Burning of the Riga synagogues

Last updated
Burning of the Riga synagogues
Horalas sinagogas monumenta fragments 1.jpg
Ruins of the Great Choral Synagogue, on Gogol Street, in Riga
Location Riga, Latvia
DateJuly 1941
Incident typeIntimidation, imprisonment, arson, mob killings, arbitrary executions, forced labor, mass murder
Perpetrators Franz Walter Stahlecker, Viktors Arājs, Herberts Cukurs
Organizations Nazi SS, Arajs Kommando
MemorialsAt ruins of Great Choral Synagogue in Riga

The burning of the Riga synagogues occurred in 1941, during the first days of the Nazi German occupation of the city of Riga, the capital and largest city in the country of Latvia. Many Jews confined in the synagogues died in the fires. Many other anti-Semitic measures were launched at the same time, ultimately followed by the murder of the vast majority of the Jews of Latvia.

Contents

German occupation

The original caption of this German propaganda photograph, published 7 July 1941 reads: "When the German troops took the city of Riga, the population there was elated. People who had suffered for months from the bloodshed, terror and had hidden themselves in the last weeks in the cellars of their houses, hurried now on the roads and town squares and thronged around the German soldiers to welcome them." Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L19397, Lettland, Riga, Begrussung der deutschen Soldaten.jpg
The original caption of this German propaganda photograph, published 7 July 1941 reads: "When the German troops took the city of Riga, the population there was elated. People who had suffered for months from the bloodshed, terror and had hidden themselves in the last weeks in the cellars of their houses, hurried now on the roads and town squares and thronged around the German soldiers to welcome them."

The German army crossed the border in the early morning of Sunday, June 22, 1941. All along the front, the Soviet armed forces suffered a crushing defeat. On June 29, 1941, the occupying Red Army began a disorganized withdrawal from Riga, then under German aerial bombardment. To slow the German advance, the retreating Soviets had blown up all the bridges over the Daugava river. The highest church spire in the city, St. Peter's, had been set on fire by German bombs. Some Soviet sympathizers in the city set out pails of water and gave bread to the retreating troops, but these were futile gestures amid the military disaster. [1] On July 1, 1941, the German army entered Riga. [2] There were about 40,000 Jews in the city at that time. [1]

The occupying German forces were initially well-received by many of the civilians in Riga. From June 1940 to June 1941, the Soviet regime in Latvia had carried out a reign of terror against "anti-Soviet" elements. In Riga alone, thousands of men, women and children were arrested, with a majority never to be seen alive again. Consequently, much of the population perceived German occupation as the lesser evil. Additionally, the Soviet regime's extensive list for purges included a disproportionate number of Jews in professions that are perceived as potentially "anti-Soviet" - rabbis, intellectuals, labor organizers and Zionist organizers, liberals and social democrats, and urban professionals and merchants[ citation needed ]. The June 1941 wave of deportations, which had been concluded only three weeks before the German invasion, sent approximately 5,000-6,000 Latvian Jews to Siberian gulags[ citation needed ], including virtually the entire Jewish civic leadership[ citation needed ]. At the time of the German invasion, the surviving Jewish community in Latvia was in a state of shock and disarray; unlike many of the other Jewish communities that came under Nazi rule in WWII, there was no plan or systematic effort in Latvia to warn the population of the existential threat from the Nazis.

Actions against the Jews

Shortly after German troops entered the city on July 1, 1941, the Nazi occupation authorities incited Latvian nationalists to commit deadly anti-Jewish riots known as "pogroms". [3] Within three months, more than 6,000 people were killed in Riga and the vicinity. [4] Professionals such as lawyers, physicians and engineers in particular were targeted by the Nazis. Frida Michelson reported that they were singled out by fellow Latvian professionals from among the other Jews arrested and immediately shot. [5] Large groups of prisoners were taken out of the Central Prison by truck to Bikernieki Forest, where they were shot. [6] On July 2, at the instigation of the Germans, Latvian armed youths wearing red and white armbands went about the city dragging Jews out of their homes and arresting them. [7] The Latvians assaulted a number of Jews, some so severely they died, and shot others. The same morning, all the telephones of Jewish homes were disconnected. [2]

