Stalin deportations - and the Big Flight from Barbarossa

Some data from some articles in the Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971

from Michael Palomino (2007)

8. Latvia

from: Latvia; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971, Vol. 10

[1914-1939: Population figures about the Jews in Latvia]

<Jewish Population in the Latvian Republic.

Before World War I there were about 190,000 Jews in the territories of Latvia (7.4% of the total population). During the war years, (col. 1463)

many of them were expelled to the interior of Russia, while others escaped from the war zone. In 1920 the Jews of Latvia numbered 79,644 (5% of the population). After the signing of the peace treaty between the Latvian Republic and the Soviet Union on Aug. 11, 1920, repatriates began to return from Russia; these included a considerable number of Jewish refugees. By 1925 the Jewish population had increased to 95,675, the largest number of Jews during the period of Latvia's existence as an independent state.

After that year the number of Jews gradually decreased, and in 1935 had declined to 93,479 (4.8% of the total). The causes of this decline were emigration by part of the younger generation and a decline in the natural increase through limiting the family to one or two children by the majority. Between 1925 and 1935 over 6,000 Jews left Latvia (the overwhelming majority of them for Erez Israel), while the natural increase only partly replaced these departures. The largest communities were Riga with 43,672 Jews (11.3% of the total) in 1935, Daugavpils with 11,106 (25%), and *Libau (Liepaja) with 7,379 (13%).> (col. 1464)

[1940-1941: Stalin deportations and Big Flight from Barbarossa]

<On the eve of Hitler's attack, a large group of Latvians including several thousand Jews, were deported by the Soviet authorities to Siberia and other parts of Soviet Asia as politically undesirable elements.

During the Nazi attack of Latvia a considerable number of Jews also succeeded in fleeing to the interior of the Soviet Union; it is estimated that some 75,000 Latvian Jews fell into Nazi hands.> (col. 1467)

[1941-1942: Massacre and mass murder - "Reich Jews" imported to Latvia - concentration camps Salaspils and Kaiserwald]

<All synagogues were destroyed and 400 Jews were killed. According to Stahlecker's report the number of Jews killed in mass executions by Einsatzgruppe A by the end of October 1941 in Riga, Jelgava (Mitau), Liepaja, Valmiera, and Daugavpils totaled 30,025, and by the end of December 1941, 35,238 Latvian Jews had been killed; 2,500 Jews remained in the Riga ghetto and 950 in the Daugavpils ghetto. At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, Jews deported from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other German-occupied countries began arriving in Latvia. Some 15,000 "Reich Jews" were settled in several streets of the liquidated "greater Riga ghetto". Many transports were taken straight from the Riga railroad station to execution sites in the Rumbuli and Bikernieks forests near Riga, and elsewhere. In 1942 about 800 Jews from Kaunas ghetto were brought to Riga and some of them participated in the underground organization in the Riga ghetto.

The German occupying power in Latvia also kept Jews in "barracks camps", i.e., near their places of forced labor. A considerable number of such camps were located in the Riga area and other localities. Larger concentration camps included those at Salaspils and Kaiserwald (Meza Parks). (col. 1467)

The Salaspils concentration camp, set up at the end of 1941, contained thousands of people, including many Latvian and foreign Jews. Conditions in this camp, one of the worst in Latvia, led to heavy loss of life among the inmates. The Kaiserwald concentration camp, established in the summer of 1943, contained the Jewish survivors from the ghettos of Riga, Daugavpils, Liepaja, and other places, as well as non-Jews. At the end of September 1943 Jews from the liquidated Vilna ghetto were also taken to Kaiserwald.

When the Soviet victories in the summer of 1944 forced a German retreat from the Baltic states, the surviving inmates of the Kaiserwald camp were deported by the Germans to *Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig, and from there were sent to various other camps.> (col. 1468)

[since 1945: Jews come back to Latvia]

After the Liberation.

About 1,000 Latvian Jews survived their internment in concentration camps; most of them refused repatriation and remained in the Displaced Persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Along with the rest of the survivors they eventually settled in new homes, mostly in Israel. In Latvia itself, several hundred Jews had somehow managed to survive. A public demonstration was held in Riga a few days after its liberation, in which 60 or 70 of the surviving Jews participated. Gradually, some of the Jews who had found refuge in the Soviet Union came back. Several thousand Latvian Jews had fought in the Soviet army's Latvian division, the 201st (43rd guard) and 304th, and many were killed or wounded in battle, while a considerable number had earned military awards for bravery at the front.> (col. 1469)

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