A considerable amount of bureaucratic work was necessary to designate which Jews would be deported, arrange for their transport, and seize what property they might leave behind.
There had been some reluctance on the part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland headquarters in Riga, headed by Hinrich Lohse, to having to find accommodation for 25,000 Jews.
[6] This and other issues related to the treatment of Jews in the northern part of the Nazi-occupied Soviet territory, caused Lohse and his deputy Otto Drechsler to become embroiled in a dispute with Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of the Einsatzgruppe A, who favored a more rapid policy of radical extermination.
On 20 November 1941, Rudolf Lange, another Einsatzgruppe commander, informed Lohse's administration that it would in fact be the first five trains that would be rerouted to Kaunas.
In the 25 November shooting, 1,159 men, 1,600 women, and 175 children were killed (resettlers from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt).
[1] Important issues related to the Ninth Fort November killings remain in dispute among historians.