The Rumbula massacre:a case study of a Holocaust atrocity

By Eugene Holman(holman@elo.helsinki.fi)

Photos: Carlos Roso + archives

I. Preface

Killing one person is easy and is easily concealed. So is killing ten people. Killing a hundred ora thousand people during the course of a single day takes planning and coordination, for whichreason it will necessarily have a public dimension. The degree to which it becomes public tothe degree of crossing the threshold of being international news reported in real time onlyincreases if a killing action involves tens of thousands of people. Such was the Rumbulamassacre, the first implementational phase of which took place on November 30, 1941.

The massacre in the Rumbula forest outside of Riga in German-occupied Latvia, resulted inthe shooting outdoors and in full public view of approximately 25,000 people on two days:November 30th and December 8th, 1941. Although the actual killing was restricted to twodays, the prerequisites for this action began to be put into place in August, 1941 whenmeasures were taken to construct a ghetto in Riga and ghettoize the city's Jews, while theclean-up afterwards, the first phase of which, sorting and converting the property confiscatedfrom the killed Jews into money, took more than a week, and the second phase of which,exhuming the buried bodies and burning them, took place only during the summer of 1943.

In this essay I am going to focus on the different phases of the massacre, the type of evidencethey generated, and the signifigance of the Rumbula within the wider context of changing Nazipolicy towards the Jews of Eastern Europe in the light of changing circumstances andopportunities. Readers of this essay who are seriously interested in the manner in which theHolocaust unfolded in the Nazi-occupied parts of the USSR in general, and in Latvia inparticular, as well as in the various methodological problems involved in making a serioushistorical study of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, are advised to read the introduction toAndrew Ezergailis's book The Holocaust in Latvia: 1941-1944, available on the internet at

http://www.vip.lv/LPRA/EZERG_intr.html.

II. Evidence for the massacre

There are three primary sources of evidence concerning the Rumbula massacre:

1. The trial records of the various war crimes trials in Germany, the United States, and theUSSR.

2. Captured German documents, including the Stahlecker reports of October 15, 1941 andJanuary 31, 1942, and the Ereignismeldungen.

3. Records in Latvian archives. These records include: a. German documents captured by the Soviets b. the Reports of the Soviet extraordinary Commission c. the archives of the Riga Municipal and District Police

Reference will be made here to all three of these types of evidence.

Additionally I have included a surreptitiously recorded statement from a German POW whowas at Rumbula as a perpetrator, as well as an account by a woman who miraculously survivedthe massacre.

III. The structure of the massacre

A series of events such as the Rumbula massacre has a complex structure. This structure is notfortuitous, but rather the product of planning and intention. This structure exists in space asthe administrative premises in which the planning and necessary arrangements are madeaccording to orders, as the place where the people to be killed are gathered, at the killing site,as well as to the various gathering points where the property taken from the people killed wasdeposited, stored, classified, and disposed of. It exists in time as the time-frame which beginswith the setting up of the office for managing the killing and ends when the perpetrators aresatisfied that all that was to be done has been completed. As this structure interacts with itsvarious environments, it generates various kinds of evidence: orders for ammunition, orders tothe local police to supply manpower, piles of clothing, human remains in mass graves, and theeyewitness accounts of perpetrators, witnesses, and survivors. Each of these in its own wayfunctions as evidence that enables us to reconstruct the historical event.

A. The orders

When the German's invaded Latvia in June, 1941, they hoped that the local population, afterhaving lived the past year under communism, which German propaganda equated withJewishness, would rise against the local Jews in "spontaneous" pogroms. Reinhard Heydrich,who at this time was the Nazi official in charge of the killing of European Jews, had issued

orders on June 29, 1941 to Brigadeführer Walther Stahlecker, head of Einsatzgruppe A, to

provoke the Latvians to kill Jews [Arâjs Trial Records, Landgericht Hamburg, 1975, pg. 57].

During the first few weeks of the German occupation there were some seemingly spontaneouspogroms and other violence against Latvian Jews. These included shootings in the Bikemiekuforest, at the head Riga police station courtyard and basement, and in synagogues. The mostnotorious incident of this kind was the burning of the Great Choral Synagogue, the main onein Riga, on Gogol along with all the Jews, both Latvian and refugees from Lithuania, that hadsought refuge there. These outbreaks of violence were uncoordinated, being carried out bylocal criminal gangs and individuals seeking revenge against the Jews collectively for recentinjustices suffered by Latvians under a year of communist rule, propagandized by the Nazis asbeing a modality of Jewish ideology. These actions by Latvians were limited to a timeframe of afew weeks, took place in a few random locations, and resulted in the death of no more a fewthousand Jews [http://www.vip.lv/LPRA/fg_stahlecker.htm]. The organized, coordinated, andsystematic liquidation of the Jews in Latvia was a job that was to be done by the Germansthemselves:

"From the very beginning it was to be expected that pogroms alone would not solve the Jewish problem

in the Ostland...the goal of the cleansing operation of the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo), in accordance with

the fundamental orders, was the most comprehensive elimination of the Jews as possible."

— Walther Stahlecker, Report 15 October 1941. Nuremberg Document L-180

Hinrich Lohse, Reichskommissar for Ostland, issued a declaration of policy on the Jewishquestion in the Baltics on July 27, 1941. These guidelines contained specific instructionsconcerning who was to be defined as a Jew. Overall, they followed the racially-basedNuremberg Laws, but they contained a local addition according to which anyone married to aJew was also to be considered as a Jew. These guidelines stipulated that Jews were to beregistered, that they were to wear a six-pointed yellow Jewish star in public, and that they wereto be subject to numerous restrictions such as not being allowed to use the sidewalk, publictransport, or motorized vehicles. Being Jewish was made a criminal offense. All Jewishproperty except household necessities was to be confiscated by the state. All Jews were to beremoved from their homes, which were also to be confiscated by the state, and they were to beinterned in ghettos or concentration camps where they were to be exploited as slave labor

[see S. Myllyniemi, "Die Neuordnung der baltischen Länder, 1941-1944", Helsinki, 1973, pg. 78].

Preparations for the establishment of the Riga ghetto began inmid-August, 1941. The ghetto had been fenced in by October10, and the deadline by which the approximately 25,000 Jewsof Riga were to have been transferred to it was October 25 [A.

Ezergailis, "The Holocaust in Latvia: 1941-1944", pg. 343].

According to ReichskommissarLohse, the purpose of ghetto-ization was to remove the Jewsfrom the mainstream of life, toexpropriate their property, andto exploit their labor. DuringSeptember and October thiswas the overt German policytowards Jews living in thelargest Baltic cities.

Covertly, German policy was more sinister. In retrospect, the events that took place in Latviaprovide evidence that what was going on there — stripping Jews of their civil rights and pro-perty, killing them in the countryside and ghettoizing them and exploiting their labor beforeeventually killing them in mass-shooting operations in the cities, disposing of their immovableproperty by auctioning it off, and of their movable property by shipping it to Germany as warbooty — was not being decided solely on the local level, but rather was part of a master plan,one that was not fully set, but rather which was adapted to changing circumstances.

