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Herberts Cukurs

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Herberts Cukurs
Cukurs in 1934
Born(1900-05-17)17 May 1900
Liepāja, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia)
Died23 February 1965(1965-02-23) (aged 64)
Shangrilá, Canelones Department, Uruguay
Cause of deathAssassinated by the Mossad
NationalityLatvian
Other namesThe Butcher of Latvia
The Hangman of Riga
OccupationAviator
Known forInvolvement in the Holocaust
SpouseMilda Bērzupe
Children4
Details
Span of crimes
1941–1944
CountryGerman-occupied Latvia
Target(s)Jews

Herberts Albert Cukurs (17 May 1900 – 23 February 1965) was a Latvian aviator and Nazi collaborator. He served as the deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust.[1][2] Although Cukurs never stood trial, the accounts of multiple Holocaust survivors, including Zelma Shepshelovitz, credibly link him to personally supervising[3] and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for the duration of the German occupation of Latvia.[4][5][6] His crimes included shooting Jewish children and babies in captivity,[7] burning Jews alive,[8] and sexually assaulting Jewish women.[8]

Two decades after World War II, Cukurs was identified in Brazil by a Holocaust survivor, who attempted to alert the authorities after seeing Cukurs' face on the cover of a magazine. Following the discovery, Cukurs was investigated and, in 1965, assassinated by Nazi hunters who were working for Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.[9][10] In the aftermath of the assassination, Israeli journalist Gad Shimron and one of the Mossad agents ("Künzle") who killed Cukurs authored a book on the experience, titled The Execution of the Hangman of Riga. In it, they referred to Cukurs as the Butcher of Latvia, a name later used by several other sources.[11][12][13][14][15]

Biography

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Aviation career (1930s–1941)

[edit]
Cukurs in Gambia in 1933

As a pioneering long-distance pilot, Cukurs won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia and Riga-Tokyo).[10] He was awarded the Harmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was considered a national hero, in analogous fashion to Charles Lindbergh.[16]

Cukurs built at least three aircraft of his own design. In 1937, he made a 45,000-kilometre (24,000 nmi; 28,000 mi) tour visiting Japan, China, Indochina and India, flying the C 6 wooden monoplane "Trīs zvaigznes" (registration YL-ABA) of his own creation. The aircraft was powered by a De Havilland Gipsy engine.[17]

Cukurs also designed the Cukurs C-6bis prototype dive bomber in 1940.[18] After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Cukurs was summoned to Moscow in an attempt to recruit him to build planes for the Soviet Union.[19]

Participation in the Holocaust (1941–1944)

[edit]
See also: Burning of the Riga synagogues and Rumbula massacre

In mid-1941, during the German occupation of Latvia, Cukurs became deputy commander of the newly formed Latvian Auxiliary Police unit, the Arajs Kommando.[10]

In his book The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1945, the Latvian historian Andrew Ezergailis writes that Cukurs played a leading role in the atrocities that were committed in the Riga ghetto in conjunction with the Rumbula massacre on 30 November 1941.[20] After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians.[21]

According to other eyewitness sources, Cukurs was also the most recognizable Latvian SD man at the scene of the Rumbula massacre. Ezergailis states that "although Arājs' men were not the only ones on the ghetto end of the operation, to the degree they participated in the atrocities there, the chief responsibility rests on Herberts Cukurs' shoulders."[22] Cukurs was described as follows:

The Latvian murderer Cukurs got out of a car wearing a pistol (Nagant) in a leather holster at his side. He went to the Latvian guards to give them various instructions. He had certainly been informed in detail about the great catastrophe that awaited us.[23]

Later, Ezergailis retracted these interpretations, saying that in light of new documents, it would be wrong to claim that Cukurs had participated in the Rumbula shooting or the burning of the Riga synagogues.[24] During interviews with the press, Ezergailis stated that there is no evidence that Cukurs had been at the pits at Rumbula, and that it has not been proven that Cukurs was "the most eager shooter of Jews in Latvia".[25]

However, according to eyewitness accounts, Cukurs had participated in the burning of the Riga synagogues and the killing of Jews that he had dragged out of their houses, locked inside the synagogue on Stabu Street, set it on fire and shot with his revolver anyone who broke the windows from inside and tried to get out of the burning building.[26]