Pērkonkrusts (Thunder Cross or Swastika) was the name of the Latvian fascist party that was active in the 1930s. Members of Pērkonkrusts including, among others, Viktors Arājs and Herberts Cukurs cooperated with the Nazis in exterminating the Jews of Latvia. [2] The university fraternities were also involved with the party.[ citation needed ] In July 1941, after the German occupation, Pērkonkrusts took over the house of the Jewish banker Schmulian, in Riga, at 19 Valdemara Street (Gorki Street under Soviet rule), to use as their headquarters. [2] [7] A Riga newspaper Tēvija, ("Fatherland") regularly published anti-Jewish propaganda, such as an editorial on July 11, 1941, entitled "The Jews—Source of Our Destruction". [8]

The Jews arrested were taken to police headquarters (or "prefecture") and the Central Prison, also known as the Zentralka. [8] Old and sick people were brought in naked. Young women were stripped naked and confined to cellars where they were raped. [7] There were reports of women being raped in front of their husbands and children. [7] Traditionally-attired Jews, especially those with beards, were targeted for humiliations such as dragging them around by their beards and forced shaving. [2] Others were forced at gunpoint to put on the talith (prayer shawl) and tefilin (phylactery), then dance and sing Soviet songs. [7] People, including non-Jews, were commonly accused by their enemies of "Communist-Jewish activities". [9]

In the days following July 2, the Jews at the prefecture were marched out to perform forced labor, then confined back at the prefecture during the night. The Latvian Roberts Stiglics was in charge of the prefecture. [8] Much of this was simply makework designed to humiliate and intimidate the Jews, although in at least one instance a small group of Jewish women was detailed to Jelgava to work in the fields for six weeks. [7] [9] According to Kaufmann, the Latvians were in charge this entire time. Among other things, they forced the Jews to sing Nazi songs and the "Internationale". [2] The only Jews not subject to brutality at the hands of Latvian thugs were those who had been members of the Jewish Latvian Freedom Fighters Association (Latvian: Lačplēsis [10] ), but this immunity did not last. [11] Professor Ezergailis, while not disputing Kaufmann's descriptions of the Latvians' activities, finds the things Kaufmann describes to have been typical of initial Nazi abuse of Jews in other locations. He also draws the inference that the lack of deliberate killings by the Latvians shows the Germans were at the root of the plans for the massacres.

Destruction of the synagogues and cemeteries

This synagogue on Stabu Street was burned on July 4, 1941. Max Kaufmann, a witness to the fire, stated that 30 Jews were burned alive inside. Stabu iela sinagoga.jpg
This synagogue on Stabu Street was burned on July 4, 1941. Max Kaufmann, a witness to the fire, stated that 30 Jews were burned alive inside.

Jews were rounded up and forced into synagogues, which were then set on fire. [13] The Great Choral Synagogue, on Gogol Street, was burned on July 4, 1941, with 20 Jews locked in the basement. Historian Press states that some of the victims were Lithuanian Jews who had taken refuge there. [14] Gertrude Schneider identifies the victims as mostly women and children. [8] Frida Michelson, a Latvian Jew who had been working near Jelgava in a forced labor detail when the synagogues were burned, reported that on her return to Riga, she was told by a friend (who had heard it from someone else) that the halls and the backyard of the Choral Synagogue were filled with refugees from Lithuania. Perkonkrusts and "other Latvian hangers-on" surrounded the building, trapped the people inside, and set it on fire. [15] The burning of the synagogue was filmed by the Germans and later became part of a Wehrmacht newsreel, with the following narration: "The synagogue in Riga, which had been spared by the GPU commissars in their work of destruction, went up in flames a few hours later." [14] According to Bernard Press, Herberts Cukurs, a Latvia air force officer, and his gang of thugs, burned the synagogue on Stabu Street, but only after dragging Jews out of the neighboring houses and locking them inside: [14]

Eyewitnesses heard the people who were locked inside screaming for help and saw them breaking the synagogues windows from inside and trying, like living torches, to get outside. Cukurs shot them with his revolver. [14]

The holy scrolls were dragged out of the synagogues and burned. According to the Press, many Jews wearing prayer shawls and talith went into the fires to save the scrolls, and were all killed. Ezergailis disputes this, stating that no one entered the flames trying to save the holy scrolls.

Only the Peitav Synagogue in the center of the city was not burned, and this was because of its location adjacent to apartment buildings and a church. [14] The interior was however ransacked as had been all the other Jewish places of worship. [2] The mob also attacked the Jewish cemeteries. [14]

Kaufmann also describes a number of incidents of Jews being locked into synagogues by Latvians which were then set on fire, including:

* * * a vehicle full of armed Latvian volunteers drove to 9 Kalnu street in the Moscow suburb. All of the building's Jewish tenants were forced to leave it immediately and taken to the old Jewish cemetery. Here they were locked into the synagogue and burned alive in it. [11]

Ezergailis does not find it credible that Jews were locked in the Great Choral Synagogue before it was set on fire. Ezergailis does acknowledge that there could have been 300 Lithuanian refugees in the synagogue before the fire was set. He postulates however that they would have been killed before the synagogue was set on fire.

Among the Jews killed in the synagogue massacres were the cantor Mintz and his whole family, the rabbi Kilov, and Sarah Rashin (or Rashina), a 21-year-old internationally famed violinist. [16] (Another source says that Sarah Rashina was killed at Rumbula on November 30, 1941.) [17]

By July 16, 1941, Jews were no longer allowed on the streetcars of Riga. [18] Armed Latvian policemen wearing red-white-red armbands arrested Jews on the streets. [18] Those arrested were taken to the police prefecture near the railroad station and to other prisons. [18]

Further restrictions on Jews

1942 photo showing Jews in Riga required to wear the yellow star and forbidden to use the sidewalk Bundesarchiv Bild 183-N1212-319, Riga, Juden mussen aus dem Fahrdamm gehen..jpg
1942 photo showing Jews in Riga required to wear the yellow star and forbidden to use the sidewalk

At the end of July, the city administration switched from the German military to German civil administration. Head of the civil administration was a German named Nachtigall. Other Germans involved with the civil administration included Hinrich Lohse and Otto Drechsler. [19] The Germans issued new decrees at this time to govern the Jews. Under "Regulation One", Jews were banned from public places, including city facilities, parks, and swimming pools. A second regulation required Jews to wear a yellow six-pointed star on their clothing, [20] with violation punishable by death. A Jew was also to be allotted only one-half of the food ration of a non-Jew. [21] By August, a German named Altmayer was in charge of Riga. The Nazis then registered all the Jews of Riga, and they further decreed that all Jews must wear a second yellow star, this one in the middle of their backs, and not use the sidewalks but walk in the roadway instead. [21] Jews could be randomly assaulted with impunity by any non-Jew. [22] The reason for wearing two stars was so Jews could readily be distinguished in a crowd. Later, when Lithuanian Jews were transported to the ghetto, they were subject to the same two-star rule. [23]

Officially the Gestapo took over the prisons in Riga on July 11, 1941. By this time, the Latvian gangs had killed a number of the Jewish inmates. [19] The Gestapo initially set up its headquarters in the former Latvian Ministry of Agriculture building on Raina Boulevard. A special Jewish administration was set up. Gestapo torture and similar interrogation tactics were carried out in the basement of this building. Anyone who happened to survive this treatment was then sent to prison, where the inmates were starved to death. The Gestapo later relocated to a former museum at the corner of Kalpaka and Alexander boulevards. [19] The Nazis also set up a Latvian puppet government, under a Latvian general named Danker, who was himself half-German. A "Bureau of Jewish Affairs" was set up at the Latvian police prefecture. Nuremberg-style laws were introduced, which tried to force people in marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew to divorce. If the couple refused to divorce, the woman, if a Jew, would be forced to undergo sterilization. [19] Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and non-Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat Jews. [6]

