Stahlecker, Jeckeln, Arâjs, Cukurs
Power" -- Himmler's SS organizations, specifically the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security service). The official SS flag, which was raised in front of Riga's former city hall on Reimers Street, was black; the SS newspaper was titled Das Schwarze Korps (The black corps); SS uniforms, including those of high-ranking Nazi officials' bodyguards, were black; so it did not take long for Latvians to dub these formidable men the "Black Power." In addition, as is well known, their caps had a death's head -- a very appropriate emblem. The sun did shine brightly for Latvians that first day of July, but for Jews it was the beginning of a long, dark night.
German troops entered Riga on July 1, but the new invaders did not fully introduce their notorious Ordnung until July 17, when they forbade any local initiative in matters of internal security. Responsibility for all matters relating to Jews, among other things, was assumed by the "Black
But in the first weeks after the Russians had been driven out, small groups of Latvians, filled with bitter hatred, roamed through Riga and provincial cities and towns hunting down Jews and communists. In the groups were former members of Perkonkrusts, which had been banned during
Karlis Ulmanis' authoritarian regime; relatives of people killed or deported by the Bolsheviks, who felt that all Jews were responsible for the tragedy that had befallen them; self-seekers hoping to gain the new invaders' favor, as well as common criminals, drunks, and sadists, the dregs of society. Prominent among them was Viktors (Voldemars) Arajs, about whom more later.Just as those Latvians are wrong, who then and even now equate Jews and communists, so also those Jews are wrong, who then and even now maintain that "the Latvians" slaughtered Jewish men, women, and children.
The fact remains that these groups of vigilantes and self-styled avengers ran wild during July and the beginning of August of 1941, in Riga and in the provinces. They carried out pogroms, beating and killing Jews in their homes, in Bikernieku forest, in the Riga police prefecture courtyard and basement, in synagogues. The main synagogue of Riga on Gogol Street was burned to the ground, along with all the Jews that had been herded into it.
These murderers were not the same as the national partisans or guerrillas, who attacked Russian soldiers. Not all members of the groups could justify themselves by claiming they had in fact been interrogated and tortured by such-and-such Jews in the KGB. They were just people thirsting for blood. How many were there? A dozen, a hundred, a thousand? No one knows for certain. One thing is clear: the entire Latvian nation cannot be blamed for the deeds of these few villains.
As mentioned, the organized liquidation of Jews was a matter under the jurisdiction of the German administration. The Germans did not tolerate disorder. They carried out Hitler's Endloesung (the final solution of the Jewish question) with iron determination, methodically, to the end.
Some Jews in Latvia still did not understand this, still harbored their illusions. Helmars Rudzitis writes in his memoirs (p. 184):
A few days after the Germans came I ran into Riga's well-known jeweler, Vidzers, on Brivibas (Liberty) Street. We talked a while. Vidzers was a Jew, and understandably worried about his future. "It will not be easy for us," he said. "Jews will be persecuted. But it can't be worse than
it has been. Good that we got rid of those devils." Poor Vidzers. He fared no better under the new "devils." He was left alone for a while, then his path too carried him to the ghetto, from which there was no return.
It is now known that Vidzers was killed within a few days of that conversation. He was mercilessly beaten, for the killers wanted to find out where his jewels were hidden.
* * *
Audiatur et altera pars. Let us listen to some Latvian exiles. Vilis Hazners states: "It is no secret to us that there are Latvians who along with the Germans took part in exterminating Jews" (newspaper Laiks, November 17, 1982). Several books have been published that describe the extermination of Jews, such as Salaspils by A. Rungis and Rugta pelavu maize (Bitter chaff bread) by V. Nollendorfs. The Reverend Egils Grislis, a Latvian Lutheran theologian at the University of Manitoba, writes in a book popular in the Latvian exile community: "Latvians too were involved in the murders. Some by force, some voluntarily, the riffraff did exactly what our occupiers wanted them to do: now the murder of Jews could be seen as a Latvian, not German matter!"
