Rumbula

Rumbula Forest is a pine forest enclave in Riga, Latvia in which Jews were massacred during the Holocaust.

In two days, November 30 and December 8, 1941 25,000 Jews were murdered in Rumbula Forest. Of the 25,000, 24,000 were Latvian Jews from the Riga Ghetto and 1,000 were German Jews transported to the forest by freight train. The systematic mass murder was carried out by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen with the help of Arājs commando, with support from other Lithuanian police units.

Over 25,000 Jews were ordered to disrobe in freezing weather to be shot in the back of the head at close range in pits that were mass graves. Two women survived. One of them, Frida Michelson, took advantage of a distraction and fell into the pit of dead bodies as if dead herself. She survived the war to write the book, I Survived Rumbula, later translated into English and published by the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

During the Holocaust, 90% of Latvia's Jews were murdered at Rumbula, Liepaja (Libau) and other locations. When the war turned against Germany, the bodies at Rumbula Forest were ordered dug up and burned. The site has been marked by a series of makeshift memorials over the years. In November 2002 a moving Rumbula memorial was dedicated 61 years after the killings.

See also

• Simon Dubnow a famous Jewish historian, one of thousands killed in Rumbula on December 8, 1941.

External links

• The Holocaust in German-Occupied Latvia
• Jewish Riga
• The Holocaust in Latvia & Latvia's Jews Yesterday and Today
  • Remembering Rumbula
  • Liepaja Holocaust
  • Riga Ghetto