On Friday, June 14, 1940, German troops marched into Paris. The eyes of
the entire world turned to poor France; nobody saw what was happening
to the Baltic States.
that Black Friday, Lithuania was handed an ultimatum by Germany's ally,
the Soviets. The next day, June 15, the Bolshevik army occupied
Lithuania and moved into positions along the southern border of Latvia.
Also, during the night of June 14-15, a Red Army patrol raided Latvian
territory to the east of the village of Maslenki, killing three Latvian
border guards, a woman, and a child, and taking captive 11 border
guards and 32 civilians. The Latvian government demanded an official
investigation by the Soviets of this provocation, but the demand was
In this tense time, on June 15 and 16, a
large song festival went ahead as planned in the capital of Latgale,
Daugavpils (Dvinsk). However, the 60,000 participants, choir members
and spectators, knew what was happening in Lithuania and had dark
premonitions about the future. At the end of the festival, the national
anthem "Dievs, sveti Latviju" (God bless Latvia) was sung three times,
with tears in the eyes of most of those present.
festival, a solemn service was held in the main synagogue of
Daugavpils. The government representative was greeted by guard of honor
formed by Jewish schoolchildren. He was repeatedly asked, "allowing for
the threatening political situation," to deliver to the president the
Daugavpils Jewish community's affirmations of confidence.
government was represented at the festival by the minister for public
affairs, Alfreds Berzins, since the crisis situation prevented
President Karlis Ulmanis from attending as initially intended. The
president did, however, give a radio address, stressing that
"international events this week have moved with a rapidity far
exceeding all precedents any of us have witnessed. The present
situation demands that I stay in Riga, and I hope all of you
understand.... Latgale borders directly with our large Eastern
neighbor, with whom we share extremely important items of mutual
interest. These items deal with our security and with the security of
the Soviet Union, and first of all with mutual faith and trust."
faith and trust.... At 2 p.m. on June 16, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics gave Latvia an ultimatum that demanded an answer by 8 p.m.
the same day. Estonia received a similar ultimatum. That evening the
Latvian ambassador to Moscow, Fricis Kocins, delivered an answer, in
which he "served notice that the Latvian Government agreed to the
conditions of the Soviet Union," as reported by the Latvian Telegraph
Who knows, if this cynical and brutal action had been
carried out in a less tumultuous time, perhaps the Western democracies
might have taken more notice. Perhaps they might have protested at
least as emphatically as they did in March 1939, when Hitler forced
Czechoslovakia's President Hacha to accept the German ultimatum and
turned Czechoslovakia into a Reich protectorate, Bohemia and Moravia.
As it happened, the world's attention was focused on the German army's
victory in France and Britain's isolation, leaving the death-throes of
the Baltic states to take place in an international vacuum, with only
the slightest mention in the press.
What did the Kremlin
demand in the ultimatum? "1) Immediately form a Latvian government
that is ready and able to ensure that the Soviet-Latvian mutual
assistance pact is carried out; 2) Allow the Soviet army to immediately
enter Latvia's territory unhindered and be stationed in the most
important centers in such numbers as to ensure that the Soviet-Latvian
mutual assistance pact can be carried out and to prevent possible
provocations against Soviet garrisons in Latvia."
Czechoslovakia, with a large, well-armed army, capitulated to Hitler
without a fight, what could Latvia do? As reported in the newspaper
Jaunakas Zinas Monday, June 17, 1940, "in the early hours of the
morning, the first Soviet army units crossed the Latvian border." This
was a terrible shock for the Latvian people.
That summer, as
every summer, my family lived on the Baltic coast at Jurmala, on Balvu
Street in Avoti. We stayed in a summer home belonging to the baker and
confectioner Schortmann, father-in-law of the prominent lawyer Armins
Rusis. On that fateful day my father returned from Riga earlier than
usual, and his first words were, "Frankie, listen, who would have
thought! You know who's greeting Soviet tanks by the railroad station?
Jewish yingelech (lads) from the Moscow suburb!"