Riga's ghetto

The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) followed procedures for dealing with Jews which had parallels inEstonia, Lithuania, Poland, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine. SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich

Jeckeln, the Nazi mass-killing specialist who had coordinated many of the massacres of Jews inthe Ukraine, and who went on to coordinate many more in Lithuania, was assigned by HeinrichHimmler to organize and oversee the killing of Riga's Jews on October 31, 1941. Himmler'sappointment of Jeckeln to deal with Riga's Jews, then, serves as evidence to show that policytowards Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe was not simply a matter being decided on thelocal level, but rather was one being comprehensibly coordinated from Berlin in accordancewith orders being issued at the highest level. According to Andrew Ezergailis: "The deliberatemanner and the similarities of the killing procedures that were followed in Latvia and otherterritories indicate that a common plan existed: not only a simple "wish," but a blueprint.Despite the secrecy concerning the Führerbefehl, the accumulated references, no matter howindirectly stated, in themselves testified that the EG [= Einsatzgruppen, EH] acted inaccordance with a Hitler order." [A. Ezergailis, op. cit., pg. 204].

Critical consideration of what was goingon in Latvia during the latter half of 1941indicates that the events there reflect aradical change in German policy towardsJews in occupied territories on theimplementational level. This is mostclearly evidenced in administrativereactions towards Hinrich Lohse's policyon the Jewish question in the Baltics referred to above. Lohse wrote his guidelines when he waspreparing to assume the function of highest civilian administrator in the Baltics from themilitary. Accordingly, the powers of Einsatzgruppe A were to pass over to the SD, fromStahlecker to SS-Gruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann. Stahlecker objected to Lohse's

relatively benign policy towards the Jews in the Baltics, pointing out that it — loss of civil rights,public humiliation, confiscation of property, ghettoization, and exploitation — was in conflict

with the more robust policy the SD had beenpursuing towards Jews since the Germanattack on the USSR on June 22. Lohse'sguidelines mentioned nothing about « killing» Jews, even though this had been reality inthe Baltic countryside and smaller cities sincethe invasion of the USSR. In Stahlecker'sMemorandum of August 6, 1941, hecriticizes Lohse's guidelines:

Riga ghetto Kommandantur

"The projected measures concerning the settling of the Jewishproblem are not in harmony with those orders concerning Jews inthe Ostland given by Einsatzgruppe A of the Sicherheitspolizeiand the SD. Nor does the project take into consideration the newpossibilities of cleaning up the Jewish question in the easternregions [Ostraum]." [Source: Stahlecker's Answer to Lohse's Guidelines

on Treatment of Jews in Ostland, Latvian State Historical Archives, LVVA, P-

1026-1-3. pp. 237-239]

Stahlecker continues, criticizing Lohse for reintroducingoutdated principles, those used in Poland, to the newsituation in the East. The implication is that although theJewish problem in Poland « could » be settled byseparating the Jews from the Gentiles, the Eastrepresented a fundamentally new situation in which moreradical measures were necessary. Stahlecker continues:

"The Reichskommissar appears to strive for a temporarysettlement of the Jewish question, one that applies to thesituation in the Generalgouvernment [occupied Poland].On the one hand, he fails to consider the altered situationthat the war in the East introduced, and on the other hand, he fails to examine the uniquepossibility of a radical treatment of the Jewish question in the Ostraum ... In theGeneralgouvernment there was no serious political danger in leaving the Jews in their livingquarters and work places. But in the Ostland, the resident Jews or those brought in by the Redpowers became the leading supporters of the Bolshevik idea ... Sabotage and acts of terror canbe expected not only from communists not caught in previous actions, but precisely from Jewswho will use every possibility to create disorder. The pressing need to pacify the East areaquickly makes it necessary to eliminate all likely sources of disorder ... Consider it desirable,before issuing any basic statement, once more to discuss these questions by word of mouth,especially since it is safer that way, and since it concerns fundamental orders from higherauthority to the Security Police, ones that should not be discussed in writing."

This difference of opinion between the conservative Reichskommissar Lohse and the moreradical Stahlecker and his SD eventually became known to Berlin, and theReichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) office. Brigadeführer Müller of the RSHA did his best to

resolve the conflict between them. Müller demoted Lohse to the status of Gebietskommissarand ordered his men not to obey the orders he, Lohse, had given to stop the mass murders ofJews and communists. On August 25, Müller wrote in a letter to Einsatzgruppen A and B:

"As it has been reported to me, the newly appointed Gebietskommissar in Ostland hadapproached some Einsatzkommandos to stop the carrying out of communist and Jewishactions. Upon the order of the Security Police and the SD commander, these approaches mustbe denied and immediately reported to us." [Latvian State Historical Archives, LVVA, P-1026-1-3, pg.

302]

The killing of the Jews in the Latvian countryside and in smaller cities by the Einsatz-kommandos continued without interruption. Lohse's policy of ghettoizing Jews in large cities,although in conflict with that policy, saved, in the short term, the lives of several thousand Jewsthat would have been annihilated by the Einsatzkommandos, while, in the longer term,providing a concentrated group of more than 20,000 Jews, a prerequisite without which theRumbula massacre would not have been possible or necessary.

From the standpoint of the authorities in Berlin, Lohse's guidelines had contributed to thetempo of killing of Jews in Latvia falling behind that in Ukraine and Byelorussia. By the end ofSeptember the Einsatzkommandos had succeeded in killing approximately 30,000 LatvianJews in small towns, but the majority of Latvia's approximately 87,500 Jews lived in threelarge cities: Riga, Daugavpils, and Liepaja. The failure to keep up with the robust pace ofJewish annihilation in the South was blamed on SS-Gruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann, the

resident HSSPF commander [Höhere SS und Polizeifürer, see http://www.axishistory.com/ index.php?

id=3198] in the Ostland:

"In the South, Jeckeln, Rasch, Ohlendorf, and subordinates like Blobel had made great stridestowards resolving the Jewish question ... [in Ukraine] Jeckeln had managed to get the militaryto cooperate, civil authorities were not yet a problem, and the execution totals far higher. So ...Himmler decided to have Jeckeln replace Prützmann in the Ostland." [R. Breitman, "The Architect

of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution", New York, 1991, pg. 214.]

B. SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln

SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, the Nazis' specialist in

mass killing operations, is the key figure in the Rumbulamassacre. During the summer and autumn of 1941 Jeckeln hadcommanded mobile killing units which were responsible forsome of the greatest mass-killing operations in the Ukraine,including the reprisal killing of 300 Jewish men and 139 Jewishwomen in Starokonstatinov, the shooting of 33,771 Jews at BabiYar outside of Kiev, of 23,600 Jews in Kamenets-Podolsky, of 1,303 Jews in Berdichev, of15,000 Jews in Dnepropetrovsk, and of another 15,000 Jews in Rovno [R. Hilberg, "The

Destruction of the European Jews", New York and London, 1985, pg. 110 ff., see also http://www.ess.uwe.

ac.uk/genocide/ babi_yar.htm]. During the course of his work, Jeckelnhad designed a highly efficient methodology for mass executioncalled the 'Jeckeln method' or 'Sardinenpackung' - sardine-packing.This involved marching the people to be killed to the killing sitewhere pre-dug grave pits awaited them. They were forced to undressand lie face-down in the graves in layers, whereupon they were shotin the back of the head. Then a new layer of victims was forced to lieon top of the just killed lower layer and shot, with the process beingcontinued until the grave was full.

