Women's prison in Liepaja
Brian Friedman, Copy YVA 14616871
Lighthouse South of Liepaja Related Communities
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Murder Story of Liepaja Jews at the Lighthouse South of Liepaja
Murder Site
Lighthouse South of Liepaja
Latvia
The dunes near the lighthouse, situated south of the city, served as one of the murder sites. At the beginning of July 1941, the Germans killed some groups of political prisoners and Jews there. Most of them were brought to the dunes from the Women’s Prison in Tilzas Street, which had become a jail for political prisoners, male and female, and a transit station for Jews destined for the murder sites.
On July 8-10, 1941, mass murder operations were carried out by the Teilkommando 2 of Einsatzkommando A headed by Erhard Grauel, probably with the assistance of the Arajs Commando. Each day, at least 100 Jews were shot. The Jewish men snatched from the streets and their houses and Jewish prisoners from the Women’s Prison were brought to the site by truck in groups of twenty. They were forced to enter the pit – measuring four by fifteen meters – in groups of ten, where they were shot with bolt-action rifles from the edge of the embankment. At first, the marksmen were told to divide the Jews between them, one aiming at the head, the other at the heart. Later, the order was for both gunmen to aim at the head. After a round of killings, German officers armed with machine guns entered the pit to examine the victims, and if any signs of life were found, they delivered “insurance” shots.
Related Resources
German Reports / Romanian Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the indictment against nine Nazi criminals who participated in murdering civilians in Ventspils and Liepaja, Hannover, 1968
Charny [testified]:
... On July 24, 1941, he [the witness], together with other Jews, was sent to a place on the beach, near the lighthouse, where they had to dig a pit, 25 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 3 meters deep. When he and his working group returned to the place on July 25, nearly twelve meters of the pit were filled with corpses. First, these corpses had to be covered thoroughly, and then they had to proceed with the digging. This work continued for almost three weeks. Each day, they found parts of the pit filled with corpses. Almost every day limbs were seen sticking out of the sand ....
YVA O.4 / 368
From the indictment against Victor Arajs, Hamburg, 1976:
... During the period of July 1941 until the summer of 1942, numerous shooting operations (Aktionen), first against Jewish men and later also against Jewish women and children, took place in Libau [Liepaja] .... In the summer of 1941, presumably at the end of July 1941, a command of the Latvian auxiliary security police (Hilfssicherheitspolizei) from Riga, headed by the defendant Arajs, shot at least 100 Jewish men north of the city of Libau, with the aid of local forces ....
ZENTRALE STELLE, LUDWIGSBURG B 162/3076 copy YVA TR.10 / 1140
German Reports from Liepaja
September 26, 1941
Operational Situation Report USSR No.96
Einsatzgruppe A
Executions ... In the period from August 30 to September 5, the following were executed:
in Riga [Latvia] ……………………………………… 86 persons
in the area of the Siauliai [Lithuania] field office …… 44 persons
in the area of the Liepaja [Latvia] field office ……… 38 persons
in other areas ………………………………………… 191 persons
total:.........……………………………………………… 459 persons
Included among those executed were 237 mentally ill Jews from mental institutions in Riga and Liepaja.
The current total [of executed people] in Einsatzkommando 2 territory is 29, 246 persons ....
Arad, Yitzhak, Krakowski, Shmuel and Spector, Shmuel. The Einsatzgruppen reports : selections from the dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' campaign against the Jews July 1941-January 1943 . New York : Holocaust Library, 1989, p. 163.
Lighthouse South of Liepaja
Murder Site
Latvia
56.504;21.016
Videos
Photos
Mass Murder of Jews in Liepaja, Latvia, 1941
Yad Vashem Archive 101331
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Yad Vashem Archive 101331
Interview with Reinhard Wiener, German photographer of the mass murder in Liepaja. The interview was given on September 27, 1981.
YVA O.33 /