The Truth About the Nazi Atrocities in Liepaja, Shocking Photos

The Holocaust was one of the darkest and most horrific events in human history. It was a systematic genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II, resulting in the murder of approximately six million Jews. One of the tragic chapters of the Holocaust was the massacre of the Jews of Liepaja on the beach of Šķēde.

Members of a SS Einsatzgruppe (Special Task Forces) are forcing Jews to undress for execution.

The Context of the Holocaust

The roots of the Holocaust can be traced back to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Adolf Hitler and his followers espoused a racist ideology that placed the Aryan race above all others. They considered Jews to be subhuman and a threat to the purity of the Germanic people. This belief led to the systematic persecution and extermination of Jews in Europe during the war.

In Latvia, the Nazis occupied the country in June 1941 and immediately began implementing anti-Jewish measures. Jews were forced to wear identifying badges, had their property confiscated, and were subjected to arbitrary arrests and executions. In July and August of that year, the Nazis and their Latvian collaborators began to carry out mass shootings of Jews in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

The Massacre of the Jews of Liepaja

In December 1941, the Nazis and Latvian auxiliary police began a campaign of rounding up Jews in the city of Liepaja. They herded the Jews into the ghetto, a small area of the city that had been designated for Jews. Then, on December 13 and 14, they began to execute the Jews, taking them to the beach of Šķēde, a few miles outside the city, where they were shot and buried in mass graves.

_{Members of a Latvian SD police unit assemble a group of Jewish women for murder on a beach near Liepāja, December 15, 1941.}

The exact number of Jews killed in Liepaja is challenging to determine, but it is estimated to be around 2,700. This atrocity was part of a larger effort by the Nazis to eliminate Jews from Europe, and it was one of many similar massacres that took place across the continent.

In the early morning of December 15, a column of victims was driven from Liepaja to the same barn in Skede. There, they were forced to lie face down on the ground, parallel to a deep ditch dug in the dunes. They were then ordered to undress and shot by a German unit, the Latvian SD Platoon headed by Lt. Peteris Galins, and a Latvian Schutzmannschaften team. Babies were held by their mothers and killed with them.

The clothes were piled up in heaps and taken away by German military trucks. During the massacre, senior Wehrmacht and navy officers visited the site, and Carl Strott and another officer, Erich Handke, took pictures with a Minox.

The Aftermath of the Massacre

The massacre of the Jews of Liepaja on the beach of Šķēde was a tragic event that profoundly impacted the Jewish community of Latvia. Many Jews were left traumatized by the violence and brutality they had witnessed, and those who survived were forced to flee the country and seek refuge elsewhere.

The massacre of the Jews of Liepaja on the beach of Šķēde was a tragic chapter of the Holocaust, one of the darkest and most horrific events in human history. It was part of a larger effort by the Nazis to eliminate Jews from Europe, and it served as a stark reminder of the dangers of intolerance, racism, and bigotry. We must remember and honor the victims of this tragedy and strive to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated.

Shocking Images captured

A Jewish electrician at the SD headquarters in Liepaja by the name of David Zivcon discovered these images. He was dispatched to mend something at Strott’s house a few weeks or months after the execution and discovered four negative reels in a partially open drawer. After fabricating an electrical issue, he stole them, copied them with the aid of a buddy, and brought them back to the flat. The copies were placed in a box, which was then buried in a stable. He captured the images and gave them to Soviet intelligence agents after the capture. Eventually, the images were used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials.

These women had been forced to disrobe and then pose for the camera, on December 15, 1941. Scholarly work has led to the identification of some of the women shown. From left to right: (1) Sorella Epstein; (2) believed to be Rosa Epstein, mother of Sorella; (3) unknown; (4) Mia Epstein; (5) unknown.

Women and children were forced to undress before shooting in Libau, Latvia.

A Latvian guard leads Jewish women to the execution site, on the beach at Libau, Latvia.

A Latvian policeman known as a ‘kicker’ walks along the edge of a mass grave filled with the bodies of women and children who had just been shot, December 15-17, 1941. It was the kicker’s job to push in the bodies that did not fall into the mass grave during the shooting.