On October 31 Jeckeln was assigned to Riga by Himmler. On November 5th his staff of aboutfifty men arrived in the city. Jeckeln himself had been called to Berlin where, on November12th, he was given the command by Himmler to kill the inhabitants of the Riga ghetto

[Landgericht Hamburg: Urteil gegen Jahnke u. a. 1973, pg. 54, see also G. Fleming, "Hitler and the Final

Solution", Berkeley, 1982, chapters 7 and 8]. As a possible means for countermanding Lohse's morebenign policy towards the Jews under his control, Jeckeln was told by Himmler: "Tell Lohsethat it is my order, and that it is also the express wish of the Führer." [H. Krausnick & H-H.

Wilhelm, "Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD,

1938-1942", Stuttgart, 1981, pg. 567]. According toEzergailis, Jeckeln, who regarded exterminating Jews as atop security issue, was eager to carry out the assignment.He strenuously objected to the practice of employingJews as slave labor by the military, the Sicherheitsdienst,and German civilians because he considered everycontact between Jews and non-Jews to offer increasedopportunities for sabotage [Ezergailis, op. cit., pg. 240].

The Jeckeln plan for killing the more than 20,000 Jews of the Riga ghetto is dissected in detailand supported by the relevant documents presented at the 1973 Hamburg Landgericht trial ofLt. Friedrich Jahnke.

Jeckeln's primary tasks included finding a suitable killing site, timing the transfer of the ghettoinhabitants to the killing site so that the operation could be done by daylight, a scarcecommodity at these latitudes in late November, ordering and making facilities for storing therequisite amount of ammunition, and drawing up timetables and defining the duties for theapproximately 1,700 German and Latvian soldiers, police officers, and civil guards that wereneeded to secure order along the ten kilometer road from the ghetto to the killing site andcarry out the actual killings. Arrangements also had to be made for collecting, classifying,storing, and disposing of the property and valuables left behind by the Jews. Instructions andother information had to be translated into and out of German, Latvian, Russian, and Yiddish.

C. Organizing the mass-killing

¤ November 12. Jeckeln receives order from Himmler to kill the Jews in the Riga ghetto.

¤ November 14. Jeckeln arrives in Riga. He tells Lohse of the order from Himmler,mentioning that this is Hitler's desire, thus making it impossible to countermand.

¤ November 18 or 19. Jeckeln has selected a suitable killing site in the woods near theRumbula train station. After this date he begins detailed planning and the assignment of mento their specific functions: SS-Unterstormenführer Ernst Hemicker is assigned to organize the

digging of pits for 25,000 bodies [Hemicker's testimony: Landgericht Hamburg: indictment of

Oberwinder et at., pgs. 133-136].

¤ November 20 or 21. 300 Russian POWs, supervised by Germans or Latvians, dig six pits,each 10 meters by 10 meters and 21/2 to 3 meters deep. The job was finished within threedays.

Jeckeln assigned men from his bodyguard who had previously participated in such actions todo the killing. These included soldiers that are known only by their surnames: Endl, Lüschen,and Wedekind. The leader of his driver's commando, Oberführer Johannes Zingler, was also

asked to participate [See Landgericht Hamburg: indictment of Oberwinder et at., pg. 61]. NoLatvians were entrusted with a shooting assignment.

Jeckeln also had to arrange for transportation. He himself had only a dozen passenger cars andhalf a dozen motorcycles available. He ordered Sturmbannführer Zimmermann and Riga

Polizeihauptmeister Müller to find the trucks and buses that would be needed to transport themore than 1,000 guards that were needed along the way to keep order and prevent any escapesto their stations, and to pick up the bodies of anyone shot during the march to the killing site.

Within his first three days in Riga, Jeckeln had consultations with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD)and the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) commanders, including Rudolf Lange, the highest Gestapoand SD officer in German-occupied Latvia and Arnold Kirste, Lange's link to the Arâjs

commando, a local fascist grouping. Lange was able to make the entire 300-man Arâjscommando available to Jeckeln, as well as half of the fifty-man Latvian guard unit of the ReiersaSt. SD headquarters, as well as about fifty German SD men, the remnants of Einsatzkommando2, in Riga. Lange was able to provide Jeckeln with about 400 men who had SD backgroundsand thus had prior experience in killing civilians. These men were assigned to key positionsinside and around the Riga ghetto and near the killing pits at locations where the use of aweapon against Jews who refused to allow themselves to be slaughtered was more likely to beneeded.

The Ordnungspolizei was organizationally autonomous, but functionally within the SDnetwork. Before the Arâjs commando had been trained, the 9th Battalion of the Orpo hadperformed most of the killings of civilians for Stahlecker. Several hundred members of theOrpo were posted to assure order, that is to say, "obtain and maintain a German character".The Orpo had two basic functions:1. to oversee Latvian precinct police2. to oversee the ghettoization of Riga's Jews and, after October 25, 1941, to guard the

ghetto. This means that members of the Orpo were going to be involved in the liquidationof the ghetto.

The 2nd Company of the 22nd Reserve Battalion of the Orpo, from Riga, supplied Jeckelnwith approx. 70 men, and the 3rd company of the same battalion, from Jelgava, suppliedanother 70. The men of the 2nd company were assigned the tasks of overseeing the clearing ofJewish apartments, organizing the Jews into marching columns, and accompanying thecolumns to the killing site. The men of the 3rd company were assigned the task of guarding theperiphery at Rumbula. The chief Orpo activist was Major Karl Heise, and he was also evidentlythe liaison person with the Latvian Schutzmannschaften [Landgericht Hamburg: Urteil gegen Jahnke

u. a., 1973, pg. 124]. According to Ezergailis, Jeckeln also had another five regiments of theOrpo at his disposal, but it is not known which, if any, he actually used [Ezergailis, op. cit., pg. 244]

¤ November 27. Jeckeln called a meeting of the high Ordnungspolizei and SD commandersat the headquarters of the Schutzpolizei. The purpose of this meeting was to coordinate theactivities of all of the participating units:1. Jeckeln's staff2. the SDS3. the Orpo4. the Latvian Schutzmannschaften

Altogether, between 20 and 25 people were present [Landgericht Hamburg: Urteil gegen Jahnke u. a.,

1973, pg. 61]. Among the Latvians present were Viktors Arâjs, Roberts Osis, and R. Sûtiglics.The purpose of the meeting was to finalize the schedule for the operation, to ensure the timelyand precise organization of the columns of Jews leaving the ghetto, and to assign the tasks tothe men in the gauntlet at the killing site.

¤ November 28. A train carrying approximately 1,000 Berlin Jews left Berlin for Latvia. Itwas parked at on a siding at the Skirotava station, a few hundred meters from the Rumbulakilling site, when it arrived late in the night of November 29th.

¤ November 29. Jeckeln convened a meeting at the Ritterhaus where he delivered a talk aboutthe upcoming liquidation of the Riga ghetto. In the talk, he stressed that the operation was apatriotic obligation, and that refusal to participate was equal to refusal to participate in a war,desertion. He ordered that the HSSPF staff members who did not have a specific assignmentwere to be present at the pits as observers so that everybody would know and witness the event("machte er zur Pflicht, den Exekutionen als Zuschauer beizuwohnen, um niemanden

Mitwisserschaft und Mitzeugenschaft zu ersparen"; Landgericht Hamburg: Urteil gegenJahnke u. a., 1973, pg. 67-68).)

