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Rumbula massacre
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.
This massacre is known by different names, including "The Big Action", and the "Rumbula Action", but in Latvia it is just called "Rumbula" or "Rumbuli". It is sometimes called the Jeckeln Action after its commander Friedrich Jeckeln. The word "Aktion", which translates literally to action or operation in English, was used by the Nazis as a euphemism for murder. For Rumbula, the official euphemism was "shooting action" (Erschiessungsaktion). In the Einsatzgruppen trial before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the event was not given a name but simply described as "the murder of 10,600 Jews" on 30 November 1941.
At the time, Rumbula was a small railway station 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) south of Riga, the capital and major city of Latvia, which was connected with Daugavpils, the second largest city in Latvia, by the rail line along the north side of the Daugava river. Located on a hill about 250 meters (820 ft) from the station, the massacre site was a "rather open and accessible place". The view was blocked by vegetation, but the sound of gunfire would have been audible from the station grounds. The area lay between the rail line and the Riga-Daugavpils highway, with the rail line to the north of the highway. Rumbula was part of a forest and swamp area known in Latvian as Vārnu mežs, which means Crow Forest in English. The sounds of gunfire could be heard from the highway. The German occupation authorities carried out a number of other massacres on the north bank of the Daugava in the Rumbula vicinity. The soil was sandy and it was easy to dig graves. While the surrounding pine woods were sparse, there was a heavily forested area in the center which became the execution site. The rail line and highway made it easy to move the victims in from Riga (it had to be within walking distance of the Riga Ghetto on the southeast side of the city), as well as transport the shooters and their weapons.
The Holocaust in Latvia began on June 22, 1941, when the German army invaded the Soviet Union, including the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia that had been recently occupied by Soviet forces following a period of independence after World War I. Murders of Jews, Communists, and others began almost immediately, perpetrated by German death squads known as Einsatzgruppen (which can be translated as "Special Task Groups" or "Special Assignment Groups"), and also the German Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei or SiPo) and the Security Service of the SS (Sicherheitsdienst or SD). The first killings were on the night of June 23, 1941, in the town of Grobin near Liepāja, where Sonderkommando 1a members murdered six Jews in the church cemetery. The Nazi occupiers were also aided by a unit of native Latvians known as the Arājs Commando, and at least to some extent by Latvian auxiliary police.
The Nazis wished to make it appear as if the local populations of Latvians were responsible for killing the Jews.[citation needed] They attempted, without much success,[citation needed] to stir up pogroms against the Jews. They spread rumors that Jews were responsible for widespread arson and other crimes, and also reported this to their superiors. This policy of incitement to what the Nazis called "self-cleansing actions" was a failure acknowledged by Franz Walter Stahlecker, who, as chief of Einsatzgruppe A, was the Nazis' main killing expert in the Baltic states.
The SD's goal was to make Latvia judenrein, a Nazi neologism which can be translated as "Jew free." By October 15, 1941, the Nazis had murdered up to 30,000 of the approximately 66,000 Jews that had not been able to flee the country before the German occupation was completed. Hinrich Lohse, who reported to Alfred Rosenberg rather than the SD's boss, Heinrich Himmler, wanted not so much to exterminate the Jews but rather to steal all their property, confine them to ghettos, and use them as slave laborers for Germany's war effort. This bureaucratic conflict slowed down the pace of the killings in September and October 1941. Lohse, as part of the "civil administration" was perceived by the SD as resisting their plans. On November 15, 1941, Lohse asked for directions from Rosenberg as to whether all Jews were to be murdered "regardless of economic considerations." By the end of October, Lohse had confined all the Jews of Riga, as well some of the surrounding area, into a ghetto within the city, the gates of which were about 10 kilometers from Rumbula. The Riga Ghetto was a creation of the Nazis themselves, and had not existed before the war.
The Nazis wanted to eliminate the Latvian Jews in Riga to make room for Jews from Germany and Austria to be deported to the Riga ghetto. Similarly motivated mass murders of eastern Jews confined to ghettos were carried out at Kovno on October 28, 1941 (10,000 dead), and at Minsk, where 13,000 were shot on November 7 and an additional 7,000 on November 20. To carry out this plan, Himmler brought Friedrich Jeckeln into Latvia from Ukraine, where he had organized a number of mass murders, including Babi Yar (30,000 dead). Jeckeln's crew of about 50 killers and supporting personnel arrived in Riga on November 5, 1941. Jeckeln did not arrive with them, but went instead to Berlin where sometime between November 10 and November 12, 1941, he met with Himmler. Himmler told Jeckeln to kill the entire Riga ghetto and to instruct Lohse, should he object, that this was an order of Himmler's and also of Adolf Hitler's: "Tell Lohse it is my order, which is also the Führer's wish".
Jeckeln then went to Riga and explained the situation to Lohse, who raised no further objection. By mid-November 1941, Jeckeln had set himself up in a building in the old section of Riga known as the Ritterhaus. Back in Berlin, Rosenberg, Lohse's superior in the Nazi hierarchy, was able to get one concession out of Himmler, that slave labor extracted from male Jews aged 16–60 would be considered too important to Germany's war effort. Consequently, these people would be spared, while women, children, old and disabled people would be shot. Jeckeln's plan for carrying out this segregation of the victims came to be known as the "Little Ghetto".