Construction of the Riga ghetto

On July 21, the Riga occupation command decided to concentrate the Jewish workers in a ghetto. All Jews were registered; a Jewish council was also set up. Prominent Riga Jews, including Eljaschow, Blumenthal, and Minsker, were chosen to be on the council. [19] All of them had been involved with the Jewish Latvian Freedom Fighters Association and it was hoped this would give them credibility in dealing with the occupation authorities. Council members were given large white armbands with a blue Star of David on them, which gave them the right to use the sidewalks and the streetcars. [19] The Nazis issued an order that, by October 25, 1941, all Jews were to relocate to the Moscow suburb of Riga. [19] As a result, about 30,000 Jews were concentrated in the small area known as the Moscow Forshtat [24] by the end of October 1941. The Nazis fenced them in with barbed wire. [25] Anyone who went too close to the barbed wire was shot by the Latvian guards stationed around the ghetto perimeter. German police (Wachmeister) from Danzig commanded the guards. The guards engaged in random firing during the night. [26] Thirty-five days after the Riga ghetto was established, 24,000 of its inhabitants were force marched out of the city and shot at the nearby forest of Rumbula. [26]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at page 10.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at pages 11–13
  3. ↑ Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, at pages 216 to 218
  4. ↑ Angrick and Klein, Die "Endlösung" in Riga, at page 91
  5. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at page 49.
  6. 1 2 Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 64 to 66.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 48 to 50.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Schneider, Journey into Terror, at page 2
  9. 1 2 Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages to 52 to 55
  10. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at page 26
  11. 1 2 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at page 15
  12. ↑ Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, at page 219.
  13. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 60 to 63.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Press, The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, at page 46
  15. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at page 61.
  16. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at page 62.
  17. ↑ "Feigmanis, Alexanders, Latvian Jewish Intelligentsia – Victims of the Holocaust". Archived from the original on June 29, 2016.
  18. 1 2 3 Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 47 to 51
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at pages 18–20
  20. ↑ Michelson, I Survived Rumbuli, at page 55
  21. 1 2 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at pages 16–18
  22. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 68 to 69
  23. ↑ Schneider, Journey Into Terror, at page 32.
  24. ↑ Michelson, Frida, I Survived Rumbuli, at pages 69 to 73.
  25. ↑ Angrick and Klein, Die "Endlösung" in Riga, at page 127
  26. 1 2 Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia, at pages 23–29

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Lange</span> Nazi German SS officer (1910–1945)

Rudolf Lange was a German SS-Standartenführer and police official during the Nazi era. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, he served in Einsatzgruppe A before becoming a commander of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) forces in Riga, Generalbezirk Lettland. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned, and was largely responsible for implementing the murder of Latvia's Jewish population during the Holocaust. He died at the Battle of Poznań in the closing months of the Second World War in Europe.

Arajs <i>Kommando</i> Latvian Nazi collaborating unit that perpetrated the Holocaust

The ArajsKommando, led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs, was a unit of Latvian Auxiliary Police subordinated to the German Sicherheitsdienst (SD). It was a notorious killing unit during the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Jeckeln</span> German SS officer and mass murderer (1895–1946)

Friedrich Jeckeln was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as a Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Jeckeln was the commander of one of the largest groups of Einsatzgruppen death squads and was personally responsible for ordering and organising the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Romani and others designated by the Nazis as "undesirables". After the end of World War II in Europe, Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in Riga and executed by hanging in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herberts Cukurs</span> Latvian aviator and Nazi war criminal (1900–1965)

