Viktors Arājs (13 January 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a Latvian/

Baltic German Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...

collaborator and Nazi SS SD officer who took part in

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

during the German occupation of Latvia and

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

as the leader of the Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit. The Arajs Kommando murdered about half of Latvia's Jews. Klee, ''Das Personenlexicon zum Dritten Reich'', at page 18

Life

Viktors Bernhard Arājs was born on 13 January 1910 in the town of Baldone, then part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(now

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

). His father was a Latvian

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

and his mother came from a wealthy family of

Baltic Germans Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their resettlement in 1945 after the end of World War II, Baltic Germans have drastically decli ...

. Arājs attended

Jelgava Gymnasium Jelgava Gymnasium or Academia Petrina is the oldest higher educational establishment in Latvia. Based on an idea by , it was established in Jelgava, Mitau, capital of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, by Duke Peter von Biron in 1775. The duke ...

, which he left in 1930 for mandatory national defense service in the Latvian Army. In 1932, Arājs studied law at the

University of Latvia University of Latvia (, shortened ''LU'') is a public research university located in Riga, Latvia. The university was established in 1919. History The University of Latvia, initially named as the Higher School of Latvia () was founded on Se ...

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, but completed his degree only in 1941 after the Soviet occupation. He was a member of the elite

student fraternity In North America, fraternities and sororities ( and ) are social clubs at colleges and universities. They are sometimes collectively referred to as Greek life or Greek-letter organizations, as well as collegiate fraternities or collegiate sorori ...

'' Lettonia'', which may have helped him get a job with the Latvian police after he left the university. Arājs remained with the Latvian police until he left the service in 1938.Lumans, ''Latvia in World War II'', at page 239. During the Ulmanis' régime in Latvia, Arājs was a "low ranking provincial police officer" who, as a loyal administrator, dutifully "distanced himself officially from the

Pērkonkrusts Pērkonkrusts (, "Thunder Cross") was a Latvian ultranationalist, Anti-German sentiment, anti-German, anti-Slavic, and antisemitic political party founded in 1933 by Gustavs Celmiņš, borrowing elements of German nationalism—but being unsym ...

", the ultra-nationalist party in Latvia.

Activities during World War II

The war between Germany and the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941. Shortly afterwards, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

abandoned Riga to the advancing

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

. Arājs then took over an abandoned police precinct house at 19 Valdemāra Street. Arājs' future commanders, Franz Stahlecker and Robert Stieglitz, had with them a Latvian translator, Hans Dressler, whom Arājs had known in high school and in the Latvian Army. Because of this friendship, Arājs was introduced to Stahlecker, got on their best side, and gained their trust. Arājs recruited the core of his troops from his student fraternity and Pērkonkrusts. On 2 July, Arājs learned from Stahlecker during a conference that his unit had to unleash a pogrom that was supposed to appear spontaneous. On 4 July 1941, the German leadership turned loose "Security Group Arājs", generally referred to as the Arājs Kommando or Special Commando (''

Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ) were Extermination through labor, work units made up of Nazi Germany, German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the di ...

'') Arājs. On the same day, the Germans ran a recruiting advertisement in the occupation-controlled Latvian language newspaper ''Tēvija'' (''Fatherland''): "To all patriotic Latvians, Pērkonkrusts members, Students, Officers, Militiamen, and Citizens, who are ready to actively take part in the cleansing of our country of undesirable elements" should enroll themselves at the office of the Security Group at 19 Valdemāra Street. On 4 July Arājs and his henchmen trapped about 20 Jews, who had not been able to take flight before the advancing Germans, in the Riga Synagogue on Gogoļa Street. There they were burnt alive while hand grenades were thrown through the windows. The Arājs commando consisted of 500–1500 volunteers. The unit murdered approximately 26,000 people, first in Latvia and then in Belarus. Arājs was promoted to police major in 1942, and in 1943 to SS-Sturmbannführer. Herberts Cukurs, the former Latvian pilot, was the adjutant to Arājs. The Arajs Kommando were notorious for their ill-treatment of women. Viktors Arājs raped a Jewish woman, Zelma Shepshelovitz, during the war. Her testimony served a crucial part in the trials of

war criminals A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostag ...

Post-war

Until 1949, Arājs was interned in a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. After that he is rumored in some sources to have worked as a driver for the British in the British military government in

Delmenhorst Delmenhorst (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Demost'') is an urban district (''List of German urban districts, Kreisfreie Stadt'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It has a population of 74,500 and is located west of downtown Bremen (city), Bremen with which ...

, then in the British occupation zone, but Richards Plavnieks, who extensively researched Arājs' life, believes this to be false. To the contrary, Arājs was due to be a major defendant in what British officials called the "Riga Ghetto Case", a mass trial of 16 war criminals to be conducted by a British military tribunal. Survivors spent years collecting testimonies for the trial, but British authorities dropped the case. With assistance from the Latvian government-in-exile in London, Arājs took on the cover name of Victor (Viktors) Zeibots. He worked in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

as an assistant at a printing company. On 21 December 1979, he was found guilty in the State Court of Hamburg (''Landgericht Hamburg'') of having on 8 December 1941 conducted the Jews of the greater

Riga Ghetto Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Latvian Jewish, Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich" (Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), to live during World War II. On ...

to their deaths by the mass shootings in the Rumbula forest. For participation in the murder of 13,000 people, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
, Verfahren Nr. 856, LG Hamburg 791221. In 1988, Arājs died in solitary confinement in a prison in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

.Press, ''The Murder of the Jews in Latvia: 1941–1945'', page 70.

Notes

References

*
Braune Helden
(russ.) * Klee, Ernst, ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich''. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 18. (Aktualisierte 2. Auflage) *

, Verfahren Nr. 856, LG Hamburg 791221 * Lumans, Valdis, O, ''Latvia in World War II'', Fordham University Press, New York 2006 * Press, Bernard, ''The murder of the Jews in Latvia: 1941–1945'', translation from German by Laimdota Mazzarins. Northwestern University Press, Evanston (IL) 2000, p. 70. . (originally published under the title of ''Judenmord in Lettland 1941–1945'', Metropol, Berlin 1992. ). *
Zeitung "Tēvija" vom 4.7.1941
* Vestermanis, Margers (Leiter des Museum "Juden in Lettland" in Riga):

''. In: ''Newsletter des Fritz Bauer Institut'', Nr. 18 vom Frühjahr 2000.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arajs, Viktors 1910 births 1988 deaths People from Ķekava Municipality People from Bauska county Latvian people of Baltic German descent Latvian police officers University of Latvia alumni SS-Sturmbannführer German military personnel of World War II Arajs Kommando personnel Latvian rapists Recipients of the Iron Cross, 2nd class Recipients of the War Merit Cross Latvian World War II refugees Latvian emigrants to Germany People convicted of murder by Germany Latvian people convicted of murder Latvian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Germany Latvian people who died in prison custody Prisoners who died in German detention Nazis convicted of war crimes Nazis who died in prison custody