On that evening at 7 PM a coordinating session took place at the Riga headquarters of theSchutzpolizei. Major Karl Heise gave orders to his men to be ready at 4.00 AM the nextmorning in the ghetto for the resettlement of the Jews. He told them that the Jews were to betaken over by others at the Rumbula train station. The members of the Schutzpolizei who werein charge of Latvian police precincts were told to supervise the Latvians and ensure that theJews were out of their houses and organized in columns of 1,000. The action would take twodays and would begin in the westernmost part of the ghetto. Lieutenant Hesfer and 12Schutzpolizei members assigned the task of organizing and supervising the clearing of Jewsfrom their homes. The Latvian and Jewish ghetto police were ordered to assist Hesfer andassure that no panic arose. The Riga precinct police as well as the Riga district police under thecommand of Jânis Veide were also ordered to participate in the "resettlement" of the Jews inthe ghetto to another camp [Osvalds Elîte, "Ênas purvâ", Riga 1989, pg. 27].

D. Implementing the massacre

Day 1: November 30, 1941

¤ 4:00 A.M. Precinct lieutenant Hesfer, a 12-man German Schutzpolizei team, an unknownnumber of Arâjs men, and the 80-man internal Jewish guard started awakening Jews beginningat the westernmost houses and along Lacplesa and Jekabpils St. The Jews were told to be readyin half an hour on Sadovnikova St. A crew of workers began cutting exit holes in the fence toshorten the way out of the ghetto to Maskavas St. and on to the road leading to Rumbula.

¤ 4:30 A.M. The wake-up gang went back to the first houses to make sure that no Jewsremained. Jews who refused or were unable to go were shot in their homes, in the stairwells,and on the streets. Other Jews tried to run away or hide, many of them being shot. Organizingthem into columns was also difficult. According to contemporary sources, between 600 and1,000 people lay dead in the ghetto by noon [I. Saburowa, Yad Vashem Archive: "Bericht über Rigaer

ghetto," deposition of Saburowa, October 1954, o2/371].

¤ 6:00 A.M. in the Riga ghetto. The first column, 1,000 people marching five abreast,accompanied by 50 Latvian police officers and headed and tailed by two Germans, started theten kilometer march to the killing site at Rumbula.

"The control of the columns did not proceed as anticipated. With all the shouting and shooting the

pace could not be kept up. The columns stretched out. The Germans at the head and the tail of the

columns, not seeing what was happening, lost control of the situation. The body count along the road

multiplied.

In the stretch of road just past the Skirotava station lived the Garkalns family. Their daughter, seven

years old, remembered a column of Jews driven past her house, which was about one hundred feet off

the road. Pandemonium had broken out. Some Jews had refused to continue, there had been shouting,

shoving, and beatings. The column had started up again. A few paces down the road a disturbance had

broken out anew. There was shooting, and people were killed and left on the roadside. The people

panicked, wailing began. The girl's mother hung blankets before the window, and the youngster was

taken to the back room and forbidden to look out again.

As the march progressed, many women with children and old people could not keep up. Possessions

were thrown away, littering the road and the ditches. The strong and the healthy attempted to support

their exhausted relatives, who were falling by the wayside. They were picked up and thrown onto the

horse-drawn wagons following the columns. Many were shot and corpses fell on the road. The order

was to kill not only those who attempted to flee, but also those who left the column to rest at the

roadside. No doubt many of the people were killed by the column guards." [A. Ezergailis: "The Holocaust

in Latvia: 1941 - 1944", 1996, pg. 251.]

¤ 6:00 A.M. at Rumbula. The trainload of Berlin Jews that had arrived the previous nightwere marched to the killing site at Rumbula and shot before the first column of ghetto Jewsarrived.

¤ 9:00 A.M. The first column of Jews reached the killing site. The column was led in groupsof fifty into a funnel-like gauntlet formed by a gang of SD men, Ordnungspolizei, and Arâjsmen. As the Jews, whipped, kicked, and beaten progressed into the gauntlet, they were forcedto leave valuables in boxes, and then to remove their outer garments, then to strip, some to theskin, others to their underwear. Coats, clothing, and shoes went into separate piles, whichwere loaded into trucks and taken to the city by Arâjs men. The Jews were led down a ramp intothe pit and made to lie face down on top of those who had already been shot. They were killedwith a single shot to the back of the head fired from a russian automatic weapon set to firesingle shots by a marksman standing about two meters away.

Jeckeln oversaw the action along with many high SS, SD, and police officials, includingReichskommissar of Ostland Lohse, from the top of the embankment.

According to Ezergailis:

"Jeckeln ordered his own people to be at the shooting, to witness it, and to share in the crime.He also called in police commanders from Pskov and other cities in the region to witness thekillings. Stahlecker was called in from the Leningrad front to be present, perhaps to point outthat he had not finished the job and to show how it must be done." [op. cit., pg. 254.]

¤ 12:00 noon. The last column of Jews is sent out of the ghetto.

¤ 1: 00 P.M. A final check is made of the western part of the ghetto. About twenty bedriddenJews are taken to the ghetto hospital, from which they are removed and shot in the head in frontof the building later that day [Hamburg Landgericht: Urteil gegen Jahnke u.a., pp. 75-76].

¤ 2:00 P.M. Corpses along the street and in the ghetto are cleared and taken to the Jewishcemetery by work Jews, where they are dumped into a common grave without rites or prayer.Any Jews lying on the street who show signs of life are shot dead by members of the Arâjscommando.

¤ 5:00 P.M. The systematic shooting stops, although sentries were posted at the pits. Noteveryone had been killed and the sentries were ordered to shoot anyone in the pits that showedsigns of life. A unit of the Latvian Schutzmannschaft was assigned to guard the general area.

Day 2: December 8, 1941

The events of December 8 do not differ much from those of November 30. Some deficienciesin the system were tightened, otherwise, the same units that had participated in the first actionparticipated in this one as well. There was less disorder and only some 300 Jews were killedwithin the ghetto. The marching was made easier by a deception: the Jews were told to leavethe 20 kilograms of possessions they would be allowed to take with them at the ghetto, theywould be sent later by truck to their destination.

