The Liepāja massacres were a series of mass executions, many public or semi-public, in and near the city of Liepāja (German: Libau), 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 (c. 5,000), the Germans and their Latvian collaborators also killed Roma (c.100), communists, the mentally ill (c. 30) 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.
German invasion
Liepāja was targeted by the Germans as a town of special importance. It was a naval base and also an important international port. As such, the population was suspected of being more sympathetic to Communism. The German army planned to capture the city on the first day of the war, Sunday, June 22, 1941. The attack on Liepāja was led by the German 291st Infantry Division. Strong resistance by the Red Army and other Soviet forces prevented the Germans from entering the city until June 29, 1941, and resistance, including sniper fire, continued within the city for several days afterwards. The city was heavily damaged in the fighting and fires burned for days.
Shootings begin
In Latvia the Holocaust started on the night of June 23 to June 24, 1941, when in Grobiņa, a town near Liepāja, Sonderkommando 1a members killed six local Jews, including the town chemist, in the church graveyard. Once Liepāja itself fell on June 29, 1941, "the hunt for the Jews began with the first hours of occupation." Ezergailis estimates that about 5,700 Jews of Liepāja and the surrounding district fell into German hands.
On June 29 and June 30, 1941, there were random shootings of Jews in Liepāja by German soldiers. About 100 Jews (plus or minus 30) were killed in these shootings. Shootings began almost immediately. For example, at 5:00 p.m. on June 29, arriving German soldiers seized 7 Jews and 22 Latvians and shot them at a bomb crater in the middle of Ulicha street. At 9:00 p.m. the same day German soldiers came to Hika street, where they assembled all the residents and asked if any were refugees from Germany. One man, Walter Hahn, a conductor who had fled Vienna in 1938, stepped forward and was immediately shot. (Another source says that Hahn was killed by a mob of Latvians fomented by Nazis.) The next day, June 30, soldiers went to the City Hospital, arrested several Jewish physicians and patients, disregarded the protests of the Latvian hospital staff, and shot them. Among the victims was 10-year-old Masha Blumenau.
Rainis Park massacre
On June 29, 1941, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 1a, (EK 1a) under SS-Obersturmbannführer Reichert entered Liepāja. One of the first people EK 1a killed, on June 30, was the musician Aron Fränkel, who, not knowing that Einsatzkommando had set up headquarters at his place of employment, the Hotel St. Petersburg, showed up for work. He was identified as a Jew and immediately shot.
During the fighting, the Soviet forces had dug defensive trenches in Rainis Park (Raiņa parks) in the center of Liepāja. On July 3 and 4, 1941, in their first documented massacre in Liepāja, Reichert's EK 1a men, all Germans of the SD, rounded up Jews and marched them to these trenches in the park. Once at the trench, they were shot and the bodies pushed in. How many were killed during these shootings is not known. Estimates range from several dozen to 300. After the war, the Soviet Union investigatory commission concluded that 1,430 people were killed in the park shootings, which Ezergailis characterizes as an exaggeration. One participant, Harry Fredrichson, later testified that in one massacre he participated in, 150 people were killed.
Anti-Jewish measures
As a naval base, Liepāja came under the command of the German navy, the Kriegsmarine. Lieutenant commander (Korvettenkapitan) Stein was appointed town commandant. On July 1, 1941, Stein ordered ten hostages shot for every act of sabotage, and further made targets of civilians by declaring that Red Army soldiers were hiding among them in civilian attire. This was the first announcement in Latvia of a threat to shoot hostages. On July 5, 1941 Korvettenkapitan Brückner, who had taken over from Stein issued a set of anti-Jewish regulations. These were published in a local newspaper, Kurzemes Vārds. Summarized these were as follows:
- All Jews must wear the yellow star on the front and back of their clothing;
- Shopping hours for Jews were restricted to 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Jews were only allowed out of their residences for these hours and from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- Jews were barred from public events and transportation and were not to walk on the beach.
- Jews were required to leave the sidewalk if they encountered a German in uniform.
- Jewish shops were required to display the sign "A Jewish-owned business" in the window.
- Jews were to surrender all radios, typewriters, uniforms, arms and means of transportation.
July 7 "hostage" shootings
On July 3 or 4, Erhard Grauel, commander of a detachment of Einsatzkommando 2, entered the city with about 30 men, most of them from Police Battalion 9 of the Ordnungspolizei. Reichert was then engaged in the Rainis Park shootings, which he described to Grauel as a "special assignment." Reichert left the day after Grauel arrived. Grauel took over the Women's Prison and used it as a detention facility for the targets of the Nazi regime. Mostly they were Jews, but Communists and communist-sympathizers were also arrested. Rumors spread that the Jews were responsible for the Communist atrocities during the Soviet regime in Liepāja. Latvian militia ("self-defense men") carried out most if not all of the arrests. On July 6, 1941, Werner Hartman, a German war correspondent, saw the Women's Prison crammed so full of prisoners that there was no room for them to lie down.
