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Murder Story of Liepaja Jews in Skede

Murder Site
Skede
Latvia
Jewish women and children from Liepaja stand on the edge of a pit before being murdered, December 15, 1941
Jewish women and children from Liepaja stand on the edge of a pit before being murdered, December 15, 1941
YVA, Photo Collection, 1979/5
The murders in the dunes at Skede on the Baltic shore, some fifteen kilometers north of the city and about a kilometer from the road towards the sea, began as early as July 1941. Some 200 Jews were murdered there.

During a three-day massacre on December 15-17, 1941, German and Latvian units killed 2,749 Jews, more than half of Liepaja’s Jewish population. Preparations for the operation began some days before. On December 13, 1941, Liepaja Police Chief Obersturmbannfuehrer Fritz Diedrich placed an announcement in the Latvian newspaper Kurzemes Vards stating that Jews were forbidden to leave their living quarters on Monday, December 15, and Tuesday, December 16.

On the night of December 13, Latvian police forces began to arrest Liepaja’s Jews not yet concentrated in the ghetto. The victims were brought to the Women’s Prison, where Jews of all ages were crammed into the courtyard. The Jews were ordered to stand with their faces towards the wall, and warned not to move or look around for relatives or at the watchmen. Some were transported to Skede on the evening of the following day and crowded into a barn (a wooden structure, described also as a garage).

In the early morning of December 15, a column of victims was driven from Liepaja by Latvian policemen, under the supervision of the German SD, to the same barn in Skede where Jews from the prison had been taken. They were taken in groups of twenty to a site forty to fifty meters from a deep ditch dug in the dunes nearby, parallel to the shore. The ditch was about three meters wide and 100 meters long. There they were forced to lie face down on the ground. Groups of ten were then ordered to stand up and, apart from the children, to undress, at first to their underwear and then, when taken near the ditch, completely. They were shot by a German unit, the Latvian SD Platoon headed by Lt. Peteris Galins, and a Latvian Schutzmannschaften team.

During the murder operation, the Jews were placed along the side of the ditch nearest the sea, facing the water. The killing squad was positioned across the ditch, with two marksmen shooting at the same victim. Children who could walk were treated as adults, but babies were held by their mothers and killed with them. A “kicker” rolled in those corpses that did not fall directly into the ditch. After each volley, a German SD man stepped into the ditch to inspect the bodies and finish off anyone who showed signs of life.

The clothes were piled up in heaps and taken away by German military trucks. During the murder operation, Strott and another officer, Erich Handke, took pictures with a Minox, and senior Wehrmacht and navy officers visited the site.

The murder operations in Skede continued until December 1942. On February 15, 1942, the Germans planned to murder 500 Jews in Skede. However, on the way to the murder site a group of 22 Jews pounced on the drunken Latvian guards and managed to escape.

In 1943, chlorine was poured over the corpses.

Related Resources
ChGK Soviet Reports from Liepaja
State Extraordinary Commission for Investigation of Nazi War Crimes in the Soviet Union (ChGK) documentation dated 1944-1945, regarding the murder and persecution of the Liepaja Jews, 1941-1943
... One of the central places where the mass shooting of the Jewish population took place was the “Shtede” [Skede] settlement. According to the testimony of witnesses D. F. Ziovtson, M.N. Libaur, A. Sh. Vesterman, I. A. Melidenshtam, M. D. Siutelsons, etc., it was found that at the command of Gibietskommissar Alnor, during July 22-24, 1941 the Jews were ordered to gather together at the city’s fire station plaza. On the first day, July 22, about 3,500 Jews gathered together. The Germans placed them into columns of 200-250, and sent them to the inner prison. There, after the Germans took their watches, rings and other possessions away, the Jews were sent in columns to “Skede,” where they were shot. The victims were naked; their belongings were distributed among the guards and those who carried out the shooting. The killings lasted for three days; up to 7,000 members of the Jewish population were shot [this number is seemingly overestimated]. ... In 1941, an order signed by Obersturmfuhrer Dr. Emil Diedrich was published in the Kurzemes Vards newspaper, stating that every Jew in the city must stay indoors during December 15 and 16. Over these two days, 3,500 Jews were arrested and murdered in the village of Skede, day and night. The victims were naked; their guards and murderers looted their belongings. On February 15, 1942, on Diedrich’s order, 500 people were gathered together and murdered in Skede. The Germans were especially cruel in their liquidation of the Jewish population. The witness Zivtson relates in his testimony that immediately after the appearance of the first German soldiers in the city on June 29, at 5 pm, they caught seven Jews and two Latvians on Ulikhovskaya Street, murdered them, and threw their bodies into a crater left by a German shell. That same day, at 9 pm, the Germans came to the Witte Street home of the Liepaja Theater’s composer and conductor Walter Hann. There the Germans gathered all the tenants together and murdered Hann in front of them all. His body was buried in the courtyard of the house ....
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-93-2419 copy YVA M.33 / JM/21233; JM/21234
Skede
Seashore
Murder Site
Latvia
56.504;21.016
Abram Fleishman was born in 1925 in Liepaja, and lived there during the war years. (Interview in Russian)
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 41558 copy YVA O.93 / 41558
Solomon Feigerson was born in 1930 in Liepaja, and lived there during the war years. (Interview in Hebrew)
YVA O.101 / Incomings: 9531728; (12)230
Efraim Neuburger was born in 1929 in Liepaja, and lived there during the war years. (Interview in English)
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 17557 copy YVA O.93 / 17557