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Rumbula massacre
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.
This massacre is known by different names, including "The Big Action", and the "Rumbula Action", but in Latvia it is just called "Rumbula" or "Rumbuli". It is sometimes called the Jeckeln Action after its commander Friedrich Jeckeln. The word "Aktion", which translates literally to action or operation in English, was used by the Nazis as a euphemism for murder. For Rumbula, the official euphemism was "shooting action" (Erschiessungsaktion). In the Einsatzgruppen trial before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the event was not given a name but simply described as "the murder of 10,600 Jews" on 30 November 1941.
At the time, Rumbula was a small railway station 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) south of Riga, the capital and major city of Latvia, which was connected with Daugavpils, the second largest city in Latvia, by the rail line along the north side of the Daugava river. Located on a hill about 250 meters (820 ft) from the station, the massacre site was a "rather open and accessible place". The view was blocked by vegetation, but the sound of gunfire would have been audible from the station grounds. The area lay between the rail line and the Riga-Daugavpils highway, with the rail line to the north of the highway. Rumbula was part of a forest and swamp area known in Latvian as Vārnu mežs, which means Crow Forest in English. The sounds of gunfire could be heard from the highway. The German occupation authorities carried out a number of other massacres on the north bank of the Daugava in the Rumbula vicinity. The soil was sandy and it was easy to dig graves. While the surrounding pine woods were sparse, there was a heavily forested area in the center which became the execution site. The rail line and highway made it easy to move the victims in from Riga (it had to be within walking distance of the Riga Ghetto on the southeast side of the city), as well as transport the shooters and their weapons.
The Holocaust in Latvia began on June 22, 1941, when the German army invaded the Soviet Union, including the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia that had been recently occupied by Soviet forces following a period of independence after World War I. Murders of Jews, Communists, and others began almost immediately, perpetrated by German death squads known as Einsatzgruppen (which can be translated as "Special Task Groups" or "Special Assignment Groups"), and also the German Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei or SiPo) and the Security Service of the SS (Sicherheitsdienst or SD). The first killings were on the night of June 23, 1941, in the town of Grobin near Liepāja, where Sonderkommando 1a members murdered six Jews in the church cemetery. The Nazi occupiers were also aided by a unit of native Latvians known as the Arājs Commando, and at least to some extent by Latvian auxiliary police.
The Nazis wished to make it appear as if the local populations of Latvians were responsible for killing the Jews.[citation needed] They attempted, without much success,[citation needed] to stir up pogroms against the Jews. They spread rumors that Jews were responsible for widespread arson and other crimes, and also reported this to their superiors. This policy of incitement to what the Nazis called "self-cleansing actions" was a failure acknowledged by Franz Walter Stahlecker, who, as chief of Einsatzgruppe A, was the Nazis' main killing expert in the Baltic states.
The SD's goal was to make Latvia judenrein, a Nazi neologism which can be translated as "Jew free." By October 15, 1941, the Nazis had murdered up to 30,000 of the approximately 66,000 Jews that had not been able to flee the country before the German occupation was completed. Hinrich Lohse, who reported to Alfred Rosenberg rather than the SD's boss, Heinrich Himmler, wanted not so much to exterminate the Jews but rather to steal all their property, confine them to ghettos, and use them as slave laborers for Germany's war effort. This bureaucratic conflict slowed down the pace of the killings in September and October 1941. Lohse, as part of the "civil administration" was perceived by the SD as resisting their plans. On November 15, 1941, Lohse asked for directions from Rosenberg as to whether all Jews were to be murdered "regardless of economic considerations." By the end of October, Lohse had confined all the Jews of Riga, as well some of the surrounding area, into a ghetto within the city, the gates of which were about 10 kilometers from Rumbula. The Riga Ghetto was a creation of the Nazis themselves, and had not existed before the war.
The Nazis wanted to eliminate the Latvian Jews in Riga to make room for Jews from Germany and Austria to be deported to the Riga ghetto. Similarly motivated mass murders of eastern Jews confined to ghettos were carried out at Kovno on October 28, 1941 (10,000 dead), and at Minsk, where 13,000 were shot on November 7 and an additional 7,000 on November 20. To carry out this plan, Himmler brought Friedrich Jeckeln into Latvia from Ukraine, where he had organized a number of mass murders, including Babi Yar (30,000 dead). Jeckeln's crew of about 50 killers and supporting personnel arrived in Riga on November 5, 1941. Jeckeln did not arrive with them, but went instead to Berlin where sometime between November 10 and November 12, 1941, he met with Himmler. Himmler told Jeckeln to kill the entire Riga ghetto and to instruct Lohse, should he object, that this was an order of Himmler's and also of Adolf Hitler's: "Tell Lohse it is my order, which is also the Führer's wish".
Jeckeln then went to Riga and explained the situation to Lohse, who raised no further objection. By mid-November 1941, Jeckeln had set himself up in a building in the old section of Riga known as the Ritterhaus. Back in Berlin, Rosenberg, Lohse's superior in the Nazi hierarchy, was able to get one concession out of Himmler, that slave labor extracted from male Jews aged 16–60 would be considered too important to Germany's war effort. Consequently, these people would be spared, while women, children, old and disabled people would be shot. Jeckeln's plan for carrying out this segregation of the victims came to be known as the "Little Ghetto".
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