Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: murder

After the German Wehrmacht had occupied the rural municipality of Pilviškiai in 1941 a self-defence unit was formed. Since June 1941 after making public the antisemitic order issued by the Nazis, the Jews were not allowed to walk on the pavement, they could not leave their home later than 8.00 pm and they were not allowed to buy or sell on the market. At the end of August 1941 summoned the police unit. They were told to arrest the Jews. The policemen and the members of the self-defence unit arrested about 400 Jewish men. Following this was an operation of mass killings. On August 27-29 1941, the Jewish men were conveyed to this place. They were told to excavate two ditches. Nex to them the Jewish men were forced to stand. Prior to murdering, the victims were undressed to underwear, then grouped in small groups by the ditch and killed. The men were out to death by shooting in their back from about 10m distance. The Germans and several members of the self-defence unit comprised the firing squad. The executions were photographed by German officers. According to data from the historical investigation, about 300-350 Jews and several dozen Soviet activists were killed here. During the Nazi occupation, 190.000 Lithuanian Jews were killed

Seen from the banks of the Moselle is Reichsburg Cochem, towering above the small village of Cochem. Erected as a toll castle around 1000. After Heinrich I. von Lothringen had shown signs of insanity and so was taken for treatment to the abbey of Gorze, his wife Mathilde lived here. Some years later Heinrich fled Gorze. He then entered the castle in July 1060 - and killed his wife with an axe. He was brought to the monastery of Echternach, where he died only about two weeks later. This earned him two bynames: "Henricus Monachus" and "Henricus Furiosus". The castle got destroyed during the Nine Years' War, but a (very) wealthy family from Berlin acquired the ruin in 1868 and - inspired by the Romanticism - had the castle rebuilt in a historistic/neogothic style. This is may not be the medieval castle, it once was, but it is very picturesque. Even in autumn.

Melle was known already during Roman times, when silver and lead were mined here. The silver mines were exploited over hundreds of years, got forgotten and "rediscovered" in the 19th century. Today they are a tourist attraction. Melle was wealthy and the pilgrims, walking the Via Turonensis, passed through Melle on their way to Santiago, what brought even more money into town. Churches were erected during the heydays of the pilgrimage. Three (!) Romanesque churches can still be found here. Melle must have been a large building site within the 12th century, with hundreds of construction worker and dozends of carvers. Saint-Savinien is the oldest of the three Romanesque churches in Melle. It is as well the most austere church and the only one erected within the city walls in two stages in the 11th and the 12th century. After the French Revolution, the building was used as a prison - upto 1926. Throughoutfully renovated in the 1960s, it serves for cultural events like concerts and exhibitions nowadays. The western facade has some interesting, very rough, archaic carvings, what is a surprise. Master carvers worked on many places not far away (eg Aulnay), later even in Melle. . Here two parts may have been "glued" together. To the left a large fish under the foliage-frieze. The stone may have been turned upside down during the renovation, as the fish´s eye is in strange position. Under the chequered frieze - "Love and Hate". Two couples, while the right one represents harmony, to the left an unarmed person, using a leg prothesis, gets killed by somebody with an axe. - Or - is this a story about murder and rape?