Latvia Under German Occupation in 1943Latvian Legation, 1944

Persecutions

For several months now the “liberators” have been running down not so much communists as nationalists, Latvian patriots. Many former collaborators of the Bolshevik occupation are going around freely in Riga, whereas people who are known to be supporters of the national independence of Latvia begin to disappear more and more frequently without leaving any traces. Thus the former president of the Council of the Latvian Bank, A. Klive, and the president of the Latvian Press Society and President of the Board of the Chamber of Arts and Literature, J. Druva, have disappeared. Both were arrested already in December 1942. The former Director General of Justice, A. Valdmanis, who presented a memorandum demanding more rights, was placed under house arrest for a few weeks, but was then sent to Germany, where he must remain as “pensioneer.” Also Price Inspector, Captain Kikuts, has disappeared. Captain Kikuts in the beginning of 1942 presented the following demands to the occupation authorities: (a) the rations for Latvians must be the same as those provided for Germans; (b) rations in general must be increased; and (c) the food supply system must be changed, as the German system does not differ from that of the Bolsheviks. The Germans immediately removed Captain Kikuts from his post and then arrested him. No one knows where he is now.

Very many have been arrested for various violations of the mobilization and labor regulations, decrees regarding delivery of food supplies, for not having turned over weapons, etc., etc. A considerable number of arrests have been made among the young people university and senior high school students. The latter are usually charged with “ultra-nationalism,” illegal activities, insulting the Germans, etc. A 16 year old student of the III High School in Riga was sentenced to death and shot for singing a satirical song.

The number of arrested Latvian patriots is unknown. However, it must be considerable, as the large Central Prison in Riga for the time being has been reserved only for political culprits, and the number of male prisoners alone runs up to 2,500. This figure only includes the “nationalists;” arrested communists and criminals are placed in the Termin Prison.

In Ventspils (Windau) some 5,000 Russian prisoners of war are being employed in the construction of a new prison—a four-story brick building. This prison will furnish space for as many prisoners as are now located in the Central Prison in Riga.

Also in Liepaja (Libau) a large prison building is under construction. The people living in that vicinity are wondering for whom the Germans are constructing these “cultural buildings.”

In addition to prisons the arrested Latvian patriots are kept in concentration camps. The largest camp is in Salaspils, another is in Kalnciems. In both these places the prisoners are made to break stones. Other camps are located near Olaine and between Kemeri and Sloka, where the prisoners are employed in peat digging.

As elsewhere in German occupied Europe, also in Latvia Himmler's Gestapo sees that “internal peace and order” are maintained. The headquarters of the German so-called “Sicherheitsdienst” (Security Service) is in Riga, on the corner of Reimers iela and Rainis bulvaris, and characteristically in the same rooms of the same building where formerly the special Bolshevik GPU imprisoned those Russian officers and officials who had been so careless as to complain somewhere and at some time that the supply situation was much better in Latvia than in the Soviet paradise. The German Gestapo has taken over these premises of the GPU with all the equipment, “medical” alcoves, and other implements of inquisition, such as lighting effects, hot and cold temperature, etc. These are now being used to torture Latvian patriots.

There is also a Latvian division of the Security Service in Riga, whose headquarters are located on Juris Alunans iela, in the former building of the YMCA. The principal duty of this Latvian Gestapo consists of tracking down communists.