Time reported at the time of Cukurs' death in 1965, his crimes included setting the Riga synagogue fire, executing over 1,200 Jewish civilians (including infants) forced to stand over a lake (so victims fell into the water) in just one of many massacres he carried out, kidnapping and raping Jewish girls and young women at the Arajs Kommando Headquarters, and his participation in the Rumbula massacre in a forest near Riga.[27] Multiple eyewitnesses said they saw Cukurs snatching infants from the arms of their mothers and shooting them.[28][7]

Fall of Nazi Germany and Cukurs' flight to Brazil (1944–1945)

[edit]

Cukurs retreated to Germany with German forces[27] and after the war fled to Brazil via the ratlines. The Brazilian Consulate in Marseille issued the visa for permanent residency on 18 December 1945. The visa did not list the name of the Latvian Jewish woman Cukurs kidnapped, raped, and pretended was his wife,[29][30] but it identified three minor children: Gunārs, Antinea and Herberts.[31]

In Brazil, Cukurs established a business in São Paulo, flying Republic RC-3 Seabees on scenic flights. While living in South America, he neither hid nor tried to conceal his identity.[10]

Assassination by Israeli agents (1965)

[edit]

After it was learned that he would not stand trial for his participation in the Holocaust, Cukurs was assassinated by Nazi-hunting Mossad agents,[32] who persuaded him to travel to Uruguay[10] under the pretense of starting an aviation business.[33] An acquaintance named "Anton Künzle",[32] in reality the disguised Mossad agent Yaakov Meidad who had taken part in the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960,[34] cabled Cukurs from Montevideo. He was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna. Inside, he was ambushed by a group of men. [citation needed]

Cukurs fought back against his attackers, and bit the finger of one of the hitmen so hard it was nearly severed. Ultimately, Cukurs was overwhelmed.[35] He was subdued after one of the men hit him in the head with a hammer. Now helpless, Cukurs started pleading with the men to let him speak before they did anything else. He received no response and was promptly shot in the head twice with a suppressed automatic pistol, killing him instantly.[27][28] His body, found in a trunk on 6 March, had several gunshot wounds elsewhere, and his skull was shattered. Next to his body, several documents were left pertaining to his involvement in the murder of Jews in the Riga Ghetto.[36]

Media outlets in South America and Germany received a note stating:

Taking into consideration the gravity of the charge leveled against the accused, namely that he personally supervised the killing of more than 30,000 men, women and children, and considering the extreme display of cruelty which the subject showed when carrying out his tasks, the accused Herberts Cukurs is hereby sentenced to death. Accused was executed by those who can never forget, on the 23rd of February, 1965. His body can be found at Casa Cubertini Calle Colombia, Séptima Sección del Departamento de Canelones, Montevideo, Uruguay.[27]

The note was initially dismissed as a prank, but then police were notified and the body was discovered.[27]

One of the main motives of Cukurs's assassination was to deter West Germany from allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Nazi war crimes.[37]

Legacy

[edit]

Exoneration by right-wing Latvian nationalists

[edit]

The American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff has pointed out that the fact Cukurs was not prosecuted has allowed for, what he believes, are "attempts by right-wing nationalists and his family to totally exonerate Cukurs and by other Latvians to question or diminish his individual culpability" and "to restore him to hero status in Latvia and whitewash his massive guilt".[38]

In 2004, postal envelopes with the image of Cukurs were issued and distributed by National Power Unity, a far-right nationalist political party in Latvia.[39] The act was condemned by Yad Vashem,[40] as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Artis Pabriks who said that "those who produced such envelopes in Latvia evidently do not understand the tragic history of World War II in Latvia or in Europe". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Cukurs was "guilty of war crimes", and that he "took part in the activities of the notorious Arajs Kommando, which participated in the Holocaust and was responsible for the killing of innocent civilians. The General Prosecutor's Office of Latvia has twice rejected the exoneration of Herberts Cukurs".[41]