Herberts Albert Cukurs was a Latvian aviator and Nazi collaborator. He served as the deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust. Although Cukurs never stood trial, the accounts of multiple Holocaust survivors, including Zelma Shepshelovitz, credibly link him to personally supervising and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for the duration of the German occupation of Latvia. His crimes included shooting Jewish children and babies in captivity, burning Jews alive, and sexually assaulting Jewish women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eduard Roschmann</span> SS officer (1908–1977)

Eduard Roschmann was an Austrian Nazi SS-Obersturmführer and commandant of the Riga Ghetto during 1943. He was responsible for numerous murders and other atrocities. As a result of a fictionalized portrayal in the novel The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth and its subsequent film adaptation, Roschmann came to be known as the "Butcher of Riga".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German occupation of Latvia during World War II</span> Part of the occupation of the Baltic states

The military occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany was completed on 10 July 1941, by Germany's armed forces. Initially, the territory of Latvia was under the military administration of Army Group North, but on 25 July 1941, Latvia was incorporated as Generalbezirk Lettland, subordinated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, an administrative subdivision of Nazi Germany. Anyone not racially acceptable or who opposed the German occupation, as well as those who had cooperated with the Soviet Union, was killed or sent to concentration camps in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Latvia</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Latvia dates back to the first Jewish colony established in Piltene in 1571. Jews contributed to Latvia's development until the Northern War (1700–1721), which decimated Latvia's population. The Jewish community reestablished itself in the 18th century, mainly through an influx from Prussia, and came to play a principal role in the economic life of Latvia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rumbula massacre</span> 1941 massacre in Riga, Latvia

The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during World War II. Except for the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine, this was the biggest two-day Holocaust atrocity until the operation of the death camps. About 24,000 of the victims were Latvian Jews from the Riga Ghetto and approximately 1,000 were German Jews transported to the forest by train. The Rumbula massacre was carried out by the Nazi Einsatzgruppe A with the help of local collaborators of the Arajs Kommando, with support from other such Latvian auxiliaries. In charge of the operation was Höherer SS und Polizeiführer Friedrich Jeckeln, who had previously overseen similar massacres in Ukraine. Rudolf Lange, who later participated in the Wannsee Conference, also took part in organizing the massacre. Some of the evidence against Latvian Herberts Cukurs is related to the clearing of the Riga Ghetto by the Arajs Kommando. The Rumbula killings, together with many others, formed the basis of the post-World War II Einsatzgruppen trial where a number of Einsatzgruppen commanders were found guilty of crimes against humanity.

Viktors Arājs was a Latvian/Baltic German collaborator and Nazi SS SD officer who took part in the Holocaust during the German occupation of Latvia and Belarus as the leader of the Arajs Kommando. The Arajs Kommando murdered about half of Latvia's Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holocaust in Latvia</span>

The Holocaust in Latvia refers to the crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany and collaborators victimizing Jews during the occupation of Latvia. From 1941 to 1944, around 70,000 Jews were murdered, approximately three-quarters of the pre-war total of 93,000. In addition, thousands of German and Austrian Jews were deported to the Riga Ghetto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daugavpils Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Latvia

Following the occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941, the Daugavpils Ghetto was established in an old fortress near Daugavpils. Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia, located on the Daugava River in the southeastern, Latgale, region of Latvia. The city was militarily important as a major road and railway junction. Before World War II, Daugavpils was the center of a thriving Jewish community in the Latgale region and one of the most important centers of Jewish culture in eastern Europe. Over the course of the German occupation of Latvia, the vast majority of the Jews of Latgale were killed as a result of the Nazi extermination policy.