The well-known Latvian Social Democrat Felikss Cielens wrote in his memoirs (Laikmetu maina, vol. 3,1964, pp. 226-227):
The history of mankind shows dark and terrible deeds, but such bestiality had never been seen before. A few days after the German army entered Jelgava, a large yellow banner was hung from the railroad overpass, which proclaimed in black letters: Mitau judenfrei (Jelgava/Mitau free of Jews). Echoes of the horrors hidden behind these words reached us in the district of Platone. Latvians had participated in these barbaric executions not just as eyewitnesses, but also as
Participants -- executioners. Drinking in Jelgava's bars they told of the mass executions. The forest where this took place was about ten kilometers from Zileni [Cielens country home], and sometimes the night made one's blood run cold, when it seemed the wails and curses reached to the heavens. The occupying power's aim was to arrest and kill all of Latvia's Jews, about 80,000 people. Moral responsibility for this appalling criminal act falls to a certain extent also on those Latvians who actively and on their own initiative cooperated with the occupying power in this matter.
The Latvian writer Gunars Janovskis writes in Pec pastardienas (After judgment day, 1968, p. 107):
And we? Did we know that? But our own fate was so uncertain, so harsh and undeserved, that the injustice done to another people made us just turn away, shudder in revulsion, and stay silent. What would have been the point of raising our voices? No one would have listened to us. Not then, not later. Not the victors, not the vanquished.
Rev. Egils Grislis points out that "Those who took part in the murder of Jews were not the flower of the Latvian people, but the dregs." He admits that Max Kaufmann is right in reproaching Latvians for having lacked Christian compassion. In Denmark, when Hitler decreed that Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David, the king himself immediately wore the star -- and so did his subjects. If only we could cite a similar example!... The few voices raised against Hitler on behalf of the Jews do not counterbalance the great lack of compassion of the Latvian people. We can be faulted for hard-heartedness and lack of Christian love of one's neighbor! No matter how many mitigating circumstances we cite, which explain why we acted as we did -- it does not erase the guilt. The time is long overdue to admit this to the Latvian Jews we meet in exile. Human weakness is not a matter for boasting, but to acknowledge it is a matter of honor.
Interestingly enough, Grislis also does not take exception to Max Kaufmann's sharp words quoted in the introduction. "I agree with his main point," states the Latvian theologian, "that punishment is
inevitable for every sin not repented, that God's commandments are not to be followed only at our pleasure, when it can be done without inconvenience. As God has forbade murder, we have to understand that not preventing murder and keeping silent is a shameful and criminal act."These events have also been mirrored in works of fiction published by Latvians in exile. Eduards Freimanis writes in his novel Diletants (The dilettante, in Laiks, June 2, 1984): "Vilis met friends, whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent Jews." Richards Ridzinieks writes movingly of the Jewish tragedy in his novel Zelta motocikls (The golden motorcycle, New York, Gramatu Draugs, 1976). Richards Ridzinieks (Ridzinieks means a man from Riga) was the pen name of the late gifted writer, journalist, and graphic artist Ervins Grins (1925-1979). The novel Zelta motocikls is to an extent autobiographical. Like the book's hero, the author was called into the Latvian Legion and fought in Pomerania. The book's hero, Igors, living in Stockholm (like the author), remembers: "But we had to move. Not far from the Government Print Shop, near the ghetto." Then comes the following dialogue:
"That couldn't have been very nice."
"Well, yes. Many perhaps didn't notice, at times, how they were forced into work crews. One simply looked the other way! And yet the whole time you had the feeling, that there was the ghetto, that people are herded in there behind barbed wire like beasts. It was more than awful.
And that’s why I don't like to think too much. If you think, then everything gets mixed up together."
"What's the matter with you? The Germans were making a dirty mess and you worry about it!" "But weren't any of us there too?"
"Somebody was, probably."
Another section:
In the summer of 1943 Igors met Dzintars in Riga. The latter was in a sharp SD uniform. He had finished school in Germany, and now served in Salaspils. Somewhat sadly Igors watched his old acquaintance. The uniform was sharp, and he wore it proudly.... The dirty past pressed down like a nightmare. When the Russians were here it was the Communist Youth, and during the deportations a Latvian stood next to every Russian. Now with the Germans here, Latvian SD men were ready to do anything for food and to get out of being sent to the front.
Later on the hero sinks into heavy depression. He starts to drink, starts hallucinating.