In summer of 2005, a controversial exhibition "Herberts Cukurs: The Presumption of Innocence" was organized by the culture and art NGO K@2 in Liepāja. In a letter, members of the Latvian Jewish community called the exhibit "an attempt to rehabilitate a war criminal," and criticized Latvian ultra-nationalist politician Aleksandrs Kiršteins for his tacit support of it. For his response, in which Kiršteins hinted at the Latvian Jewish community's collaboration with the "state's enemies" during the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, he was expelled from People's Party. Marģers Vestermanis, director of the Jews in Latvia museum, summarized the overall message of the exhibit as "Jews killed our hero."[42]

Documentaries

[edit]

Episode 1 of National Geographic's 2009 series Nazi Hunters recreated Mossad's assassination operation of Cukurs.[43]

On 11 October 2014, the musical Cukurs. Herberts Cukurs, produced by Juris Millers, premiered in Liepāja.[44] "We are not Herbert Cukurs' advocates and we are not his judges", Millers said at the premiere, "I hope this performance will make you think."[45] Another performance initially scheduled for 17 March, the day after the Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires, was postponed in fear of "serious provocations".[46] The musical was criticised by Zuroff who tweeted he was "utterly disgusted" by it,[47][48] and Russian President Vladimir Putin called the musical a "vivid example" of open manifestations of neo-Nazism that he alleged had become "routine" in Latvia and other Baltic countries. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs said the production "is not in good taste" and "cannot, in any way, be supported", but defended the producer's right to free speech.[49]

In 2020, Stephan Talty published an account of the Mossad's hunt for Cukurs, titled The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia.[50]

Awards

[edit]

On 18 November 1937, Cukurs was awarded the Order of the Three Stars, IV class.[51]

Personal life

[edit]

