Language:
English
Year of publication:
2012
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
40,2 (2012) 81-106
Keywords:
War crime trials
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
During the German occupation of Latvia, Arājs headed the "lettische Hilfssicherheitspolizei", unofficially known as the "Arājs Kommando". In 1941-43 this volunteer paramilitary unit, operating under the command of the Einsatzkommando 2 and later of Sipo Lettland, murdered no less than 24,000 Jews. In 1945, under a false name, Arājs surrendered to the British in Germany, but in 1949, when his true identity was ascertained, he managed to disappear from the detention camp and went underground. Only in 1975 was Arājs arrested in Frankfurt and brought to trial in Hamburg. In December 1979, after a four-and-a-half year trial involving ca. 130 witnesses from various countries, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died in 1988. Notes that while having amassed a huge amount of evidence against Arājs, the West German judicial authorities were unenthusiastic in looking for him before 1974, when he was denounced to them by a Latvian. Characteristically, despite the understandable ethnic solidarity, the Latvian émigré community in West Germany was not prone to support him; it was Latvians who provided the German investigation with items of information on him and eventually "betrayed" him.
Note:
In English and Hebrew.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink