The Holocaust in Kuldīga, Latvia - A Microhistory
My grandfather's house is to the right in this photo from the 1920s. The boy on the right is likely one of my cousins, who would not have survived the war
Maps of Kuldiga: 19th century vs. 21st century
Historical Background
Kuldiga is a small city in western Latvia, about 100 miles west of Riga. It is an old town whose history stretches back to the 13th century. There has been a Jewish community in this town since at least 1750. This was in an area where German was the predominant language, even under the Czar's Imperial Russian Empire.
For the most part, Jews in Kuldiga were small merchants, grocers, musicians, glaziers, and brewers. They were generally assimilated, had businesses in different areas of town, and sometimes sent their children to public schools. Economic depressions, World War One and deportations connected with that conflict uprooted the Jewish population along with their Latvian neighbors. A number of Jews from the town also fought in the Czar's army in World War One and in the Latvian National Army during the Latvian War of Independence from 1919-1921.
My paternal family originally settled in Kuldiga about 1755, probably having moved there from Lithuania. These paternal ancestors lived in Kuldiga until 1941, except for some who had moved to the nearby cities of Aizpute and Liepaja for economic reasons. My direct ancestors emigrated to South Africa and thence to the U.S. about 1900. Thus, our line survived even as most Benjaminsons and their families remained and were killed.
At the time of the Nazi invasion of the Baltic areas of the USSR in July 1941, there were approximately 700 Jews in Kuldiga, about 12 percent of the town's population. At least 12 of my paternal relatives were in Kuldiga at that time.
The events of the Holocaust between July and October 1941 killed all of the Jews of Kuldiga except for three or four who were protected by their Latvian neighbors.
The heart of Kuldiga -- relevant family and Jewish sites are shown
The Nurick House, Baznicas iela 29, 1930 & 2012
The Holocaust in Kuldīga: Timeline, Victims, Documents and Investigations
July 1, 1941
The German Army and SS troops arrive in Kuldiga. The city becomes a Nazi base of operations in the Baltic region.
July 5, 1941
The Town Council and German military governor issue a prohibition on trade between Christians and Jews.
Approx. July 10, 1941
Arrests, beatings and killings of Jews begins, perpetrated by Latvian individuals from various pro-Nazi groups. This is a haphazard process at this time. Most Jews are evicted from their homes and moved into the synagogue (the "ghetto"). Those not killed are taken out each day to do forced labor. The family names of some of the reported local killers were Granovsky, Fibikis, Schirmacher, and an attorney named Bricker. They allegedly killed members of the Herzenberg, Mandelkorn, Gottshalk and Herzberg families. Several Jews committed suicide, including two men named Lemchen and Kleinberg. (Information from published notes by survivor Meir Levenstein).
Beginning on July 12, 1941
Jews are taken from the synagogue by trucks in groups to execution sites. For the most part, men were killed first, and then women and children. There are three separate sites, with the largest being in the Kalnamuizhas Forest, near the Riezupe River (see map further on in this presentation). There were at least four separate roundtrips made by locally-conscripted vehicles. More than 300 people were shot on the first day of the massacres. Another 300 were killed during the remainder of July. The shooters included Nazi SD men from their base in Liepaja, plus Latvian members of the Fascist Arajs Commando, who traveled by bus to Kuldiga to participate in the killings.
July 12-14, 1941
Most of the men had been shot the day before at the Padure execution site, so the group here consisted mostly of women and children. Panic broke out when the Jews arrived at the forest site, as it was clear what was going to take place. Several people were shot next to the trucks. Volleys of rifle fire from the Nazis, the Arajs men, and probably one or two Latvian militia men shot 10-15 Jews at one time. In Latvian writer Eduards Freimanis' book "Visādais Jēpis" [All Sorts Jake} , he describes the participation of Latvian militiamen.
October 1941
Reserve Police Battalion 11/22 arrives in Kuldiga after massacring the remaining Jews and Gypsies in Saldus. Records from postwar war crimes trials in Germany show that they participated to some extent in the murder of the few remaining Jews (who had been kept alive as slave laborers/technicians), and Gypsy populations of Kuldiga. The prosecutors summary stated that "According to the results of the investigation, members of the 1st Company took part in various killings against Gypsies and Jews, namely by providing transport vehicles and accompanying the transports to the execution sites as well as by forming cordons. On the other hand, it was not possible to establish that the police forces were also directly involved in the killing. Most of these were carried out by Latvian militia teams." One of the testimonies of a surviving Reserve Policeman described his duty at one killing action: "We had an order from the path between the wooded area and the building to form a chain of riflemen in the direction of the wooded area and not to let anyone in or out of the wooded area. I stood on this path. I don't know for sure whether it was known beforehand that the gypsies and Jews were to be shot by a shooting team in the forest, but I believe that it was mentioned in the classification. A group of civilians was led out of the building into the forest. I don't know who led this group out of the building. When I heard screams and gunshots from the woods, I suffered a shock and I no longer really noticed the environment..."