1938 there were only 200 local communists left in Latvia, and by June
17, 1940, probably far fewer. But the communists had sympathizers, and
unfortunately Jews were conspicuously present in their ranks. Dov Levin
wrote about "the abundant enthusiasm and sympathy with which the Red
Army was welcomed in many areas by the Jews --principally by communists
but also by 'ordinary Jews'" (Soviet Jewish Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 1,
1975, p. 40). In his book With Their Backs to the Wall (pp. 22-23), he
recounts, for example, Baruch Minkiewitz's testimony that in Riga
Jewish communists "covered Soviet tanks with flowers, and there were
those who jumped up on the tanks and kissed the Red tank drivers."
the Soviet Jewish Affairs article, Levin writes that there were
instances where Jews took part in the safeguarding of Red Army units
and the prevention of hostile acts against them by Lettish military
organizations. According to eyewitness accounts, in the town of Vilani,
in Latgalia (Eastern Latvia), Jewish youths forcibly prevented members
of the Aizsargi organization from firing upon Red Army tanks which
entered the town.... The participation of many Jews in armed clashes
with the Aizsargi in Libau (Liepaja) on June 19,1940, is described by
one of the participants, a Jewish dock worker in Libau.
correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Riga, Donald Day, was a
witness to these dramatic hours: "On June 17 there was a mob at the
railway station, waving red rags and screaming in hysterical joy about
the arrival of the Russians. The Latvian language could not be heard.
The speeches, the shouts, the screams were all in Russian or Yiddish."
What had happened? How could that happen? How can it be explained?
Jews were, after all, on the whole loyal to the country of which they
were citizens, and we have just seen that in Daugavpils, during the
Latgale song festival, many Jews affirmed their solidarity with the
Latvian government and people.
And yet... Some months before
the Red Army entered Latvia, police uniforms had been changed, and the
French-Austrian "kepi" was replaced by a cap somewhat resembling that
of a Russian officer. When the first Latvian policeman in the new
uniform and cap assumed his post in the Daugavpils central square,
eyewitnesses reported that some Jewish youths ran up to him, exclaiming
in Russian, "Finally! How we've waited for you!" Strange indeed...
Levin (op. cit., p. 42) explains: "Although it is true that only a
small proportion of the Jewish community took part in the excited and
joyful demonstrations that welcomed the Red Army into Latvia, there
were very many Jews who shared a feeling of relief and concord with
that army, because of their fear that, in the international political
constellation of those days, the only other alternative was the Nazi
domination of Latvia."
That is understandable. But one can
also understand the Latvians, who, to say the least, were surprised by
the actions of many, but not all, Jews on that fateful day. That was
the day that their nation ceased to exist, a day of national tragedy. A
clash of interests? Perhaps. But later, within a year, this clash was
to have a macabre echo, a deadly aftermath.
When the Red Army
invaded Poland's eastern provinces on September 17, 1939, many Jews
also welcomed the invaders. However, it must be remembered that
anti-Semitism was pronounced in Poland, and, more importantly, Hitler's
divisions were approaching from the west, which for the Jews was
undoubtedly the much greater evil. Again, when the Red Army invaded
Bessarabia, a Rumanian province, on June 28, 1940, many Jews welcomed
the invaders, and here too one must remember that Rumanian anti-Semites
in the Iron Guard had frequently provoked incidents with Jews and
organized mini-pogroms, while in the Soviet Union, so it was said, use
of the denigrating term "Zhid" (equivalent to "yid" or "kike") was
punishable by fines or even jail.
But in Latvia, Lithuania, and
even Estonia, where Jews were few in number, where anti-Semitism was
absent, and where this ethnic minority was guaranteed unheard-of
cultural autonomy? What led so many Baltic Jews to welcome the hordes
of Soviet militarism, of Bolshevik totalitarianism, of, one might even
say, Red fascism?
It is true that fear of the other
alternative, Hitler's Germany, and illusions about the "essentially
internationalist" nature of the Soviet regime played a large part. But
the traditional complex or syndrome of "mimicry in self-defense,"
characteristic of the Jewish Diaspora in various troubled periods, also
came into play. It is a fact that Jewish communities in those regions
where a strong nation oppressed a weaker one, tended to support the
stronger nation, not side with the weaker one. For example, it was so
in Austro-Hungary, where Bohemian Jews sent their children not to
Czech, but German schools; Galician Jews identified with the Polish
upper class, not with Ruthenians (Ukrainians); and Transylvanian Jews
even now consider themselves to be not Rumanian, but Hungarian Jews.
with Hitler's Germans, Stalin's Russians were, quite understandably,
the lesser evil in the eyes of the Baltic Jews, but there was also the
inclination to please the new masters, hoping for their favor, not
considering the emotions of the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians.
course of Latvian history shows that there were always quite a few
flatterers and toadies among Latvians, too, ready to serve one or
another foreign master. But in this specific case, in the summer of
1940, one can say there was a clash of interests between most Latvians
and many Jews, and so the seed for the tragic events of the summer of
1941 was sown.
The Israeli historian Dov Levin states: "It is
impossible to understand the Holocaust without knowing what happened in
the western Soviet territories in 1939 to 1941" (Newsview, Jerusalem,
August 10, 1980, p. 22).