Bring back some good or bad memories


ADVERTISEMENT

May 1, 2018

Liepaja Massacres: Shocking Photos Taken by Nazi Perpetrators of Jewish Women Moments Before Their Execution in Skede, Latvia on December 15-17, 1941

The murders in the dunes at Skede on the Baltic shore, some fifteen kilometers north of the city and about a kilometer from the road towards the sea, began as early as July 1941. Some 200 Jews were murdered there.

During a three-day massacre on December 15-17, 1941, German and Latvian units killed 2,749 Jews, more than half of Liepaja’s Jewish population. Preparations for the operation began some days before. On December 13, 1941, Liepaja Police Chief Obersturmbannfuehrer Fritz Diedrich placed an announcement in the Latvian newspaper Kurzemes Vards stating that Jews were forbidden to leave their living quarters on Monday, December 15, and Tuesday, December 16.

On the night of December 13, Latvian police forces began to arrest Liepaja’s Jews not yet concentrated in the ghetto. The victims were brought to the Women’s Prison, where Jews of all ages were crammed into the courtyard. The Jews were ordered to stand with their faces towards the wall, and warned not to move or look around for relatives or at the watchmen. Some were transported to Skede on the evening of the following day and crowded into a barn (a wooden structure, described also as a garage).

In the early morning of December 15, a column of victims was driven from Liepaja by Latvian policemen, under the supervision of the German SD, to the same barn in Skede where Jews from the prison had been taken. They were taken in groups of twenty to a site forty to fifty meters from a deep ditch dug in the dunes nearby, parallel to the shore. The ditch was about three meters wide and 100 meters long. There they were forced to lie face down on the ground. Groups of ten were then ordered to stand up and, apart from the children, to undress, at first to their underwear and then, when taken near the ditch, completely. They were shot by a German unit, the Latvian SD Platoon headed by Lt. Peteris Galins, and a Latvian Schutzmannschaften team.

During the murder operation, the Jews were placed along the side of the ditch nearest the sea, facing the water. The killing squad was positioned across the ditch, with two marksmen shooting at the same victim. Children who could walk were treated as adults, but babies were held by their mothers and killed with them. A “kicker” rolled in those corpses that did not fall directly into the ditch. After each volley, a German SD man stepped into the ditch to inspect the bodies and finish off anyone who showed signs of life.

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

These photos were found by a Jewish man named David Zivcon, who worked as an electrician at the SD headquarters in Liepaja. A few weeks or months after the execution, he was sent to fix something at Strott’s residence, and notices four negative reels in a partially open drawer. He took them, made copies with the help of a friend, and smuggled them back to the apartment after making up an electricity problem. He put the copies in a box and buried them in a stable. After liberation, he took the photos and handed them to Soviet Intelligence officers. The photos were eventually presented as evidences at the Nuremberg trials.

These women had been forced to disrobe and then pose for the camera, 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. Alternatively, (2) may be Paula Goldman, and Mia Epstein may be (5) instead of (4).

Jewish women about to be shot by Nazis, on the beach at Libau, Latvia.

Members of a Latvian militia unit assemble a group of Jewish women for murder on a beach near Liepāja, December 15, 1941.

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

A group of Jewish women huddled together, waiting to be shot on the beach.

Jewish women and children from Liepaja stand on the edge of a pit before being murdered, December 15, 1941.

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.

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

Jewish women were forced to strip off their clothes.

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

(via The Untold Stories)

20 comments:

  1. want to throw myself on the ground and cry

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alexander Gauland, a member of the Bundestag and co-leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD), this country’s third-largest political party, said in 2008 that “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.” These are pictures of that "bird shit" ...... show him these.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At the latest national elections, the AfD won just 10.3% of the vote, down from 12.6% four years prior. Still far too much but not the third-largest party.

      Delete
  3. Despicable scum to do this over and over to men, women and children. I just can't understand the mentality to stand there over a ditch where hundreds have already been shot though, if they wanna shoot me so bad, they would have to drag me to the ditch dead and throw me in themselves. Make them do the work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So let me explain it to you the way my friend explained it to me. He hoped the person who was going to shoot him had good aim so that he would not suffer. He was lucky that day. The gun jammed up before it got to him.

      Delete
  4. حسبي الله ونعم الوكيل!

    and children??? how can they let children know and feel scared before killing them?
    how could they do such things to little kids??? i cant stand that this had actually happened! i wish i could do something and atleast take the children away! it is tearing me inside :((!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I come back to contemplate these photos from time to time, if only to say to these women snd children, "I think of you, I remember you... the horror you experienced is not forgotten. And still my heart is lost."

    ReplyDelete
  6. The most disturbing thing about these images is that the police who were with them were Lithuanians, and they hated the Jews more than the Nazis. As in Ukraine.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unfortunately such things are repeating even in our near history, so it seems that we as humans never learn from mistakes from history. This is really hard to process

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vukovar_massacre

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, let's say it's part of human nature, what, how can people can do this to others. Pretty monstrous at times.

      Delete
  8. Holodomor 1932-1933. Look it up.

    ReplyDelete
  9. VERY DISGUSTING.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Monstrous. Truly evil.

    ReplyDelete

  11. We have a moral and human obligation to wipe away any traces of Nazism (albeit disguised under other names) from the map.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The German people permitted this. The shame of a nation!

    ReplyDelete
  13. To all of the above sympathizing with Jews, ask yourself this: how many innocent people have Israel murdered just this month alone on stolen land? Where is your outrage for this?

    Hitler was right. About everything. We all now exist in hell because of global Zionist terrorism, whether you will admit it or not. These people are not human and unless you are one of them, they hate you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, most of these photos have been repeatedly debunked as fake. Many were edited, and others are clearly staged Soviet propaganda photos. The so-called "Nazi" uniforms aren't even correct, and these women would not have just been running around unguarded. In the first photo, some of their feet aren't even touching the ground! Use some common sense people.

      With that being said, the holohoax never happened and no one seems to have genuine proof that it did. But as far as I'm concerned it should have for the sake of the future of humanity, which has been pure hell since WWII ended and only worsens with each day.

      Now post some photos of what the Jews did to the Armenians during the Armenian Genocide; or the tens of million white Christian Russians they murdered. Bet you won't!

      Delete
    2. You yourself you are evil...period.

      Delete
  14. Your right arm ever get sore from saluting your Nazi flag???

    ReplyDelete




FOLLOW US:
FacebookTumblrPinterestInstagram

CONTACT US

Browse by Decades

Popular Posts

Advertisement

09 10