The Arajs ''Kommando'' (also: ''Sonderkommando Arajs''; ), led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs, was a unit of

Latvian Auxiliary Police Latvian Auxiliary Police was a paramilitary force created from Latvian volunteers by the Nazi German authorities who occupied the country in June 1941. It was part of the ''Schutzmannschaft'' (Shuma), native police forces organized by the German ...

(german: Lettische Hilfspolizei) subordinated to the German ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (SD). It was a notorious killing unit during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

Formation

After the entry of the ''

Einsatzkommando During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellect ...

'' into the Latvian capital contact between Viktors Arājs and ''

Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between the years of 1932 to 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as ''Untergruppenf ...

Walter Stahlecker Franz Walter Stahlecker (10 October 1900 – 23 March 1942) was commander of the SS security forces (''Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo) and the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) for the ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' in 1941–42. Stahlecker commanded '' Ei ...

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 Ruth Bettina Birn (born 1952) is a Canadian historian and author whose main field of research is the security forces of Nazi Germany and their role in the Holocaust. For nearly 15 years, she held a position of chief historian in the war crimes se ...

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 free to leave at any time. The following day on 2 July, Stahlecker revealed to Arājs that his commando group had to unleash against the Jews a pogrom that looked spontaneous.

Activities

The Arajs Kommando unit actively participated in a variety of Nazi atrocities, including the killing of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council * Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

, and mental patients, as well as punitive actions and massacres of civilians along Latvia's eastern border with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. The Kommando killed around 26,000 Jews in total. Most notably, the unit took part in the mass execution of Jews in the

Liepāja massacres The Liepāja massacres were a series of mass executions, many public or semi-public, in and near the city of Liepāja (german: Libau), on the west coast of Latvia in 1941 after the German occupation of Latvia. The main perpetrators were detachme ...

. They also participated in the mass slaughter of Jews from the Riga Ghetto and several thousand Jews deported from Germany, in the

Rumbula massacre The Rumbula massacre is a collective term for incidents on November 30 and December 8, 1941, in which about 25,000 Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust. Except for the Babi Yar massacre in ...

of November 30 and December 8, 1941. Some of the commando's men also served as guards at the Salaspils concentration camp. As can be seen in contemporary Nazi newsreels, part of a documentation campaign to create the image that the Holocaust in the Baltics was a local, and not Nazi-directed activity, the Arajs Kommando figured prominently in the burning of Riga's Great (Choral) Synagogue on 4 July 1941. Commemoration of this event has been chosen for marking Holocaust Memorial Day in present-day Latvia. The unit numbered about 300–500 men during the period that it participated in killings of the Latvian Jewish population, and reached up to 1,500 members at its peak at the height of its involvement in

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 ...

in 1942. In the final phases of the war, the unit was disbanded, and its personnel transferred to the

Latvian Legion The Latvian Legion ( lv, Latviešu leģions) was a formation of the German Waffen-SS during World War II. Created in 1943, it consisted primarily of ethnic Latvian personnel.Gerhard P. Bassler, ''Alfred Valdmanis and the politics of survival'', 20 ...

Prosecution

A total of 356 Arajs Kommando have been identified. Between 1944 and 1966, 352 of them were prosecuted by the Soviets, albeit one case was later suspended. Fourteen of the death sentences were never carried out since the Soviets temporarily abolished capital punishment between 1947 and 1949, thus saving the lives of the condemned convicts and more who went on trial during this period. The most frequently imposed sentence was 25 years in prison, with hard labor, plus forfeiture of civil rights for 5 years, plus forfeiture of all property. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Latvian courts rehabilitated more than 40 of those convicted despite overwhelming evidence in virtually all of the cases. After successfully hiding in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

for several decades after the war under an assumed name, Viktors Arājs was eventually identified by a former colleague, arrested, tried, and imprisoned for his crimes.

Herberts Cukurs Herberts Cukurs (17 May 1900 – 23 February 1965) was a Latvian aviator and deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, which carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews in the Holocaust. Although Cukurs never stood trial, multiple Holocau ...

, a deputy commander of the Arajs Kommado, was assassinated by the Israeli

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 ...

in 1965. While living in

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 ...

, Cukurs was befriended by a German-speaking Mossad agent, who lured him to Uruguay, where Cukurs was ambushed. More recently, the governments of

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 to ...

, the

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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, the

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 continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

were involved in the attempt to extradite

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 o ...

, a former officer of the Arajs Kommando, to Latvia for trial on charges of

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 ...

. Kalējs died in 2001 in Australia before the extradition could proceed, maintaining his innocence to the end, stating that he was fighting Russia on the Eastern Front or studying at university when the slaughter of Jews took place in 1941. Historian of the Latvian Holocaust

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, particula ...

estimated that about a third of the Arājs Kommando, 500 out of a maximum of around 1,500 total members, actively participated in the killings of Jews, and claimed that one cannot be convicted of crimes against humanity based solely on membership in an organization.''Kalejs Not Necessarily Implicated'', Reuters News Service, filed January 13, 2000, Canberra

Formation

Activities

Prosecution

References

Further reading