At least three people survived the second day. This is part of the account of one of them, FridaMichelson, a dressmaker. She had been driven out of the ghetto and was marching alongMaskavas Road towards the killing site:

"Our column started pouring into the forest. At the entrance stood a large wooden box.An SS man armed with a club stood next to it and shouted over and over: "Drop all yourvaluables and money in this box.... We were driven on. A bit further a Latvian policemanordered: "Take off your coat and throw it on top of the rest." There was already amountain of overcoats. My brain was working feverishly, the instinct for survival tookhold of me. No matter how small, how precarious the chance, I was prepared to take it. Ileft my line and ran up to a policeman, "Look, I am a specialist dressmaker." I showedhim my document and various diplomas. "I can bring lots of benefits to people. Look atmy papers." "Go show your diplomas to Stalin!" the policeman shouted, and hit myhand with his fist. My papers flew in all directions—my treasured documents—thepassport, diplomas, Ausweise.I removed my overcoat and threw it on top of the rest. The policemen were driving stillharder. The shooting, the uninterrupted shooting, was becoming louder. We werenearing the end. An indescribable fear took hold of me, a fear that bordered on loss ofmind. I started screaming hysterically, tearing my hair, to drown out the sound of theshooting. "Atrak! Atrak!" "Take off your clothes! Just leave on the underclothes."Another mountain of clothes. I had on a white nightshirt and three layers ofunderclothes. I fell down on the heap of clothes and tried to hide in it. Right away I felt asharp pain of the whip on my back. "Get up immediately and take your clothes off." "Iam already undressed," I answered crying. "I have only a nightshirt on." "Then go andno games!" I went.Still screaming and tearing my hair. A policeman stopped me and shoutedobscenities—why was I not undressed yet? In the same moment another woman run up tothe policeman: "My husband is Latvian, see up there, that policeman knows my husbandwell. I should not die with the rest of them." Using this moment while the attention of

the policeman was distracted by the woman, I threw myself on the ground with my face inthe snow feigning death. People were passing me, some stepped on me—I did not move.A little later I heard voices over me in Latvian: "Look, there is somebody here on theground." I lay there still as a rock. Then I heard the voices of the policemen: "Atrak!Atrak!"...I was not fully conscious. A woman passing by me was lamenting, "Ai, ai,ai..." Some object hit me on the back, then another. More objects were falling on me.Finally I realized that these were shoes, because they fell in pairs. I was being coveredwith shoes galoshes, felt boots. This load was heavy, but I did not move a muscle...Moreand more shoes were falling on me. I could hear people crying bitterly, parting with eachother—and run, run, run...Finally the cries and moaning ceased, the shooting stopped, I could hear the shovelsworking not far away, probably to cover the bodies. I heard Russian spoken. A mountainof footwear was pressing down on me. My body was numb from cold and immobility.However, I was fully conscious now. The snow under me had melted from the heat of mybody. I was lying in a puddle of water, —cold water... Quiet for a while. Then, from thedirection of the trench a child's cry: "Mama! Mama! Mamaaa!" A few shots. Quiet.Killed.

[F. Michelson, "I Survived Rumbuli", New York, 1979, pp. 88-93]

E. How public was the Rumbula massacre?

The Rumbula massacre took place in Riga, a major port city, in full public view over the courseof two days. The killings at the ghetto and its immediate surroundings, as well as the killing ofstragglers and would-be escapees along Maskavas Road were done in full view of any passersby. The killing site at Rumbula was partially concealed by trees, but the noise andpandemonium were audible from a considerable distance. The stationmaster at the Rumbulastation testified that he could hear the whole operation from his house [Alberts Baranovskis

testimony of November 18, 1944, in H. Krausnick & H-H. Wilhelm, "Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges:

Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und der SD, 1938-1942", Stuttgart, 1981, pg. 565].

The whole city of Riga knew of the massacre by the evening of November 30, and everyone wastalking about it. Radio broadcasts, one a German-language one from Moscow, the other a BBCbroadcast from London, announced the killings at Rumbula to the world at large.

The city of Riga was reminded of the Rumbula massacre in a most unpleasant manner duringthe summer of 1943. Himmler issued a general order that the bodies of massacre victimsburied in mass graves were to be exhumed and burned. Even though the burning was done insecrecy, with the participants killed after the job was completed, both the smoke and the stench

and the fact that the Rumbula pits are less than 100 meters from a major train line, made itimpossible to hide what was going on from the inhabitants of Riga or from travelers to or fromthat city. At the Arâjs Trial, Leopold Schlesigner, leader of the SD Department III N, discussesthis operation in his deposition, pp. 1392-1407. He recalls that during the summer of 1943 awesterly wind blew and "a horrible stench settled on the city." He asked his Latvian co-workers the cause of the smell and they answered that he should know that it came from theburning of Jewish corpses. Despite this attempt to destroy the evidence, burned bones andother remains of the massacre are still to be found at the site [cf. Mordecai Lapid, "TheMemorial at Rumbuli: A First Hand Account", "Jewish Frontier", June 1971, pgs. 10-19].

F. The numbers at Rumbula

The factuality of the Rumbula massacre is beyond dispute, there are, however, differences ofopinions concerning the number of people killed in the operation. After the killings SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln told his assistant, Paul Degenhart, that 22,000 rounds

of ammunition had been used at Rumbula itself. At his trial in Riga in 1946 Friedrich Jeckelnsaid that the number of victims was at least 20,000. On each of the two days more than 1,000people were killed either in the ghetto or along the road to Rumbula. To this figure must beadded the 1,000 Berlin Jews who were the first to be shot at the Rumbula pits on the morningof November 30, 1941. The entire operation can be estimated to have killed a total ofapproximately 25,000 people.

IV. The significance of the Rumbula massacre

A. General significance

The Rumbula massacre was one of the largest, most public, and best document massacrescarried out by the Germans in Eastern Europe. For this reason alone it serves as an excellentcase study demonstrating the degree to which German policy towards the Jews in Latvia and,by analogy, elsewhere in Eastern Europe, was the product of a combination of a master planand local improvisation. It is certainly worthy of note that the operation was directed fromBerlin, that Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler himself assigned the task to SS-Ober-gruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, his mass-killing specialist, after becoming aware of policy

differences concerning the fate of Jews in the Soviet-occupied Baltics. Equally important is thefact that Jeckeln and his subordinates were convinced that they were acting on an orally givencommand from Hitler himself, a command that originated in an understanding of the radicallychanged relationship of Germany's policy towards Jews resulting from the attack on the USSR,a country with a Jewish population of more than 5,000,000 and led by an ideology which Nazipropaganda identified with Judaism: destroying communism and destroying Judaism were, inthe view of the Nazis, the same thing.

As far as Latvia's Jews were concerned, the Rumbula massacre was a major tragedy, but not thebeginning or end of their tragic ordeal. Several thousand Jews had been killed in Latvia by theEinsatzkommandos and local operatives during the five months that preceded the Rumbulamassacre, and major massacres of Jews were carried out in other Latvian cities as well as in theseveral dozen concentration camps operated by the Nazis in Latvia afterwards. All in all,approximately 70,000 of the approximately 86,500 Latvian Jews — four out of every five —were killed in the Holocaust. To this number must be added hundreds of Jewish refugees fromneighboring Lithuania killed by the Germans during the first weeks of the war, as well as thetens of thousands of German,Hungarian, Czech and otherJews sent to Latvia as slavelaborers by the Nazis after mostLatvian Jews had been killed whodied there as a consequence ofabuse, starvation, disease, orwere shot in conjunction withthe liquidation of the concen-tration camps when the Germanswithdrew from Latvia.

B. Methodological significance

As far as the evolution of killing methods is concerned, the second day of the Rumbulamassacre, December 8, 1941, coincides with the opening of the first extermination camp atChelmno near Lodz in Poland. The Chelmno camp used the techniques of deception that hadbeen developed within the T4 euthanasia program. It is interesting to consider the similaritiesand differences between Riga, one of the last mass shootings, and Chelmno, the first site ofmass gassings.

