action. In its first major battle it captured the town of Catillon-sur-Sambre and its associated canal in fierce house-to-house fighting, blocking the exits of the town and trapping the Moroccan force in the center around the market square, eventually captured thousands of remaining troops. Soldiers from Totenkopf executed many captured Moroccans, due to Arabs being considered "racially inferior". On the morning of the next day, May 20 it contained a major Moroccan counter attack near Ribeauville, driving it back with its own counter attack, before crossing the Selle river and linking up with Rommel’s division in the outskirts of Cambrai. Overall in the actions around the Cambrai/Sambre area the division captured 16,000 troops. Whilst subsequently trying to drive through to the coast, Totenkopf was involved in the Battle of Arras. On 21 May units of the 1st Army Tank Brigade, supported by the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, overran some of Totenkopf’s positions, their standard anti-tank gun, the 3.7 cm PaK 36, being no match for the British Matilda tank although they quickly halted the British. In the following days, the unit committed several large-scale massacres of French civilians, most notable the Berles-Monchel and Aubigny-en-Artois massacres. On 27 May, the 4 Company of the Totenkopf under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein, committed the Le Paradis massacre, where 97 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors killed with bayonets. Only two men survived. Invasion of the Soviet Union In April 1941, the division was ordered East to join Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb's Army Group North. Leeb's force was tasked with advancing on Leningrad and formed the northern wing of Operation Barbarossa. Totenkopf took part in the advance through Lithuania and Latvia, and by July had breached the Stalin Line. The division then advanced past Demyansk to Leningrad where it was involved in heavy fighting in August. During Soviet winter counter-offensive, the division was encircled for several months near Demyansk in what became known as the Demyansk Pocket. During the fighting in the pocket, it was re-designated "Kampfgruppe Eicke" due to its reduced size. In April 1942, the division broke out of the pocket. At Demyansk, about 80% of its men were killed, wounded or missing in action. The division was sent to France to be refitted in late October 1942. While there, the division took part in Case Anton, the takeover of Vichy