Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

286 Novadpētnieku vākums
beginning of July. According to the testimony of German-appointed police chief of the region,
Augusts Dzenītis, the fascist SD officers ordered him to burn the two synagogues with all
the Jews in them. When Dzenītis refused to follow the orders, the German officers told him
to move them in small groups to the local hospital and kill them there by poisonous injections.
However, finally the officers agreed to move all 400 imprisoned Jews 15 kilometers
out of the town to the barracks of the local peat swamp (peatery) Kūkas. There the ones
capable of working could be made to gather the peat. The Jews arrived at the Kūkas camp
approximately on 20 June 1941, but no precise date could be obtained.
Until the beginning of August the Jews were being killed in all the towns in the Jēkabpils
District, except Jēkabpils town. Maybe this is the reason why the German general commissioner
of Zemgale region, fon Medem, arrived to Jēkabpils on 9 August 1941. According
to the transcript of his speech in the local newspaper, he proclaimed that “the local selfdefence
troops would soon be able to return home.”
In the evening of the same day, the so-called Arājs Commando arrived. On the next
day (10th of August), almost all the self-defence troops of Jēkabpils were sent to the camp
of Kūkas. Their objective was to transport the Jews (200 at a time) from barracks to the
hole in the forest 800 meters away from the camp. There the Jews were told to lie on the
ground. Then the Arājs Commando, which according to some sources was commanded by
SD officers, took groups of 15 people, told them to take off all their clothes and then shot
them next to the hole. When the next group of 200 people was transported to the forest,
Arājs Commando proposed also the officers of Jēkabpils self-defence troops to join the
slaughter. Some agreed and shot either standing or on one knee.
After the execution, the members of the self-defence troops covered up the hole and
spent the next day moving by cars and horses the clothes and belongings of the Jews to
the operation center established in the House of Home Guards (aizsargi).
According to the testimonies by the officials to the court, the self-defence troops were
not aware of the destiny the Jews would have, because many horse teams were ordered
to move their belongings to the camp of Kūkas.
After the war, 27 officials of the self-defence troops were sentenced for different terms
for taking part in the operations related to Holocaust. 17 of them have not been rehabilitated,
three were sentenced to death. Nine of those sentenced by Soviet authorities have been
rehabilitated. 13 of those mentioned in criminal cases have emigrated from the country.
13 were not found at all. The surnames of the disappeared ones could not be found in the
lists of those sentenced by the Jēkabpils District court, nor in the lists of those deported in
1949. The time period that has passed allows concluding that none of them is alive.
All the remains of 418 Jews killed in 1941 were moved to the Jēkabpils graveyard in
1945. In 1988, memorial monuments were created in both places – in the swamp of Kūkas
and in the graveyard of Jēkabpils.