At Chelmno the first victims were mainly Jews from the Lodz ghetto who were told, like theJews of Riga, that they were to be resettled. They were transported to the camp, mostly inrailway freight cars, taken to a cellar changing room by guards posing as medical staff, told todeposit their clothes for disinfection and their money and valuables for safekeeping, and senton in groups of fifty or sixty up an inclined ramp following signs "To the bath". At the end wasa large truck with steel sides and roof. As Adolf Eichmann related in his own papersconcerning his trip to Chelmno, they were packed inside, the doors were closed and locked,after which they were driven off into the woods. There a group of work-Jews was waiting forthem beside a trench grave they had dug. The driver stopped at the edge of the grave andpushed a button which diverted the exhaust gas from the truck's motor into the sealed body ofthe truck. When the people inside the truck were dead, the doors were opened, the bodiesremoved, checked for gold teeth and hidden valuables, and then thrown into the awaitinggraves.

At Chelmno we see a merger of the type of killing used in Riga - ghettoization, a cover storythat the ghetto inhabitants are going to be resettled, and their orderly transportation to akilling site. But there, unlike the situation in Riga, the killing site is enclosed and thus notdependent on weather and daylight, in addition to being closed, nor did what was going tohappen become apparent until it was too late to escape. The method, CO administeredstealthily in an enclosure that is functionally a gas chamber, is derived from the T4 euthanasiaprogram and requires a far smaller manpower-input than the individual shots in the headadministered at Riga. As we follow the Holocaust into 1942, we see a rapid decrease in Rigatype mass murders, and a corresponding increase and methodological evolution in the numberof facilities like Chelmno, where the killing can take place in a more orderly and industrialfashion. The main improvements were:

a. omitting the trip from the camp to the mass graves by constructing stationary gas chamberswhich fed into mass graves or crematory facilities in the immediate vicinity;

b. increasing the size of the functional gas chambers from facilities that could accommodate afew dozen victims at a time to facilities that could accommodate hundreds or even athousand or more victims at a time;

c. improving the killing agent from CO to the cheaper and more lethal Zyklon-B.

The protocol to the Wannsee Conference refers explicitly to the practical experience gainedsolving the Jewish problem during the time between the attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941and the convening of the conference on January 20, 1942 as having a direct bearing on theform the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe would assume, a question which, theprotocol notes, at that time encompassed the estimated more than 11,000,000 racial Jews stillliving in Europe.

The logistical complexity of the Rumbula massacre, as well as the merger of the method ofusing a cover story about resettlement with the ruse of concealed functional gas chambersdeveloped within the framework of the T4 program, provided the justification andmethodological framework for gradually abandoning mass shootings for extermination centerslike Chelmno, which had been functioning for more than a month when the conference wasconvened. Riga and Chemno both serve as examples of the instructive practical experiencedealing with the Jewish Question which is referred to in the notorious protocol.

Regards,Eugene Holman

Excursus:An eyewitness account of the events of November 30, 1941

Source: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/documents/BrunsCSDICb.html#Bruns

Of interest here is the degree to which the ideas represented by the exploiters (Lohse and hisfaction) and the exterminationists (Stahlecker and his faction) dominate the text. Note also thatBruns talks of an order subsequent to the Riga massacre to carry out mass killings in a morediscrete fashion in the future.

* * *

GERMAN ARMY engineer-colonel Walter Bruns was stationed near Riga in November 1941, when hewitnessed a mass shooting of Jews, including a thousand just arrived from Berlin.

In British captivity in April 1945, Bruns, by then a Major-General, was overheard by hiddenmicrophones [the verbatim transcripts are accessible from our Index at right] whispering to fellowprisoners what he had seen.

TOP SECRET

C. S. D. I. C. (U.K.)

G.G. REPORT

IF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS REQUIRED FOR FURTHER

DISTRIBUTION. IT SHOULD BE PARAPHRASED SO THAT NO MENTION IS MADE OF THE

PRISONERS' NAMES, NOR OF THE METHODS BY WHICH THE INFORMATION HAS BEEN

OBTAINED

S.R.G.G. 1158(C)

The following conversation took place between:

CS/1952 -- Generalmajor BRUNS (Heeres-Waffenmeisterschule I, BERLIN) CaptdGÖTTINGEN 8 Apr 45

and other Senior Officer PW whose voices could not be identified.

Information received: 25 Apr 45

GERMAN TEXT

BRUNS: Als ich davon hörte, dass am Freitag die Juden erschossen werden sollten, ging ich zu

dem 2l-jährigen Burschen und sagte, dass sie sich in meinem Dienstbereich sehr nutzbar gemacht

hatten, ausserdem: der Heereskraftfahrpark hatte 1500, dann hatte die Heeresgruppe etwa 800

Frauen eingesetzt, um Wäsche zu nahen von den Beständen, die wir in RIGA gefunden hatten,

dann nähten in der Nähe von RIGA etwa 1200 Frauen aus mehreren Millionen gefundener

Schafsfelle das, was uns dringend fehlte: Ohrenschützer, Pelzkappen, Pelzwesten usw. Es war

doch nichts vorgesehen, weil ja doch der Krieg in RUSSLAND schon siegreich beendet war

bekanntlich im Oktober 1941.

Kurz und gut, alles Frauen, die nutzbar eingesetzt waren. Habe ich versucht, die zu retten. Habe

zu diesem Burschen da, ALTENMEYER(?), den Namen vergesse ich nicht, der kommt auch auf

die Verbrecherliste, sage ich: "Hören Sie mal, das sind doch wertvolle Arbeitskräfte für uns!"

"Wollen Herr Oberst die Juden als wertvolle Menschen bezeichnen?" Ich sage: "Hören Sie mal, Sie

müssen zuhören, was ich sage, ich habe gesagt wertvolle Arbeitskräfte. Über ihren Menschenwert

habe ich ja gar nicht gesprochen." Sagt er: "Ja, die müssen erschossen werden, ist Führerbefehl!"

Ich sage: "FÜHRER-Befehl?" "Jawohl", und da zeigt er mir das. SKIOTAWA(?) war es, 8 km von

RIGA, zwischen SCHAULEN und MITAU sind ja auch die 5000 Berliner Juden - plötzlich aus dem

Zug raus - erschossen worden. Das habe ich zwar nicht gesehen, aber das bei SKIOTAWA(?); also

kurz und gut, es gab dann mit dem Kerl da noch eine Auseinandersetzung, ich habe dann

telephoniert mit dem General im Hauptquartier, mit JAKOBS und mit ABERGER(?) und mit

einem Dr. SCHULTZ, der da war beim General der Pioniere, wegen dieser Arbeitskräfte; ich sagte

ihm noch: "Ich will mich Ihrer Auffassung anschliessen, dass das Volk an den Völkern der Erde

gesündigt hat, dann lasst sie doch nutzbare Fron[t]arbeit leisten, stellt sie an die Strassen, lasst

die Strassen streuen, dass uns die Lastkraftwagen nicht in die Gräben schlittern." "Ja, die

Verpflegung!" Ich sage: "Das bisschen Fressen, was die kriegen, ich will mal 2 Millionen Juden

annehmen — 125 Gramm Brot kriegten sie per Tag — wenn wir das nicht mehr aufbringen, dann

wollen wir lieber heute als morgen Schluss machen." Dann habe ich telephoniert usw., und denke

doch nicht, dass das so schnell geht. Jedenfalls, Sonntag morgens höre ich, dass sie es schon

machen. Das Ghetto ist ausgeräumt worden, da ist ihnen gesagt worden: "Ihr werdet umgelagert,

nehmt die wichtigsten Sachen noch mit." Im übrigen war das eine Erlösung für die, denn wie sie

im Ghetto behandelt wurden, das war ein Martyrium. Ich wollte es nicht glauben, da bin ich

rausgefahren und habe mir den Laden angeguckt.