The first shootings carried out by Grauel were of about 30 Jews and Communists, arrested July 5 through July 7 and executed on July 7, 1941, as "hostages" pursuant to Korvettenkapitan Stein's decree of July 1, supposedly in retaliation for shots having been fired at German patrols in the Liepāja vicinity. Grauel had selected every fifth prisoner for execution, and Grauel's men shot them on the beach in the dunes near the lighthouse. The numbers killed in the hostage massacre were stated as 30 in Grauel's postwar trial, and estimated at 27 plus or minus 16 by Anders and Dubrovskis.
July 8–10 shootings
On or about July 7, 1941, Reichert returned to Liepāja, with a message from Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, that accused Grauel of not executing people fast enough. Grauel showed Reichert the list of people he had arrested. Reichert checked off a number of names on the list and demanded that they be shot immediately. Grauel ordered his assistant, one Neuman, to organize an execution. On July 8, 9, and 10, Grauel's men shot 100 men, almost entirely Jews, on each day. They were transported to the execution site from the Women's Prison in groups of 20.
According to Hartman's later testimony, on July 8, he was present at the killing site from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and saw about 200 people killed. The procedure was for the Latvian "freedom fighters" (as they were called by Hartman) to drive the victims ten at a time into a long ditch that ended in a pit. There they would be aligned in a double row, and shot, generally by Germans, but possibly by Latvians. The area around the execution site was guarded by Germans and Latvians, the latter distinguishable by their red-white-red armbands.
The early executions, which happened at least every two weeks, if not more often, were on the beach to the south of the lighthouse. The initial execution squads were Germans, but were later replaced by a commando of Latvians.
Grauel later testified at his post-war trial that he had requested to be relieved from command because of the stress of the massacres of July 8 to July 10. His request was granted by the Einsatzkommando 2 commander, Rudolf Batz, and by the end of October, Grauel returned to Germany to study jurisprudence. Historian Ezergailis noted however, that before returning to Germany, and despite his claim to have been shocked by the July 8–10 massacres, Grauel went on from Liepāja to the nearby town of Ventspils, where he organized additional killings.
July 24–25: First Arājs action
22 July 1941: "... Here about 8,000 Jews ... with present SS personnel this would take about 1 year, which is untenable for pacification of Libau." 27 July 1941: "Jewish problem Libau largely solved by execution of about 1,100 male Jews by Riga SS commando on 24 and 25.7."
Grauel was replaced with SS-Untersturmführer (equivalent to a second lieutenant) Wolfgang Kügler on July 10 or 11. Under Kügler's supervision, massacres occurred at a rate of about twice a week. Shootings of small groups of Jews continued after July 10, happening every evening. These were organized by Kügler. Often these were of less than 10 individuals, which was a pattern particular to Kügler's administration in Liepāja. The exact number of those killed in these actions is not known, but was estimated by Anders and Dubrovskis to be 81 individuals plus or minus 27. Anders and Dubrovskis estimate the total number of victims to be 387 individuals, plus or minus 130. Otto Fischer, Jewish football coach and former Austrian national team player, was killed in the massacres in July.
On July 16, 1941, Fregattenkapitän Hans Kawelmacher was appointed the German naval commandant in Liepāja. On July 22, Kawelmacher sent a telegram to the German Navy's Baltic Command in Kiel, which stated that he wanted 100 SS and fifty Schutzpolizei ("protective police") men sent to Liepāja for "quick implementation Jewish problem". By "quick implementation" Kawelmacher meant "accelerated killing." Mass arrests of Jewish men began immediately in Liepāja, and continued through July 25, 1941.
The Arājs Kommando was brought in from Riga to carry out the shootings, which occurred on July 24 and July 25. About 910 Jewish men were executed, plus or minus 90. Statements in other sources that 3,000 (Vesterman) and 3,500 (Soviet Extraordinary Commission) were killed are incorrect.
This first Arājs action was later described by Georg Rosenstock, the commander of the second company of the 13th Police Reserve battalion. Rosenstock testified after the war that when he and his unit had arrived in Liepāja in July, 1941, they had heard from some passing marines that Jews were being continuously executed in the town, and these marines were going out to watch the executions. A few days later, on Saturday, July 24, 1941, Rosenstock saw Jews (whom he identified by the yellow stars on their clothing) crouching down in the back of a truck, being guarded by armed Latvians. Rosenstock, who was himself in a vehicle, followed the truck to the north of the city to the beach near the naval base, where he saw Kügler, some SD men, and a number of Jews. After the war, Rosenstock stated:
The Jews were crouching down on the ground. They had to walk in groups of about ten to the edge of a pit. Here they were shot by Latvian civilians. The execution area was visited by scores of German spectators from the Navy and the Reichsbahn [national railway]. I turned to Kügler and said in no uncertain terms that it was intolerable that shootings were being carried out in front of spectators.
Shootings from August to December 10
The killings continued at August after the first Arājs action, but on a lessened scale. From August 30 to December 10, 1941, there were a large number of shootings, in which about 600 Jews, 100 communists, and 100 Roma were killed. Anders and Dubrovskis estimate the total victims through August 15, 1941 as 153 plus or minus 68. Schulz, a boatswain's mate ("Oberbootsmaat") from the harbor surveillance command, testified that on a day August, 1941, he had heard continuous rifle salvoes all day coming from across the harbor from his position.