Soviet rule lasted until the Germans returned to the town in June 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. Local Poles welcomed the arriving Germans with flowers, and German army scouts who arrived on 27 June noted the Poles' hatred for the Jews. Local Poles, mostly recently released from Soviet prisons, asked German permission to take revenge on the Jews and killed some 70 of them. In early July 1941 the Germans instigated a pogrom in which Polish mobs armed with iron bars murdered some 300 Jews. Some Poles were motivated by revenge against earlier Soviet supporters. A German "Einsatzkommando" was present in the town during 4–5 July 1941. A similar, better known, atrocity took place on 10 July 1941 in nearby Jedwabne.