Rumbula, Riga

For the air base at Rumbula, see Rumbula (air base)

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

On two days, November 30, 1941 and December 8, 1941, 25,000 Jews were murdered in Rumbula Forest. Of them, 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 the fascist collaborators of the Arājs commando, with support from other such Latvian auxiliaries.

These tens of thousands of 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, feigning death among the dead bodies. She survived the war to write the book I Survived Rumbula, later translated into English and published by the US 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 the Rumbula Forest site were ordered dug up and burned. The site has been marked by a series of makeshift memorials over the years. A moving Rumbula memorial was dedicated in November 2002, 61 years after the killings.

External links

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