Rumbula Forest is a pine forest enclave in Riga, Latvia.
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 aid of Latvian collaborators.
25,000 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, but miraculously 2 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 Rumbuli, later translated into English and published by the U.S. 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.
External link
Last updated: 05-09-2005 14:20:42
