VENTSPILS
Pre-1940: Ventspils (Yiddish: Vindoi), town and aprinka center, Kurzeme reǵions, Latvia; 1940–1941: center, Kurzeme district, Latvian SSR; 1941–1945: Windau, Kreis center, Gebiet Libau, Generalkommissariat Lettland; post-1991: Ventspils, Kurzeme reǵions, Republic of Latvia
Ventspils is located 163 kilometers (101 miles) west-northwest of Riga. According to the 1930 census, there were 1,275 Jews living in Ventspils. By 1935 that number had declined to 1,246, almost 8 percent of the town’s population.
German armed forces entered Ventspils, a port town on the Baltic Sea, on July 1, 1941, nine days after their invasion of the USSR on June 22. Within this time, some of the Jews of Ventspils managed to evacuate, but more than 1,000 remained in the town and the surrounding district at the start of the German occupation.
At the end of June 1941, once the Soviet forces had retreated but before the Germans had arrived, a Latvian Self-Defense unit was formed in Ventspils. This unit wore former Latvian army uniforms or civilian clothing with white—later red-and-white—armbands. A former Latvian officer, Kanders, actively recruited men for the unit. The Latvian Self-Defense unit was established ostensibly to maintain order and prevent looting until the arrival of the German army.
In July 1941, Ventspils was governed by a German military administration. In August, authority was transferred to the German civil administration. Ventspils became part of Gebiet Libau under Gebietskommissar Landrat Dr. Alnor and SS- und Polizeigebietsführer Leutnant der Polizei Auschrat. [End Page 1025]
By July 8, 1941, Latvian Lieutenant Col o nel Kārlis Lobe had arrived from Liepāja and with his deputy, Adolfs Jāsums, assumed authority over the Self-Defense unit in Ventspils. Almost immediately, Lobe issued Order No. 1, calling for the arrest of all Jews between the ages of 16 and 60 in the Ventspils area. All items of value in their possession were to be confiscated and turned over to the town of Ventspils. In addition, Communists were also subject to arrest, and a note on the document indicates that a number were taken into custody on July 14, 1941.1 The first shootings of those arrested by Latvian Self-Defense men took place on July 12 (five victims), with more being shot on July 15, 1941.2
SS-Obersturmführer Erhard Grauel arrived in Ventspils from Liepāja with a detachment of Einsatzkommando 2 on or around July 16, 1941. He had orders from Einsatzgruppe A to carry out special “cleansing” Aktions in the Ventspils and Kuldiga areas over the following days. Immediately on his arrival, Grauel went to the military commandant and informed him of his mission. The commandant briefed Grauel on the situation in the town and reported that the Latvian Self-Defense forces had been conducting arrests and carrying out shootings. Grauel next met with the head of the Latvian Self-Defense force, Lobe, and briefed him on his task. Lobe gave Grauel his assessment of the situation in Ventspils and told him that the shootings had started already, but the number of individuals shot so far was negligible. Further, Lobe reported that Jews had been arrested and charged with collaborating with the enemy and that on orders from Riga these Jews were to be liquidated. Grauel assigned 17 or 18 men of the Einsatzkommando to conduct the shootings. Working with the Latvian Self-Defense force, they shot several hundred male Jews in at least three separate Aktions in the Kaziniu Forest, 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) south of the town, near a Latvian army barracks and training area. About seven or eight non-Jewish Soviet activists were shot at the same site. During the first joint Aktion, a squad of German SS marksmen first demonstrated to the Latvian Self-Defense unit how to conduct the shooting. Thereafter, Latvian auxiliaries shot the remaining victims under German supervision.3
At some date in mid-July 1941, the remaining Jews of Ventspils (mostly elderly people, women, and children) were isolated in two dilapidated buildings near the Venta River in what is described by local Latvian witnesses as a ghetto.4 The local Fascist Latvian leader Kanders was appointed commandant of the ghetto. The Jews were not permitted to leave the ghetto and were obliged to wear the Star of David and to perform forced labor.5 Bearded Jews were forcibly shaven, and Jewish women were sexually assaulted. Their houses and property were looted by Latvians or sold for the benefit of the local administration. Some of the furniture was subsequently stored in the synagogue, which had probably been used initially to imprison some of the male Jews before they were shot.
Aktions on a smaller scale continued throughout July and August. In September and early October 1941, the Ventspils ghetto was liquidated, probably with the participation of the Arājs Kommando. First, the elderly people were shot (67 individuals on September 2 and 183 individuals on September 26, 1941: a total of 250 victims),6 and at some date between October 3 and 17, 1941, the women and children (another 533 victims) were killed.7 By late October, a sign had appeared on the road between Kuldiga and Ventspils, announcing that Ventspils had been “cleansed of Jews” (judenrein).
Altogether, between July and October 1941 more than 1,000 Jews from Ventspils and the surrounding area were killed.8
SOURCES
The ghetto in Ventspils is mentioned in the following publications: “Ventspils,” in Dov Levin, ed., Pinkas hakehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Latvia and Estonia (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1988), pp. 123–128; Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 1386; and Rita Bogdanova, “Ventspils,” in Rabbi Menakhem Barkagan, ed., Unichtozhenie evreev v Latvii 1941–1945: Tsikl lektsii (Riga: SHAMIR, 2007), pp. 107–111. The verdict against Grauel, which includes descriptions of the July mass shootings in Ventspils, has been published in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 36 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), Lfd. Nr. 760a.
Information on the fate of the Jews of Ventspils during the German occupation can be found in the following archives: BA-L; GARF (7021-93-2393); LVVA (R83-1-21); USHMM (RG-22.002M, reel 21); and YVA.
NOTES
1. D. Sprogis, “Oshchipannyi ‘sokol,’” Sovetskaia Latviia (Riga), March 22, 1969. After the war, Lobe went into hiding in Sweden, where he later became the leader of the Latvian nationalistic organization “Daugavas Vanāgi” (Falcons of Daugava).
2. E. Avotiņš, J. Dzirkalis, and V. Petersons, Daugavas Vanāgi: Who Are They? (Riga, 1963), p. 78.
3. LG-Hann, Verdict of October 14, 1971, against Grauel and others (Sta. Hannover 2 Ks 3/68), in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 36, Lfd. Nr. 760a. According to the statements of the Latvian witnesses and the former members of the Self-Defense unit, on one of these days between 200 and 300 people were killed, and altogether in mid-July up to 700 victims were shot.
4. Ibid., pp. 172, 174, citing testimony of Latvian Self-Defense members Sar. and Lie.
5. The decree ordering that Jews be marked was published in the local newspaper; see Ventas Balss, no. 3, July 11, 1941. On July 24, 1941, the commander of the Rear Area, Army Group North, issued uniform instructions on the wearing of the yellow star in the area under his command; see LVVA, R1026-1-3, p. 141.
6. See the war records of the SS- und Polizei-Standortführer Libau, entries for September 22 and 26, 1941, in LVVA, R83-1-21.
7. Bericht des SS- und Polizeistandortführers Libau, October 18, 1941, in LG-Hann, Verdict of October 14, 1971, against Grauel and others (2 Ks 3/68), Sta. Hannover.
8. According to materials from GARF, 7021-93-2393, approximately 3,000 Jews allegedly were shot in the town of Ventspils (2,000 Ventspils residents and 1,000 people from the surrounding area). This number is probably much too high.
