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Arajs Kommando
The Arajs Kommando (Latvian: Arāja komanda; German: Sonderkommando Arajs) was a paramilitary unit of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) active in German-occupied Latvia from 1941 to 1943. It was led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs and composed of ethnic Latvian volunteers recruited by Arājs.
The Arajs Kommando was a notorious death squad and one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia. The unit was involved in the mass killing of Jews in Latvia until 1942 when it was used in anti-partisan operations in Belarus and Russia. It was disbanded and merged into the Latvian Legion in 1943.
In July 1941, Nazi Germany began its military occupation of Latvia, previously occupied by the Soviet Union for the prior year, shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. One of earliest and most enthusiastic Latvian collaborators was Viktors Arājs, a former policeman and Latvian Army soldier. On 1 July, after the entry of the Germans into Riga, Arājs made contact with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker through the help of Hans Dressler, a close friend and translator. Stahlecker was head of the Einsatzgruppe A (Army Group North) and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence agency of the SS, in Reichskommissariat Ostland. Stahlecker was impressed by Arājs and instructed him to set up a temporary paramilitary unit to be used against "undesirables" in Latvia. The following day, on 2 July, Stahlecker told Arājs that his commando group was to unleash a pogrom against Latvian Jews that looked spontaneous.
On 4 July 1941, Arājs issued a recruitment advertisement in Tēvija, a collaborationist newspaper published in Riga, but it received little response. Instead, Arājs relied on his connections at the University of Riga, as well as the Latvian army which had been disbanded by the Soviets. By 5 July, the unit had acquired a headquarters at 19 Krišjāņa Valdemāra Street in Riga and was referred to as by the Germans as "auxiliary police". All members were ethnic Latvian volunteers. They were former policemen and soldiers, members of the Aizsargi (an Interwar period Latvian militia), and students recruited by Arājs. Initially they used civilian clothing, but soon began to wear Latvian Army or Aizsargi dark blue uniforms with green armbands on the right arm with the SD insignia. By the end of July, the unit size was 240 men.
The Arajs Kommando immediately began to participate in Nazi atrocities, including the killing of Jews, Roma, Soviet collaborators, mental patients, as well as punitive actions and massacres of civilians along Latvia's border with the Soviet Union. Their first order from Stahlecker was to forcibly search the homes of Riga Jews and arrest male residents — the purpose of the order was to provoke Jews to riot but this did not occur. On the night of 4 July, the Arajs Kommando were participants in the burning of Riga's synagogues. Men of the unit did not allow the firefighters to save the synagogues, ordering them to only prevent the fires from spreading to neighbouring buildings. Several hundred Jews were burned alive in the synagogues. During the ensuing chaos in Riga, Kommando members (and others) looted Jewish houses. As can be seen in contemporary Nazi newsreels, these attacks were part of a campaign to create the perception that the Holocaust in the Baltics was local, and not Nazi-directed.
Commemoration of this event has been chosen for marking Holocaust Memorial Day in present-day Latvia.
The Arajs Kommando subsequently took part in increasingly violent events such as the Liepāja massacres, where they were brought in from Riga to carry out the shootings of 910 Jews, on July 24 and July 25, 1941. This 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 that Jews were being continuously executed, all through the daylight hours in the town, and that German marines were making stops in the area just to watch the executions.
The Arajs Kommando participated in the Rumbula massacre, in which 24,000 Latvian Jews from the Riga ghetto (mostly women, children, and the elderly) and 1,000 German Jews (deported by train from Central Europe) were executed in the on the outskirts of Riga or in the nearby Rumbula forest during the two days of 30 November and 8 December 1941. Arajs Kommando members served as guards in charge of "funnelling" the thousands of Jews from Riga to pits in the forest to be shot, At the end of the second day, some victims who had been shot and wounded in the streets of Riga were executed by the Arajs Kommando.
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Arajs Kommando
The Arajs Kommando (Latvian: Arāja komanda; German: Sonderkommando Arajs) was a paramilitary unit of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) active in German-occupied Latvia from 1941 to 1943. It was led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs and composed of ethnic Latvian volunteers recruited by Arājs.
The Arajs Kommando was a notorious death squad and one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia. The unit was involved in the mass killing of Jews in Latvia until 1942 when it was used in anti-partisan operations in Belarus and Russia. It was disbanded and merged into the Latvian Legion in 1943.
In July 1941, Nazi Germany began its military occupation of Latvia, previously occupied by the Soviet Union for the prior year, shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. One of earliest and most enthusiastic Latvian collaborators was Viktors Arājs, a former policeman and Latvian Army soldier. On 1 July, after the entry of the Germans into Riga, Arājs made contact with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker through the help of Hans Dressler, a close friend and translator. Stahlecker was head of the Einsatzgruppe A (Army Group North) and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence agency of the SS, in Reichskommissariat Ostland. Stahlecker was impressed by Arājs and instructed him to set up a temporary paramilitary unit to be used against "undesirables" in Latvia. The following day, on 2 July, Stahlecker told Arājs that his commando group was to unleash a pogrom against Latvian Jews that looked spontaneous.
On 4 July 1941, Arājs issued a recruitment advertisement in Tēvija, a collaborationist newspaper published in Riga, but it received little response. Instead, Arājs relied on his connections at the University of Riga, as well as the Latvian army which had been disbanded by the Soviets. By 5 July, the unit had acquired a headquarters at 19 Krišjāņa Valdemāra Street in Riga and was referred to as by the Germans as "auxiliary police". All members were ethnic Latvian volunteers. They were former policemen and soldiers, members of the Aizsargi (an Interwar period Latvian militia), and students recruited by Arājs. Initially they used civilian clothing, but soon began to wear Latvian Army or Aizsargi dark blue uniforms with green armbands on the right arm with the SD insignia. By the end of July, the unit size was 240 men.
The Arajs Kommando immediately began to participate in Nazi atrocities, including the killing of Jews, Roma, Soviet collaborators, mental patients, as well as punitive actions and massacres of civilians along Latvia's border with the Soviet Union. Their first order from Stahlecker was to forcibly search the homes of Riga Jews and arrest male residents — the purpose of the order was to provoke Jews to riot but this did not occur. On the night of 4 July, the Arajs Kommando were participants in the burning of Riga's synagogues. Men of the unit did not allow the firefighters to save the synagogues, ordering them to only prevent the fires from spreading to neighbouring buildings. Several hundred Jews were burned alive in the synagogues. During the ensuing chaos in Riga, Kommando members (and others) looted Jewish houses. As can be seen in contemporary Nazi newsreels, these attacks were part of a campaign to create the perception that the Holocaust in the Baltics was local, and not Nazi-directed.
Commemoration of this event has been chosen for marking Holocaust Memorial Day in present-day Latvia.
The Arajs Kommando subsequently took part in increasingly violent events such as the Liepāja massacres, where they were brought in from Riga to carry out the shootings of 910 Jews, on July 24 and July 25, 1941. This 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 that Jews were being continuously executed, all through the daylight hours in the town, and that German marines were making stops in the area just to watch the executions.
The Arajs Kommando participated in the Rumbula massacre, in which 24,000 Latvian Jews from the Riga ghetto (mostly women, children, and the elderly) and 1,000 German Jews (deported by train from Central Europe) were executed in the on the outskirts of Riga or in the nearby Rumbula forest during the two days of 30 November and 8 December 1941. Arajs Kommando members served as guards in charge of "funnelling" the thousands of Jews from Riga to pits in the forest to be shot, At the end of the second day, some victims who had been shot and wounded in the streets of Riga were executed by the Arajs Kommando.