Early 1945
An official city notice announcing the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the founding of Kuldiga states:
"Residents of Kuldiga district! We are free from the yoke of the red commissars and the Jews! Now as free and conscientious Latvians, let's show our friendship and gratitude to our liberators - the German troops. Let's show the German army soldiers a positive reception. Our most beautiful Latvian tradition - hospitality
to the fullness of our gratitude to the sons of the friendly German people. God bless Latvia!" (KNPBN photo archives)
My father's cousin Elias Nurick (just to the left of the carriage) and his three daughters. Elias, his wife Sarah, Mina and Leah were killed in the Holocaust in Kuldiga, while Fanny emigrated to Palestine before the war started.
Elias Nurick's grocery store (on the right with the Nurik sign) on the main square of Kuldiga circa 1930.
The Jewish community of Kuldiga was a relatively assimilated segment of the city, representing about 12% of the town's population.
This is from a 1923 business directory of Kuldiga -- my relative Elias Nurick's "Kolonialwaren" (households good) shop is here.
This short video is taken from exactly the spot where my grandfather's house stood (it was destroyed during a Russian bombing attack in 1945). The large building is the former public Girls School. This is the street from which the Jews would have been driven in trucks to the massacre site in July 1941.
On the afternoon of July 11, the Jewish population was taken from their homes by Latvian police and self-defense units (a form of a militia) and taken by force to the synagogue. They were held there for approximately 24 hours before they were driven to the execution site. During their imprisonment, a 14-year-old Christian neighbor approached the synagogue with bread and water for the Jews, but was pushed away by the local police who were guarding the building. A red stain that remained on the outer wall of the synagogue (from beatings and torture of small children) was not erased until the synagogue was turned into a cinema in the early 1950s.
The green line shows the route that the local transport vehicles took when bringing the Jews to the major killing site in the Mezvalde Forest, Rumba Parish. Other massacre sites are also marked.
This is the footpath to the primary killing site in the Mezvalde Forest.
One of the memorial stones at the mass grave site. In Latvian it states: "At this site in July 1941, the Fascists killed and buried Kuldiga's Jewish children."
The night after the murders, two teenage Jewish girls walked out of the forest to the police station in Kuldiga. They had been lightly wounded and had climbed out of the mass grave. Dressed only in their slips and underwear, they staggered into the police station and asked the local police to shoot them. "We don't want to live anymore, all of our families and friends are dead."
The police decided to hold them in their jail cell that night, without clothes or food. In the morning, the Nazi SD killers took them back to the forest and gave them their deaths.
From local newspaper <Kurzemnieks>, September 1945 -- translated by Krista Caka
Horror Actions of Fascists: Germans in Kuldīga
The year was 1941. The Germans arrived. People are worried, nothing good can be expected. Everyone knows those men too well for the last 700 years. Indeed, only a couple of weeks have passed when we hear — they already are starting to shoot… not one at a time but as a mass action… not because of a crime but without any fault, any justice, any distinction of a rank and age. Indr. Zandmanis from Padure parish says “A neighboring woman told me that, during the night, people in our forest were shot… I did not believe it. When heading to work, to Venta, I crossed this forest. About 3 km from the administrative parish house, 20 steps from a road, I saw many people who had been shot. Two women were still alive. When going down the same road as I returned from work, I saw that Russian POWs, watched by guards, brought the bodies and threw them in a pit. On the second day, I saw them digging a new pit, which was empty for several hours only. When I came back from work, it was already filled. I found a total of 5 such pits. The people to be shot were transported in cars. In some of them, I also saw children.”
Jānis Piesis from Stierķi, Kuldīga parish, remembers — “In July, I worked near the road. First, a car with guards passed by, then — a car with shovels. About a half an hour later, the same car transported Hebrew people from Kuldīga. I knew many of them. Then I heard shooting. I understood what was happening, still I did not want to believe it. I carefully moved closer. On the edge of a pit, there were puddles of blood, empty cartridge cases, women's clothing, hair. The same view was experienced by residents of Kuldīga parish, Rumbergs and Hercbergs, and also Fricis Zvejs and other workers from the brick-yard.”