The Jelgava massacres were the killing of the Jewish population of the city of Jelgava, Latvia that occurred in the second half of July or in early August 1941. The murders were carried out by German police units under the command of Alfred Becu, with a significant contribution by Latvian auxiliary police organized by Mārtiņš Vagulāns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liepāja massacres</span> Series of mass executions in Latvia

The Liepāja massacres were a series of mass executions, many public or semi-public, in and near the city of Liepāja, on the west coast of Latvia in 1941 after the German occupation of Latvia. The main perpetrators were detachments of the Einsatzgruppen, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Ordnungspolizei (ORPO), and Latvian auxiliary police and militia forces. Heer soldiers and German naval personnel were present during shootings. In addition to Jewish men, women and children, the Germans and their Latvian collaborators also killed Roma (c.100), communists, the mentally ill and so-called "hostages". In contrast to most other Holocaust murders in Latvia, the killings at Liepāja were done in open places. About 5,000 of the 5,700 Jews trapped in Liepāja were shot, most of them in 1941. The killings occurred at a variety of places within and outside of the city, including Rainis Park in the city center, and areas near the harbor, the Olympic Stadium, and the lighthouse. The largest massacre, of 2,731 Jews and 23 communists, occurred in the dunes surrounding the town of Šķēde, north of the city center. This massacre, which was perpetrated on a disused Latvian Army training ground, was conducted by German and collaborator forces from December 15 to 17, 1941. More is known about the killing of the Jews of Liepāja than in any other city in Latvia except for Riga.

The Dünamünde Action was an operation launched by the Nazi German occupying force and local collaborationists in Biķernieki forest, near Riga, Latvia. Its objective was to execute Jews who had recently been deported to Latvia from Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia. These murders are sometimes separated into the First Dünamünde Action, occurring on March 15, 1942, and the Second Dünamünde Action on March 26, 1942. About 1,900 people were killed in the first action and 1,840 in the second. The victims were lured to their deaths by a false promise that they would receive easier work at a (non-existent) resettlement facility near a former neighbourhood in Latvia called Daugavgrīva (Dünamünde). Rather than being transported to a new facility, they were trucked to woods north of Riga, shot, and buried in previously dug mass graves. The elderly, the sick and children predominated among the victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riga Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Latvia

Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich", to live during World War II. On October 25, 1941, the Nazis evicted the ghetto's non-Jewish inhabitants and relocated all Jews from Riga and its vicinity there. Most Latvian Jews were killed on November 30 or December 8, 1941, in the Rumbula massacre. The Nazis transported a large number of German Jews to the ghetto; most of them were later killed in massacres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto-Heinrich Drechsler</span> German Nazi politician

Otto-Heinrich Drechsler was a German Nazi politician who served as the General Commissioner of Latvia for the Nazi Germany's occupation regime during World War II. In this capacity, he played a role in setting up the Riga ghetto and was implicated in the extermination of Latvian Jews. He committed suicide on 5 May 1945, after being captured by British forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salaspils camp</span> Nazi forced labour and concentration camp

Salaspils camp was established at the end of 1941 at a point 18 km (11 mi) southeast of Riga (Latvia), in Salaspils. The Nazi bureaucracy drew distinctions between different types of camps. Officially, it was the Salaspils Police Prison and Re-Education Through Labor Camp. It was also known as camp Kurtenhof after the German name for the city of Salaspils.

David Silberman is a writer, researcher and a Jewish activist who, having escaped death when the Germans invaded Latvia, gathered and published facts, testimony and documents from survivors of the Holocaust living in Latvia in the 1960s. He had several works published on that theme. Silberman lives in New York, is a US citizen and works as a consultant engineer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Choral Synagogue (Riga)</span> Destroyed synagogue in Riga, Latvia

The Great Choral Synagogue was a Jewish congregation and synagogue, that was located on Gogoļa iela, in the Latgale neighborhood of Riga, Latvia. Designed by Paul von Hardenack in predominately Renaissance Revival style, the synagogue was completed in 1871. It was the largest synagogue in Riga, until it was burned down on 4 July 1941 during the German occupation of Latvia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frida Michelson</span> Latvian-born Holocaust survivor and memorist

Frida Michelson was a Latvian Jew and Holocaust survivor. She is known for her memoirs “I survived Rumbula” which records the Holocaust in Latvia, her life in the Riga Ghetto and how she managed to survive the massacre in Rumbula forest. She was one of only three survivors.

References

Historiographical

War crimes trials and evidence

Personal accounts

Newsreels and films

Websites

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.