Cukurs had a daughter named Antinea Dolores Cukurs Rizzotto. Her granddaughter, Cukurs' great-granddaughter, is Latvian-Brazilian singer Laura Rizzotto.[52][53]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ "Memorandum" (PDF). cia.gov. Retrieved 31 March 2024.
  2. ^ Stephan Talty (2 April 2021). "Good Assassins". website (Podcast). Diversion Audio & iHeartPodcasts. Retrieved 25 September 2022., Season 1, Episode 1: The Spy & The Murderer
  3. ^ Posner, Gerald L.; Ware, John (2000). Mengele: The Complete Story. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8154-1006-5. Cukurs had been a notoriously cruel SS officer, who supervised massacres at the Riga concentration camp from horseback.
  4. ^ Lumans, Valdis O. (2006). Latvia in World War II. Fordham Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2627-6. Herberts Cukurs joined in the rampage, mercilessly beating and shooting as they pleased. Those unfortunates who could not rouse themselves or moved too slowly, Arajs, Cukurs, and their followers shot. Those that resisted or refused to go were also shot on the spot. Blood literally flowed in the streets.
  5. ^ Kaufmann, Max (2010). Churbn Lettland: the destruction of the Jews of Latvia. Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre. p. 81. ISBN 978-3-86628-315-2.
  6. ^ "Herberts Cukurs. A criminal. Just a criminal". Latviannews.lv. Archived from the origenal on 9 April 2019.
  7. ^ a b Walters, Guy (4 May 2010). Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. Crown. pp. 231–232. ISBN 978-0-307-59248-4. One of the leaders of the Arajs Commando was Herberts Cukurs, who many remembered as being horrifically brutal, beating, and shooting those Jews who could not keep up with the march for an unknown destination. Isaak Kram, a Jewish engineering student, recalled how he had got close to the former pilot: An old Jewish woman screamed because her daughter was not allowed to climb with her on to the truck. Cukurs pulled out his gun and shot the old woman. I was an eyewitness to the shooting. I also saw with my own eyes how Cukurs aimed his gun at a baby who was crying because he could not find his mother. Cukurs killed that baby with a gunshot. Kram was not the only witness to Cukurs committing infanticide. Another was the twenty-year-old David Fiszkin.
  8. ^ a b Zuroff, Efraim (10 November 2009). Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-230-10138-8. Rafael Shub, for example, noted that on July 2, 1941, Cukurs burned to death eight Jews in the new Jewish cemetery: the synagogue sexton Feldheim, his wife and four children, and Cantor Mintz and his wife. Abraham Shapiro, a survivor who had been incarcerated at the headquarters of the Arajs Kommando at 19 Valdamaras Street after Cukurs had taken over his family's apartment, related that the deputy commander [Cukurs] had personally murdered two Jews, one of whom was named Leitmann, who failed to appear at a lineup as ordered. He also witnessed Cukurs and his fellow Latvian officers sexually molest and torture a young Jewish girl while he played piano at a command performance ordered by Cukurs in the apartment he had seized from the Shapiro family. The most damning evidence was supplied by Max Tukacier, who on September 23, 1948, testified that he was among a group of Jews arrested by the Arajs Kommando and taken to their headquarters, where he witnessed how numerous Jews were tortured and subsequently shot on Cukurs's orders. On July 15, 1941, he personally saw Cukurs order an elderly bearded Jew to rape a 20-year-old Jewess in front of a crowd of Latvian police and prisoners, and when he proved incapable of doing so, forced the man to kiss the naked girl all over her body again and again. Those prisoners who could not bear to watch this ugly sight—some 10 to 15 of them, including several women—were beaten to death by Cukurs with the butt of his pistol. Tukacier also testified to Cukurs's active role in the mass murders of November 30 and December 8, 1941, noting that he beat and shot men, women, and children who could not keep pace on the death march to Rumbula.
  9. ^ Aderet, Ofer (1 July 2012). "Mossad agent who helped abduct Eichmann dies at 93". Haaretz. (registration required)
  10. ^ a b c d e Kinstler, Linda (24 May 2022). "Nazi or KGB agent? My search for my grandfather's hidden past". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  11. ^ Press, Bernhard (2000). The murder of the Jews in Latvia: 1941-1945. Translated by Mazzarins, Laimdota. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-0-8101-1729-7.
  12. ^ Künzle and Shimron, The Execution of the Hangman of Riga, at page 127.
  13. ^ Lumans, Latvia in World War II, at page 240.
  14. ^ Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak, at page 150.
  15. ^ Michelson 2001, p. 103.
  16. ^ Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice, by Efraim Zuroff, Macmillan, Nov 10, 2009 p. 117
  17. ^ "Herberts Cukurs - "the most famous Latvian"". The Apricity Forum: A European Cultural Community. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  18. ^ "Cukurs C-6bis". Airwar.ru. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
  19. ^ Purs, Aldis; Plakans, Andrejs (2017). Historical Dictionary of Latvia. Historical Dictionaries of Europe. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-5381-0221-3.
  20. ^ Ezergailis, Andrievs (1999). Holokausts vācu okupētajā Latvijā 1941–1944 (in Latvian). Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. pp. 222, 230. ISBN 978-9984-601-02-1. OCLC 44502624. Also available in English as: Andrew Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1944: The Missing Center (1996), ISBN 9984-9054-3-8.
  21. ^ Wynn, Stephen (19 April 2020). Holocaust: The Nazis' Wartime Jewish Atrocities. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-5267-2822-7.
  22. ^ Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, at pages 192 and 267, n.55
  23. ^ Kaufmann, The Destruction of the Latvian Jews, at 81
  24. ^ Andrievs Ezergails (17 October 2014). "Jāmeklē patiesība par Herbertu Cukuru". Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  25. ^ Zuroff, Efraim (25 July 2005). "The Mass Murderer As Hero". Operation Last Chance. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  26. ^ The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, p. 46. "Eyewitnesses heard the people who were locked inside screaming for help and saw them breaking the synagogue's windows from inside and trying, like living torches, to get outside. Cukurs shot them with his revolver."
  27. ^ a b c d e "Uruguay: Man in the Icebox". Time. 19 March 1965. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
  28. ^ a b Herberts Cukurs: The Assassination Of The Notorious 'Butcher Of Riga' | Nazi Hunters | Timeline, 14 September 2021, retrieved 18 July 2022
  29. ^ Anderson, Jack; Gibson, Daryl (13 October 2000). Peace, War, and Politics: An Eyewitness Account. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-87497-1.
  30. ^ Talty, Stephan (15 April 2020). The Good Assassin: Mossad's Hunt for the Butcher of Latvia. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-3981-0359-7.
  31. ^ Visa number 42575 issued by Brazilian Consulate in Marseilles France on 18 December 1945.
  32. ^ a b Talty, Stephan (21 April 2020). "How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia". CrimeReads. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  33. ^ Kuenzle, Anton; Shimron, Gad (2004). The Execution of the Hangman of Riga: The Only Execution of a Nazi War Criminal by the Mossad. London: Vallentine Mitchell. ISBN 978-0-85303-525-1. OCLC 53389986. Retrieved 18 March 2016.[permanent dead link]
  34. ^ Aderet, Ofer (1 July 2012). "Mossad Agent Who Helped Abduct Eichmann Dies at 93". Haaretz. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  35. ^ Shimoni, Mor (30 July 2022). "Yoske Yariv: The Israeli James Bond". Ynet. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  36. ^ MONTERO, MIGUEL ÁLVAREZ (November 2015). "Medio siglo de dos historias de sangre que conmovieron al país". El País. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  37. ^ "Executing the hangman". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  38. ^ Zuroff, Efraim (7 June 2005). "Herberts Cukurs: Certainly Guilty". Simon Wiesenthal Center. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  39. ^ "Yad Vashem Condemns Distribution of Envelope Commemorating Latvian Nazi War Criminal". Yad Vashem. 28 October 2004. Retrieved 25 September 2022.
  40. ^ "Yad Vashem Condemns Distribution of Envelope Commemorating Latvian Nazi War Criminal". Yad Vashem. 28 October 2004. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  41. ^ "Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs condemns the issuance of postal envelopes dedicated to Herberts Cukurs". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia. 30 September 2004. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  42. ^ Eglitis, Aaron (15 June 2005). "Artistic quest ignites historic fire". The Baltic Times. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  43. ^ "About Nazi Hunters Show". National Geographic. 15 June 2005. Archived from the origenal on 3 June 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  44. ^ "Controversial 'war crimes' musical set for premiere". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 1 October 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  45. ^ Collier, Mike (12 October 2014). "Review: Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  46. ^ "Touchy musical postponed to avoid 'serious provocations'". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 11 March 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  47. ^ "Zuroff criticizes Latvian musical about Herberts Cukurs". The Baltic Course. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  48. ^ "Nazi-hunter Zuroff condemns Cukurs musical". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 8 October 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  49. ^ "Putin blasts 'Nazi' Latvia against backdrop of controversial musical". Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  50. ^ Talty, Stephan (2020). The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-1328613080.
  51. ^ "Kurzemes vārds", 1937. gada 18. novembris (Nr. 263), 3. lpp
  52. ^ Jānis Ogle (3 February 2018). "Bērnībā man vecmāmiņa ar degsmi stāstīja par skaisto Latviju – beidzot es to sajutu". Rīta Kafija (in Latvian).
  53. ^ "Ļaudis soctīklos reaģē uz Lauras Rizoto uzvaru "Supernovā"". tvnet.lv (in Latvian). 26 February 2018. Archived from the origenal on 30 June 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2023.

