by Aleksandrs Feigmanis (Riga)
Herberts Cukurs (1900-1965) had been an officer and a famous aviator during the years of the interwar Latvian Republic (1918-1940). After Nazi Germany’s 1941 occupation of Latvia, he became a significant figure in the infamous Arājs Kommando (or Sonderkommando Arajs), a notorious killing unit during the Latvian Holocaust. The Arājs group consisted of about 1,200 people, mostly local Latvians. It was established at the beginning of July 1941 within the German security services.
The Arājs Kommando carried out the killing of at least 30,000 Jews in numerous cities and towns in Latvia. The toll included the family of my grandfather in Vilani (in Yiddish Vilon), which occurred at dawn on August 4, 1941. The victims were his parents, and his sisters and their husbands and young children.
That Cukurs is back in the news here now has to do with a new musical to premiere soon across Latvia for which a Youtube promo clip of Herberts Cukurs has elicited such comments as “wonderful, nice music, nice voice!” and more. This naturally makes a mockery of the memory of victims of the Holocaust.