? : Das Ausland hat das doch alles gewusst, nur wir Deutsche haben es nicht gewusst.

BRUNS: Ich will Ihnen etwas sagen: es mag das eine oder andere gestimmt haben, es ist aber

auffallend, dass das Exekutionskommando, was an dem Morgen da erschoss, also an jeder Grube

sechs Maschinenpistolenschützen--die Gruben waren 24 m lang und ungefähr 3 m breit, mussten

sich hinlegen wie die Sardinen in einer Büchse, Kopfe nach der Mitte. Oben sechs

Maschinenpistolenschützen, die dann den Genickschuss beibrachten.

Wie ich kam, war sie schon so voll, da mussten die Lebenden also dann sich drauflegen und dann

kriegten sie den Schuss; damit nicht so viel Platz verloren ging, mussten sie sich schön schichten.

Vorher wurden sie aber ausgeplündert an der einen Station--hier war der Waldrand, hier drin

waren die drei Gruben an dem Sonntag und hier war noch eine 1 1/2 km lange Schlange und die

rückten schrittchenweise--es war ein Anstehen auf den Tod.

Wenn sie hier nun näher kamen, dann sahen sie, was drin vor sich ging. Ungefähr hier unten

mussten sie ihre Schmucksachen und ihre Koffer abgeben. Das gute kam in den Koffer und das

andere auf einen Haufen. Das war zur Bekleidung von unserem notleidenden Volk--und dann, ein

Stückchen weiter, mussten sie sich ausziehen und 500 m vor dem Wald vollkommen ausziehen,

durften nur Hemd oder Schlüpfer anbehalten. Das waren alles nur Frauen und kleine Kinder, so

2-jährige.

Dann diese zynische Bemerkungen! Wenn ich noch gesehen hätte, dass diese

Maschinenpistolenschützen, die wegen Überanstrengung alle Stunden abgelöst wurden, es

widerwillig gemacht hätten!

Nein, dreckige Bemerkungen: "Da kommt ja so eine jüdische Schönheit." Das sehe ich noch vor

meinem geistigen Auge. Ein hübsches Frauenzimmer in so einem feuerroten Hemd.

Und von wegen Rassereinheit: in RIGA haben sie sie zuerst rumgevögelt und dann totgeschossen,

dass sie nicht mehr reden konnten.

Dann habe ich zwei Offiziere rausgeschickt, von denen einer jetzt noch lebt, weil ich Zeugen haben

wollte. Ich habe ihnen nicht gesagt, was los ist. "Gehen Sie zum Wald von SKIOTAWA(?) raus,

gucken Sie sich an, was da los ist, und machen Sie einen Bericht darüber."

Dann habe ich zu dem Bericht noch ein Amtsschreiben dazugemacht, und habe ihm persönlich zu

JAKOBS hingebracht.

Der sagte: "Hier liegen schon zwei Beschwerden von Pionierbataillonen aus der UKRAINE vor."

Da hatten sie sie am Rande von den grossen Erdspalten totgeschossen und reinfallen lassen und

dann hat es beinahe Pest gegeben, also jedenfaIls pestilenzartige Düfte. Sie hatten sich

eingebildet, sie könnten mit der Kreishacke die Ränder dann abpickeln und dann würden die

begraben sein. Dieser Löss war so hart, dass zwei Pionierbataillone nachher die Ränder

absprengen mussten, da hatten sich die Bataillone darüber beschwert. Das lag auch bei JAKOBS.

Er sagte: "Wir wussten nicht recht, wie wir es dem FÜHRER zu Gehör bringen sollten. Machen wir

auf dem Wege über CANARIS."

Der hatte diese scheussliche Aufgabe, immer so die günstige Minute abzupassen und dem

FÜHRER so leise Andeutungen zu machen.

Vierzehn Tage später war ich mit einer anderen Angelegenheit bei dem Oberbürgermeister oder

wie damals die besondere Funktionsbezeichnung war, da zeigte mir der ALTENMEYER

triumphierend: "Hier ist eine Verfügung gekommen, dass derartige Massenerschiessungen in

Zukunft nicht mehr stattfinden dürften. Das soll vorsichtiger gemacht werden."

Ich weiss aber jetzt aus meinen letzten Warnungen, dass ich seit der Zeit noch verschärft

bespitzelt wurde.

? : Allerhand, dass Sie überhaupt noch leben.

BRUNS: Ich habe in Göttingen jeden Tag auf meine Verhaftung gewartet.

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TRANSLATION

BRUNS 1: As soon as I heard those Jews were to be shot on Friday 2 I went to a 21-yearold boy and said that they had made themselves very useful in the area under mycommand, besides which the Army MT park had employed 1500 and the 'Heeresgruppe'

800 women to make underclothes of the stores we captured in RIGA; besides whichabout 1200 women in the neighbourhood of RIGA were turning millions of capturedsheepskins into articles we urgently required: ear-protectors, fur caps, fur waistcoats,etc. Nothing had been provided, as of course the Russian campaign was known to havecome to a victorious end in October 1941!

In short, all those women were employed in a useful capacity. I tried to save them. I toldthat fellow ALTENMEYER(?) 3 whose name I shall always remember and who will beadded to the list of war criminals: "Listen to me, they represent valuable manpower!" 'Doyou call Jews valuable human beings, sir?" I said: "Listen to me properly, I said valuablemanpower'. I didn't mention their value as human beings." He said: "Well, they're to beshot in accordance with the FÜHRER's orders! 4 (*) I said: "FÜHRER's orders?" "Yes",whereupon he showed me his orders. This happened at SKIOTAWA(?), 8 km. fromRIGA, between SIAULAI and JELGAVA, (**) where 5000 BERLIN Jews were suddenlytaken off the train and shot. I didn't see that myself, but what happened atSKIOTAWA(?) - to cut a long story short, I argued with the fellow and telephoned to theGeneral at HQ, to JAKOBS 5 and ABERGER(?), 6 and to a Dr. SCHULTZ 7 who wasattached to the Engineer General, on behalf of these people; I told him: "Granting thatthe Jews have committed a crime against the other peoples of the world, at least letthem do the drudgery; send them to throw earth on the roads to prevent our heavylorries skidding," "Then I'd have to feed them!" I said: "The little amount of food theyreceive, let's assume 2 million Jews - they got 125 gr. of bread a day - if we can't evenmanage that, the sooner we end the war the better." Then I telephoned, thinking itwould take some time. At any rate on Sunday morning 8 I heard that they had alreadystarted on it. The Ghetto was cleared and they were told: "You're being transferred: takealong your essential things." Incidentally it was a happy release for those people, astheir life in the Ghetto was a martyrdom. I wouldn't believe it and drove there, to have alook.

(unveiled): Everyone abroad knew about it; only we Germans were kept in ignorance.