We saw the cars going to the forest, towards Padure, and on Apšukalns, there we saw guards — shooters. They had guns, we heard shooting, found the murdered people and half-alive injured people, as well as we found filled up pits. This is how they build “the new Europe”. Everyone who is not a German will have to tremble and shiver with never-ending fear. No honest person can be safe, since the SD is working — the most terrifying, cruel, and sly arrangement, the main voice of national-socialistic state, an executive body. The cars went to the forest with a load of living persons and back from the forest — with bloody belongings taken from the murdered people.
How is it possible that many “relatively honest” people, seeing this horrific crime, can still make a flattering smile and say that this is right, that this should have been done. It does not surprise that crazy murderer’s ideas are finding root in the sick minds of some degenerates. However, it is surprising that there are a sufficient number of followers, executers of such ideas. We now see various garbage, members of the underworld that have never neither had a fair job nor had a heart nor consciousness. The Germans give an opportunity to drink against rewards, to rob, to rape, to torture. They know how to convince that a nation is an enemy to another nation, that it is an honorable action to kill, rob a peer. The SD gives an order, and the guards obey. Day to day they are drunk and execute their “orders”. Girlfriends of the guards are wearing silk dresses. Their houses store stacks of the “legally” obtained items. The guards who are countrymen leave crop unharvested. The “job” commissioned by Germans is paid better. No one wants to miss a chance to take part in “building of the new Europe”! “It is more difficult for me to kill a sheep than a Jew” — proudly says Tīdemanis. “As for the small kids — just hit them with a wooden stick and throw them into the pit”, says Fībiķis. Poles, Russians? No! They are not better than the Jews. Latvians? Communists! Save none of them! If Germans order them to be shot, you must do this, since you receive the reward. This is a psychosis of the guards. The Germans are aware of this fact, and they are very satisfied. They make lists of the persons to be shot, gives the rewards and marks of distinction, and make even movies of how Latvians “are working” …
The bodies were covered with a layer of earth of a maximum of 50 cm. A forensic commission has recognized that they died from a shot or a hit with a blunt object, while in many cases, victims surely died only after being buried.
Valters.
Immediately after the Red Army entered this area of Latvia in May1945, a Soviet investigative commission prepared thousands of reports of war crimes carried out by the Nazis. This is a list of those in Kuldiga involved in the killing of Jews and Gypsies.
This list covers not only shooters, but guards, drivers, gravediggers, cooperating local police and militia. A number of Nazi SD men are listed, as well as numerous Latvian militia and Arajs Commandos. One of these is listed as "torturer".
The same Soviet commission investigated Kuldiga's killing sites and drew this map of the mass graves at the Mezvalde forest. Several local Latvian witnesses also gave detailed testimony about the location of the mass graves and the numbers of people killed to the Soviets. In addition to this chart, accompanying notes indicate that they found the bones of between 300 and 600 people in total. Some of these remains were obviously those of children, and some of the placement of limbs clearly indicated that wounded people were attempting to climb out of the graves after they were filed with lime and dirt.
Interviews with townspeople who worked in the forests provided substantial detail about the mass graves themselves. They stated that in the Mezvalde Forest, they measured one mass grave as encompassing 45 meters x 2 meters, and 3 meters in depth. Being present when the graves were exhumed, the witnesses stated that in one area of the grave that measured one square meter, there were 8 corpses. In a second area, measuring 2.5 square meters, there were 20 bodies. The Soviet investigators thus calculated that this mass grave alone held approximately 200 corpses.
This document was written by the then-police chief of Kuldiga to the city administration in October 1941 -- three months after the massacres. He is complaining about the fact that people have broken into two of the Jews' former houses, and he scolds them for not putting sufficient seals and locks on the doors. He implies that this is now city property, so it should be secured better.
All these people are dead, and the police chief, Vanags, was complicit in helping the Nazi SD and the Arajs Commandos transport the Jews to the killing site and securing the Red Army POWs who dug the mass graves. He was the police chief for the Jewish citizens of the town as well before the war, knew many of them, and seems now perfectly at ease with their fate.
Ironically, Nazi soldiers were billeted in a number of former Jewish homes from 1944-45.
Summer 1945 - War's End. The damaged synagogue and destroyed houses in the formerly Jewish area. The property damage is the result of a Russian bombardment earlier in 1945, which also destroyed my grandfather's home. At this point in history, of course, Kuldiga is completely devoid of Jews.
