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The Assassination of ‘The Butcher of Riga’
He was a national hero, a Nazi collaborator, and years later, he was found mysteriously dead inside a crate
The Latvian Lindbergh
During the 1930s, Herberts Cukurs became a national hero. The Latvian born 30-year-old was obsessed with airplanes and flying,
And with great technical skills, managed to build an aircraft of his own design. In 1933 he flew from Riga to Gambia, West-Africa, making a non-stop trip. This flight brought Cukrus to national fame and awarded him with the prestigious Harmon Trophy.
Cukurs later designed and built two more airplanes, and completed trips with an overall flying distance of 45,000 km (28,000 miles). He visited Japan, China, India, the Soviet Union, and Palastine — a place that had a great effect on him. Cukurs was made a member of the Latvian airforce and known throughout the country as “The Latvian Lindbergh”.
The Butcher Of Riga
In 1941, shortly after Nazi Germany occupied Latvia, Cukurs joined the notorious Arajs Kommando.
The group, made of volunteers, was headed by a SS officer and was founded with the sole purpose of hunting down and murdering the Jewish population of Latvia. Cukurs, a celebrity, was highly recognizable. There are many eyewitness reports, placing him at the heart of some of the most gruesome acts done by Arajs Kommando.
Ella Medalye writes in her memoirs: “I once saw from the window Cukurs arriving by car in the ghetto. He was drunk and could barely stand up. He snatched his gun, he started up the streets of the ghetto, bursting into laughter and drunkenly shot at the terrified people like hunted wild beasts.”
From Mendel Vulfovich’s testimony: “Herbert Cukurs was one of the main leaders of their [the Jews’] removal from out of the ghetto and to Rumbula, where they were all shot. Herberts Cukurs went about with his revolver and shot all of the laggards in the column, — the old and the sick — on the spot.
Abram Shapiro gave this sworn statement before the central committee of liberated Jews: “The author had to work for Cukurs at Waldemarstr. 19. He there witnessed many brutalities committed by Cukurs against some of the several hundred Jews…