BRUNS:I'll tell you something: some of the details may have been correct, but it wasremarkable that the firing squad detailed that morning - six men with tommy-guns wereposted at each pit; the pits were 24 m in length and 3 m in breadth - they had to lie downlike sardines in a tin, with their heads in the centre. Above there were six men withtommy-guns who gave them the coup de grâce. When I arrived 9 those pits were so fullthat the living had to lie down on top of the dead; then they were shot and, in order tosave room, they had to lie down neatly in layers. Before this, however, they werestripped of everything at one of the stations - here at the edge of the wood were thethree pits they used that Sunday and here they stood in a queue 1 1/2 km long whichapproached step by step - a queueing up for death. As they drew nearer they saw whatwas going on. About here they had to hand over their jewellery and suitcases. All goodstuff was put into the suit-cases and the remainder thrown on a heap. This was to serveas clothing for our suffering population - and then a little further on they had to undressand, 500 m in front of the wood, strip completely; they were only permitted to keep on achemise or knickers. They were all women and small two year-old children. Then allthose cynical remarks! If only I had seen those tommy-gunners, who were relievedevery hour - because of over-exertion, carry out their task with distaste, but no, nastyremarks like: "Here comes a Jewish beauty!" I can still see it all in my memory: a prettywoman in a flame-coloured chemise. Talk about keeping the race pure: at RIGA theyfirst slept with them and then shot them to prevent them from talking. Then I sent twoofficers out there, one of whom is still alive, because I wanted eye-witnesses. " I didn'ttell them what was going on, but said: "Go out to the forest of SKIOTAWA(?), see what'sup there and send me a report." I added a memorandum to their report and took it toJAKOBS myself. He said: "I have already two complaints sent me by Engineer

'Bataillone' from the UKRAINE." There they shot them on the brink of large crevices 10

and let them fall down into them; they nearly had an epidemic of plague, at any rate apestilential smell. They thought they could break off the edges with picks, thus buryingthem. That loess there was so hard that two Engineer 'Bataillone' were required todynamite the edges; those 'Battaillone' complained. JAKOBS had received thatcomplaint. He said: "We didn't quite know how to tell the FÜHRER. We'd better do itthrough CANARIS." 11 CANARIS had the unsavoury task of waiting for the favourablemoment to give the FÜHRER certain gentle hints. A fortnight later I visited theOberbürgermeister or whatever he was called then, concerning some other business.ALTENMEYER(?) triumphantly showed me: "Here is an order, just issued, prohibitingmass-shootings on that scale from taking place in future. They are to be carried outmore discreetly." From warnings given me recently I knew that I was receiving stillmore attentions from spies.

(unveiled): A wonder you're still alive.

BRUNS: At GÖTTINGEN, I expected to be arrested every day.

Note: "Skiotawa" is Skirotava, the sorting station for Riga livestock and the disembarking point forEuropean Jews shipped to Latvia. Additional eyewitness testimony of the events surrounding thisoperation indicates that the ghetto Jews did not march willingly to the killing site at Rumbula. (EugeneHolman)

Notes in the translated text by its source, David Irving:

1 Generalmajor Walter Bruns was in 1941 an Oberst der Pioniere, Leiter des "Brückenstabs Bruns" bei Riga.According to report 6824 DIC (MIS)/CI-24, dated April 29, 1945, Bruns "later heard . . . that a total of42,000 Jewish women and children were killed in Skirotawa within three successive days." (NA: RG.332,box 93).

2 Friday, November 28, 1941.3 Werner Altemeyer, the 21-year-old Stabsleiter attached to the Bürgermeister von Riga, trained at the NS-

Ordensburg at Crössinsee/Pommern. Remarkable for the general reader, perhaps, the fact that a 21-year-oldshould have had the Vollmacht to execute this crime in the name of the German people.

4 In this case however Hitler had demonstrably ordered the Jews were not to be killed. On November 30,Himmler visited him at his bunker, the Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze). Himmler noted the same day a telephonecall at 13,30 hrs to SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich in Prague: "... Judentransport aus Berlin. KeineLiquidierung." (Transport of Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.)

5 General Alfred Jacob, since 1938 Inspekteur der Pioniere und Festungen, who had his office at OKHheadquarters at that time at Angerburg, East Prussia (near Hitler's).

6 Oberst Erich Abberger Jacob's chief of staff.7 Hptm. d. Res. Dipl. Ing. Dr Otto Schulz Du Bois; he later sent his wife a lengthy letter describing the

shootings (now in the archives of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich).8 The Sunday was November 30, 1941. On November 27 the first trainload with 1,000 Berlin Jews had left the

city for Riga; at 9 a.m. on the 30th, as described, at zero degrees and with three inches of snow, these were"suddenly" pulled out of the train and even before the four thousand Riga Jews who were due to be shot thisday they were shot into the mass graves, at the edge of a forest strip near Rumbuli, five miles outside Riga onthe highway to Dvinsk (Dünaburg) (Bericht Stahlecker vom 5. Januar 1942: ND, NO-3527).

9 His description provides convincing verisimilitude -- there is all the halting train of thought, the uncertainties,the local-colour which makes for authenticity, but also the phrase which betrays instantly that Bruns wascertainly himself dabei. In seiner Aussage beim OKW-Prozess (Fall XII) drei Jahre später (18. Februar1948), S.841ff, verschwieg er wohlweislich, daß er selber Augenzeuge war; er habe sich lediglich durch zweianonymen Offiziere [wohl Abberger und Schulz-Du Bois] Bericht erstatten lassen. Abberger lebt noch(1992), der anderer starb noch Februar 1945.

10 Presumably Babi Yar. A "Rote Kapelle" soube deste massacre escassos dias depois, quando um vaidoso (eindiscreto) oficial SS de engenharia contou o que presenciou a Leopold Trepper, que ele supunha simplehomem de negócios canadiano em França.

11 Remarkable, the moral cowardice of Bruns and his senior-officer colleagues, none of whom wished personallyto sign a report to the Führer's headquarters about the atrocity they had witnessed ("Wie bringen wir es demFührer zu Gehör?"; and the fact that Hitler -- far from having issued the order, as (allegedly) claimed byAltemeyer -- seemingly intervened at once to order a halt to "diese Massenerschiessungen" as soon as areport, signed by a junior officer, was forwarded to him.

Other notes in the translated text, by Carlos Roso:

(*) Moreover, it is said in a different document that one of the reasons for Himmler's strong reaction was thepresence, in that transportation, of people decorated with the Iron Cross in the war of 1914-1919 thoseGerman Jews were exempted from summary execution. This exception was even written in the infamous"Wannsee Protocol", a conference rather strangely called that same day (November, 30) by Heydrich to beheld in December, 9 but in the meantime postponed to January, 20 (to which SS-Sturmbannführer Dr.Rudolf Lange, chief of Rigas's Einsatzkommando 2, was invited actually).

(**) There's something wrong here. Siauliai is in the centre of Lithuania and Jelgava in the west of Latvia, bothquite far away (80 and 31 miles) and south-west from Riga, whereas Skirotava, at the time the first village inthe main road to Moscow, is 6 miles east of Riga (2 miles ahead is Salaspils, location of a concentration campwhere mass killings also took place). The mistake is unbelievable since Brun was supposed to be "stationednear Riga" and not a mere one-time visitor.