You can't erase Latvia's Jewish tragedy from your soul. Your conscience is far too developed for that.... You saw but at the same time you didn't see the columns of Jews. The yellow Stars of David. You did see them and you did not. You were prepared to suffer everything, bear everything, only so that the night of horrors [deportations] would not be repeated. The Russians have fled, the Germans have saved us from the Jews, all that's left is to get rid of the Germans. And how do you get rid of the Germans?
Following his wife's advice, Igors goes to the doctor, Dr. F. Bernson. In the doctor's office, Igors looked around. On the walls were drawn three storks, with baby baskets in their beaks, flying
over homes and factories with smoke rising from the chimneys.
"And earlier you never had anything like this?" asked the doctor.
"No."
"How would you describe what's wrong with you?"
The storks were flying, they would soon be over the chimneys, the babies would fall into the chimneys like Jewish children into the gas chambers! One wanted to scream! But one had to answer.
ANSWER.
No comments are needed here. We can only add that besides such Latvians with "far too developed consciences" were those who had no conscience at all, for example, the journalist R. C. cited in the introduction. No one forced him, in the first weeks of the German occupation, to write such viciously anti-Semitic articles, stooping so low as to ask outright for their destruction. There were many who worked in the Latvian press during the years of German occupation, hoping to help the fight against Bolshevism and to contribute to the preservation of Latvian culture, but only rarely did this collaboration express itself in such an abhorrent way.
* * *
Himmler's men were in charge of the destruction of the Jews in Latvia's territory. The deeds themselves were carried out by the infamous Einsatzgruppe A (Special action group A), led by SS-Brigadefuhrer and Police General Dr. Walter Stahlecker. Stahlecker was killed by Estonian
partisans in March 1942, and was replaced by SS-Brigadefuhrer Heinz Jost.In his October 15, 1941, report on the activities of the Einsatzgruppe A in the Baltic states and Byelorussia, Stahlecker admits that pogroms against Jews could be carried out only with great difficulty, especially after the occupation of Riga. The Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo, Security police) initially had to avoid harsher measures, so as not to cause a negative reaction among the Germans. They had to create the impression that the local population itself was the first to rise up against
centuries-long oppression by the Jews. Stahlecker continues: "As an overall stillness immediately settled over Riga, it did not seem necessary or useful to carry out further pogroms. As far as possible, films and photographs were made in Kauen (Kaunas) and Riga to document the first spontaneous executions of Jews and communists carried out by Lithuanians and Latvians." According to Stahlecker, 500 Jews were "liquidated" in the Riga pogroms (Dossier Historama Nr. 1, Histoire du nazisme: les SS; Joseph Wulf, les Einsatzgruppen, Paris 1975, pp.124-127).So we see that Stalin and Beria cynically used Jews to carry out purges in Latvia, and in the same way Hitler and Himmler used Latvians to initiate the process of exterminating Jews.
Besides Stahlecker, those in charge included the Hoherer SS- und Polizeifuhrer fuer das Ostland, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich Jeckeln; his immediate subordinate in Latvia, Major General Walter Schroeder, the chief of the SD in Riga, SS-Oberstunnbannfuehrer Rudolf Lange;
SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Gerhard Maywald; and the commander of the Riga ghetto, Eduard Roschmann.Gertrude Schneider writes in her book Journey into Terror: The Story of the Riga Ghetto (New York 1979,p.25):
In the forest adjoining the camp [Salaspils], graves had been prepared by the inmates. After they had undressed, the victims were either shot immediately at the edge of the graves or else they were ordered to lie face down between the legs of those already shot, and were then killed. The latter method saved much-needed space. It was invented by Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich Jeckeln, who called it Sardinenpackung (sardine packaging).
