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Arajs Kommando
The Arajs ''Kommando'' (also: ''Sonderkommando Arajs''; ), led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs, was a unit of Latvian Auxiliary Police (german: Lettische Hilfspolizei) subordinated to the German ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD). It was a notorious killing unit during the Holocaust. Formation After the entry of the ''Einsatzkommando'' into the Latvian capital contact between Viktors Arājs and ''Brigadeführer'' Walter Stahlecker was established on 1 July 1941. Stahlecker instructed Arājs to set up a commando group that obtained the official name ''Latvian Auxiliary Security Police'' or ''Arajs Kommando''.Ruth Bettina Birn and Volker Riess. "Revising the Holocaust". ''The Historical Journal'', Vol. 40, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 195-215. Published by: Cambridge University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3020959 The unit was composed of students and former officers of far-right wing orientation. All of the Arajs Kommando members were volunteers, and fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viktors Arājs
Viktors Arājs (13 January 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a Latvian/Baltic German collaborator and Nazi SS SD officer who took part in the Holocaust during the German occupation of Latvia and Belarus as the leader of the Arajs Kommando. The Arajs Kommando murdered about half of Latvia's Jews. Klee, ''Das Personenlexicon zum Dritten Reich'', at page 18 Life Viktors Bernhard Arājs was born on 13 January 1910 in the town of Baldone, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was a Latvian blacksmith and his mother came from a wealthy family of Baltic Germans. Arājs attended Jelgava Gymnasium, which he left in 1930 for mandatory national defense service in the Latvian Army. In 1932, Arājs studied law at the University of Latvia in Riga, but completed his degree only in 1941 after the Soviet occupation. He was a member of the elite student fraternity '' Lettonia'', which may have helped him get a job with the Latvian police after he left the university. Arājs remained with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-partisan Operations
Axis forces were involved in counter-insurgency operations against the various resistance movements during World War II. During the Second World War, resistance movements that bore any resemblance to irregular warfare were frequently dealt with by the occupying forces under the auspices of anti-partisan warfare, particularly in territories occupied by Nazi forces. In many cases, the Nazis euphemistically used the term "anti-partisan operations" to obfuscate their ethnic cleansing and ideological warfare operations against perceived enemies; this included Jews, Communist officials (so-called Jewish Bolsheviks), Red Army stragglers, and others. This was especially the case on the Eastern Front, where anti-partisan operations often resulted in the massacres of innocent civilians. While the worst atrocities in terms of scale occurred in the Eastern theater of the war, the Nazis employed "anti-partisan" tactics in Western Europe as well. Origins and military doctrine The forms of r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi SS
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ''A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Ezergailis
Andrew Ezergailis ( lv, Andrievs Ezergailis; born 10 December 1930 in Rite Parish, died 22 January 2022 in Ithaca, New York) was a Professor of History at Ithaca College, known for his research into the 20th-century history of Latvia, particularly of the 1917 Revolution and the Holocaust in Latvia. In August 2007, Ezergailis was awarded the Cross of the Order of the Three Stars, one of the highest honors of Latvia, for his contributions to understanding the history of the country."Ezergailis Honored by Latvia" '' Ithaca College Quarterly'', April 2006 Andrew was married to Inta Ezergailis, a ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin suffix ("act of killing").. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly. The Political Instability Task Force estimated that 43 genocides occurred between 1956 and 2016, resulting in about 50 million deaths. The UNHCR estimated that a further 50 million had been dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konrāds Kalējs
Konrāds Kalējs (26 June 1913 – 8 November 2001) was a Latvian soldier who was a Nazi collaborator and an alleged war criminal during World War II. He gained notoriety for evading calls for his prosecution across four countries, more than once under the threat of deportation. Early life Kalējs was born in Riga, Latvia, Russian Empire, in 1913. In 1935 he joined the Latvian army as a cadet, and attained the rank of lieutenant four years later. Activities under Nazi occupation In 1941, following the German invasion of Latvia as part of Operation Barbarossa, Kalējs deserted the Red Army (Latvia by that stage having been occupied by the Soviet Union) and became a member of the Nazi-controlled Latvian security police. Kalējs would later assert that he worked as a farmhand during this period. It was common practice in occupied nations for indigenous security forces to act in support of German military and security forces in the collection, interrogation, and transport of "und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many List of islands of the United Kingdom, smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching , is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population, seventh most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and List of cities in Brazil by population, its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 States of Brazil, states and the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese language, Portuguese as an List of territorial entities where Portuguese is an official language, official language and the only one in the Americas; one of the most Multiculturalism, multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass Immigration to Brazil, immigration from around the world; and the most populous Catholic Church by country, Roman Catholic-major ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mossad
Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security). Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counter-terrorism. Its director answers directly and only to the Prime Minister. Its annual budget is estimated to be around 10 billion shekels (US$2.73 billion) and it is estimated that it employs around 7,000 people directly, making it the one of the world's largest espionage agencies. Unlike other security bodies (such as the Israel Defense Forces or the Israel Security Agency), its purpose, objectives, roles, missions, powers or budget have not been defined in any law. History Mossad was formed on Decem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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