadian citizen in 1956 under his own name and embarked on a successful business career. At the age of seventy-three, he was charged by the Canadian authorities with aiding and abetting in the murder of 10,500 persons forty-three years earlier, in Kaunas.[2]
- ^ a b Littman 1983, p. 105.
- ^ Littman 1983, p. 16–17.