This was the renowned German efficiency and order: Ordnung muss sein! -- Order must prevail! It was the Germans, not the Latvians, who also saw to it that Latvian Jews "contributed to the advancement of science." As spelled out in an order (Verfuegung) signed by der Generalkommissar
in Riga in November 1942, the Ostland branch of the Institute for Medical Zoology "asks for permission to supply three Jews for medical zoology for less than eight hours daily. It concerns chosen blood donors for the feeding of lice in the lice laboratory of the Institute, which must be kept going in connection with measures for combatting spotted fever" (Isaac Levinson, The Untold Story, pp. 131-132).The mayor of Nazi-occupied Riga (Kommissarischer Oberbuergermeister) from 1941 to 1944 was a Baltic German, Hugo Wittrock, who detested Latvian nationalists. He wrote in his memoirs (published posthumously, Lueneburg 1979, pp. 37-38):
1941 was drawing to a close when a frightful event happened in Riga. On the second Sunday of Advent rumors spread throughout the city that on Hoherer SS- und Polizeifuehrer Jeckeln's orders, Jews had been taken from the ghetto to a place about 10 kilometers outside Riga, and SS men had shot them all -- men, women, and children -- in a mass grave and covered up the bodies. It was said thousands were shot. When the frightful rumors turned out to be true and details of the perpetuated crime became known, there was a general feeling of shock about this inhuman action in the city.... The local inhabitants... perhaps because of religious feelings condemned the merciless shooting of unarmed men, women, and children, and were deeply distressed at this ungodly cruelty. When
shortly thereafter I made the mood in Riga known to the Reichsminister in Berlin [Wittrock's friend Alfred Rosenberg], I understood from his responses that the frightful bloodshed was ordered and carried out over his head by higher authorities.
I do not believe that Alfred Rosenberg was bypassed in this case, that the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler, did not take into account his opinions. After all, it was Rosenberg who first proposed to Hitler that Bolshevism and Jewry are the same (see Chapter 2).
According to its own reports, Stahlecker’s Einsatzgruppe A in the three months before October 15, 1941, killed 30,025 Jews in Latvia. After this came the shootings in the Rumbula forest near Riga on November 30 and December 8, and in the Skede dunes near Liepaja (Libau) on December 15-17. Latvians took part in both actions on German orders. They were recorded for posterity by a photographer, a Latvian from Liepaja, who was particularly interested in how women stripped naked in bitter winter weather, faced their death.
Two Latvian anti-Semitic fanatics, Viktors Arajs and Herberts Cukurs, actively collaborated in carrying out the plans of Hitler and Himmler, Stahlecker and Jeckeln. Arajs was a major in the Latvian security section and was promoted to SS Sturmbannfuehrer. He was awarded the German medal Kriegsverdienstkreuz mit Schwertern -- war service cross with swords. One must say he earned it. In the first days of July he formed the group, known as the Arajs gang, that roamed from city to city brutally settling accounts with Jews. When the German administration organized the
extermination of Jews "in an orderly fashion” (in geordnete Bahnen), Arajs made sure that his men were not left without work in the new arrangement. He personally shot Jews in the streets of the Riga ghetto and in the Rumbula forest. After the war he hid in Germany under an assumed name but was found out and sentenced to life imprisonment at a trial in Hamburg.As mentioned in an earlier chapter, Herberts Cukurs in 1919 was a Bolshevik sympathizer. In independent Latvia he became famous as a pilot. Between 1924 and 1936 he designed and constructed a glider and three airplanes. In 1933-1934 he flew from Riga to Gambia and back in one of his own planes, the C-3 (Gambia in West Africa, had been a colony of the Duke of Kurland in the seventeenth century). Two years later he flew from Riga to Tokyo. He also visited Palestine, and his reports of the visit were colored with strong anti-Semitism. As soon as the German army
entered Riga, Cukurs joined those who were shooting Jews. At the end of 1941 he personally participated in the shooting in Riga's ghetto and Rumbula, killing infants and dancing with joy by the graves. After the war Cukurs found refuge in Brazil, running a boat and plane rental service on the Rio de Janeiro beach, and later owned a banana plantation. On February 24, 1965, he was killed in Uruguay’s capital Montevideo by members of a secret group called “Those who do not forget.” It is said that they were Israeli Mossad agents.* * *
Several Latvian Jews who were lucky enough to have survived have written their memoirs. Max Kaufmann (Die Vernichtung der Juden Lettlands, Munich ,1947) and Frida Michelson (I Survived Rumbuli, New York, 1982) are full of bitterness, and blame “the Latvians” for the atrocities and executions. A more balanced view is taken by the painter Alter (Arthur) Ritov, born in 1909 in Riga, and by Meir Levinstem, born in 1914 in the picturesque town of Kuldiga (Goldingen). Levinstein wrote On the Last Line (in Hebrew, Tel Aviv 1975) about his sad experiences. Both of them now live in Israel, do not feel revengeful against Latvians, and are interested in Latvian life
both in Latvia and in exile. They understand that one cannot blame an entire people for the evil deeds of individuals.