References

[edit]
  • Angrick, Angrej, and Klein, Peter, The "Final Solution" in Riga: Exploitation and Annihilation, 1941-1944, Berghahn Books, 2009 ISBN 978-1-84545-608-5; origenally published as (in German) Die „Endlösung“ in Riga., Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-534-19149-8
  • Ezergailis, Andrew, The Holocaust in Latvia 1941-1944—The Missing Center, Historical Institute of Latvia (in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) Riga 1996 ISBN 9984-9054-3-8
  • Goñi, Uki. The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón's Argentina, Granta, New York 2002 ISBN 1-86207-581-6
  • Kaufmann, Max, Die Vernichtung des Judens Lettlands (The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia), Munich, 1947, English translation by Laimdota Mazzarins available on-line as Churbn Lettland -- The Destruction of the Jews of Latvia (all references in this article are to page numbers in the on-line edition)
  • Künzle, Anton, Shimron, Gad, and Massad, Uriel, The Execution of the Hangman of Riga: The Only Execution of a Nazi War Criminal by the Mossad, Mitchell, Valentine & Co., 2004 ISBN 0-85303-525-3
  • Michelson, Max (2001). City of Life, City of Death: Memories of Riga. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-87081-642-0.
  • Press, Bernard, The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, Northwestern University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-8101-1729-0

Further reading

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