Aktion 1005 – code name (from the file number in the Main Reich Security Office) of the campaign to remove the traces of mass murders carried out mainly by the Einsatzgruppen (Sonderkommando 1005) in the territories of Poland and the USSR and by concentration and extermination camp staff; carried out under strict secrecy in the years 1942–1944, in the face of the imminent military defeat of the Third Reich. It was headed by SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, subordinate to Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller; the bodies of genocide victims buried in mass graves were dug up and burned; the manual labour was forcibly performed by Jewish camp prisoners and men from nearby towns, some of whom were chained to prevent them from escaping. All people forced to take part in Aktion 1005 were murdered after its completion.

Stanisław Kania

Sources:

1980. Meissner, “Sonderaktion1005“ [in] Zbrodnie i sprawcy, ed. C. Pilichowski, Warsaw 1980.