List of massacres in Latvia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Name | Date | Location | Deaths | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White Terror | 1919 to 1920 | across Latvia | 3,000 to 4,000 | These estimates are very fragmentary, as there is still little data from some regions such as Latgale. |
| Red Terror | 1918 to 1920 | across Latvia | 1,500 to 2,000 | These estimates are very fragmentary, as there is still little data from some regions such as Latgale. |
Massacres during World War II
| Name | Date | Location | Deaths | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liepāja massacres | 1941 | Liepāja and vicinity, including Priekule, Aizpute, and Grobiņa | 5000+ | 5,000+ Jews. as well as gypsies, communists and the mentally ill were killed in a series of mass executions, many public or semi-public, in the city of Liepāja |
| Daugavpils Ghetto | June 26, 1941 to October 1943 | Daugavpils and vicinity, including Pogulyanka (Poguļanka) Forest (sometimes called Mežciems forest). | 13,000 to 16,000 Jews, mostly Latvians with some Lithuanians | |
| Burning of the Riga synagogues | July 4, 1941 | Riga | 400 | All synagogues were destroyed and 400 Jews were killed[1][2] |
| Bikernieki Forest Massacres | July 7, 1941 - 1944 | Bikernieki Forest near Riga | 30.000 - 46.000 | Execution of between 30,000 and 46,000 victims of Nazism, mostly Latvian Jews |
| Rēzekne massacre | July 1941 | Rēzekne | 2,500 | Killings were carried out by a German SD group, which was helped by Selbstschutz men and Arajs Kommando. Beginning in July 1941 and into the fall, about 2,500 Jewish men, women and children were murdered.[3][4] |
| Ventspils massacre | July 16-July 18, 1941 and July–August, 1941 | Ventspils | 1,000 | Soon a poster appeared on the Kuldīga-Ventspils highway, which said that Ventspils was Judenfrei (free of Jews). |
| Jelgava massacres | Second part of July or early August, 1941 | Jelgava and vicinity | Separate estimates of 1,500, 1,550, and 2,000 victims have been made. | German police along with Latvian auxiliary police murdered the Jewish inhabitants of the city during a series of mass shootings |
| Varakļāni massacre | August 4, 1941 | Varakļāni | 540 | The Nazis forced 540 remaining Jews to dig their own graves, and then shot them to death |
| Rumbula massacre | November 30 and December 8, 1941 | Rumbula forest (near Riga) | 25,000 | About 24,000 Latvian Jews and 1,000 German Jews were murdered in or on the way to Rumbula forest near Riga.[5] |
| Audriņi massacre | January 3-4, 1942 | village of Audriņi, Audriņi Parish, Rēzekne Municipality | 215 | 215 inhabitants were killed, including 51 children |
| Dunamunde massacre | March 15-26, 1942 | Daugavgrīva, Latvia | 3,740 | About 3,740 German, Czech, and Austrian Jews were killed by the Nazi German occupying force and local collaborationists in Biķernieki forest. |
Post-war massacres
| Name | Date | Location | Deaths | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lecava massacre | September 20, 1997 | Iecava Parish, Bauska Municipality | 8 | Yuri Chubarov kills 7 people and injures one in a shooting, then commits suicide[6] |
| Gulbene kindergarten massacre | February 22, 1999 | Gulbene | 4 | 19-year-old Alexander Koryakov entered a Gulbene kindergarten and hacked three girls to death with a meat cleaver. He also killed a teacher and wounded a nurse before trying to escape. After his arrest, he told police that he wanted to become famous. Koryakov was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 7, 1999. |
References
- ↑ Liniņš, Eduards (4 July 2014). "Šī diena vēsturē. Sinagogu nodedzināšana Rīgā 1941. gada 4. jūlijā - Raksts". Public Broadcasting of Latvia (in Latvian). Retrieved 1 November 2024.
- ↑ Demidovs, Viktors; Kinca, Aija (4 July 2021). "Ebreju tautas genocīda upuru piemiņai – 80. gadadiena / Raksts". Public Broadcasting of Latvia (in Latvian). Retrieved 1 November 2024.
- ↑ "Rezekne". Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Retrieved 3 October 2023., quoting Encyclopaedia Judaica (2008)
- ↑ "Rezekne and the Holocaust". kehilalinks. JewishGen.org. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
- ↑ Liniņš, Eduards (30 November 2021). "30. novembris. Ebreju masu slepkavošanas akcija Rumbulas mežā 1941. gada / LR1 - Latvijas Radio". Latvijas Radio (in Latvian). Retrieved 1 November 2024.
- ↑ Čučkova, Diāna (19 September 2025). "Slaktiņš kartupeļu laukā – pirms 28 gadiem notika smagākā masu slepkavība Latvijas vēsturē". Delfi (in Latvian). Retrieved 12 October 2025.
Lists of massacres in Europe | |
|---|---|
| Sovereign states |
|
| States with limited recognition | |
| Dependencies and other entities | |