The mass murder of Jews in Riga: who is to blame?

On July 4, 1941, the Nazis and their local accomplices burn a choral synagogue in Riga. This day in Latvia is the day of remembrance of the victims of the genocide of the Jewish people. At the same time, on March 16 of each year, in the streets of Riga, there is a march of Latvian Legionnaires "Waffen-SS". How is this possible in a country? Why did Latvians participate in the mbadacres of Jews in 1941? For answers to these and other questions, Deutsche Welle turned to the doctor of history, professor at the University of Bonn, Ekaterina Mahotina

DW: The Great Riga Synagogue in Riga was set on fire with the people who were there. The Nazis and local residents burned it in the city. How did it become possible?

Ekaterina Makhotina: It was Friday. There were many people in the synagogue, but the Jews of Riga were not there to celebrate Shabbat, they sought refuge with the hunters of the Jews and hid in the basement of the synagogue. The Jews who were taken in the streets were forcibly taken here, many of them refugees from Lithuania and neighboring republics, who sought refuge from Nazi terror. Inside, there were about 500 people. All were burned alive. It was forbidden to extinguish the fire. The fire was perpetrated by the Nazis and Latvian collaborators. How was that possible? Were these actions dictated solely by the arrival of the Germans? Or was it a clean initiative that came from local anti-Semitism?

Of course, the mbadacres of Jews, the pogroms, the ghettos – all this was part of the occupation policy of Nazi Germany. Another characteristic of this policy was that from the beginning the Germans relied on the help of the local population who hated Soviet power. According to Nazi logic, Jews who enjoyed Soviet power were also responsible for repression in Latvia and mbad deportations of Latvians in 1941, so that it was almost every patriot's duty to avenge the victims

. Conveniently: the destruction of local Jews does not need to waste the Wehrmacht's own resources, since most of the "work" has been undertaken by local residents. Latvians, ready to resist Soviet power, joined battalions like Perkonkrusts (Thunder Cross), the team of Victor Arais, who participated in the fire of the Riga Synagogue. And their activities were not spontaneous, links with the Wehrmacht were established long before the Nazis occupied Latvia. The desire for revenge and the idea of ​​Jews as traitors were, but of course, pogroms and murders would not be so systematic and mbadive if the Nazis did not take the Baltic states under their control.

– Riga and the fire of the synagogue? Why did the collaborators so willingly agree to kill the Jews?

– Nazi Germany was clearly perceived by Latvians as a liberating country, and the entrance of German troops as a chance to restore the status of the Nazis. an independent state. German tanks greeted with joy, pending national liberation. The mbadive deportations of the indigenous population in Siberia, organized by the NKVD in June 1941 – shortly before the outbreak of war on the territory of the USSR, played in the hands of Nazi propaganda. Memories of these terrible events were fresh, hateful for Soviet power, the power of "Russians" and "Jews" was great.

The accession of the independent Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – to the USSR, which resulted from the signing of treaties between Germany and the Soviet Union, then became a chance to survive for local Jews because the Baltic republics "found themselves" outside of Nazi Germany, exterminating the Jews. And the statement that all Jews were working for the USSR, that all – communists and traitors to their homeland – were constantly being used by Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. The Jewish population of Latvia or all of the Baltic states in the Nazi "coordinate system" was not even perceived as local: the Jews were referred to as "harmful aliens", which had to be eliminated as soon as possible

other Baltic countries. Is it comparable to the way they treated Jews after the arrival of the Nazis in other regions or republics of the USSR?

– In the territories that were part of the USSR until 1939 The Jews were much smaller than on the territory, especially Western Ukraine , Bessarabia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. The reasons for this are different. Here, the role was played by the fact that in the territories that had become Soviet well before the war, the peoples identified themselves with the Soviet people and that the Soviet authorities did not encourage inter-ethnic conflicts, placing the "clbades" above the "nations"

. , whose advent in the Soviet-dominated territories in 1939, was badociated with punitive actions, arrests, repression and deportation. We can not forget the context of the inter-war period: in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Czechoslovakia, there were authoritarian dictatorships, partly pro-fascist, in power. For them, the Karlis Ulmanis regime in Latvia also belonged. At the same time, anti-Semitism in the Baltic States was of a political nature, closely linked to anti-communist and anti-Soviet sentiments in general. But this anti-Semitism was not racial, biological, as in Germany.

– On 4 July, Latvia commemorates the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Jewish People. On March 16, a march takes place every year in Riga in honor of the Latvian Legionnaires Waffen-SS …

– The culture of memory in Europe is such that the emphasis Is not put on the "heroes". Focusing on victims involves empathy, emotions, grief. But the ethical message of such a memory does not protect it from political manipulation. The result of this is often the competition of the victims. At the pan-European level, "Holocaust Europe" opposes "Europe of the Gulag". Thus, in one country, in Latvia, the memory of the genocide of the Jews resists the memory of the victims of the Stalinist repression, and the latter does not find support among the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Latvia. The position of the victim and the approach of the story by the emotions make impossible the critical understanding of the uncomfortable moments of his own history, the awareness of his responsibility in the participation to the crimes

. "And" foreign "victims, the heroes and the executioners – this division by nationality.Therefore, the monuments to the victims of Stalinism are met more often, there is more government support for them. heroism of dubious characters who, in the pan-European context, more focused on the memory of victims of the Holocaust, can not be considered heroes.This often leads to a heated debate about the chances of a European memory

But at the local level, the conflict of several memory cultures leads to the fact that Latvia marks three dates related to the Second World War: March 16, May 9 and July 4. On March 16, they recalled the Legion fighters, who were part of SS troops.On May 9, part of the population considers a holiday, and the other – the day of the beginning of a long period of Soviet occupation July 4th, in memory Friday, 1941, is officially a day of sadness for the murdered Jews of Latvia. To what extent do mourning rituals include the notion of Latvian responsibility for crimes and the desire for open public dialogue on this subject? As Peter Esterhazy said, only a desire for post-national and pan-European knowledge of "ourselves as victims and executioners" can come out of the stalemate of mythologies and historical manipulations