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| Kaiserwald | |
|---|---|
| Concentration camp | |
 Image of the camp after 1945 | |
 Interactive map of Kaiserwald | |
| Other names | Ķeizarmežs |
| Operated by | Nazi Germany |
| Commandant | Albert Sauer |
| Operational | March 1943 – 15 October 1944 |
| Number of inmates | 11,878, almost all Jews |
| Liberated by | Red Army |
Kaiserwald (Ķeizarmežs) was aNazi concentration camp near theRiga suburb ofMežaparks, then part ofReichskommissariat Ostland, in modern-dayLatvia.
Kaiserwald was built in March 1943, during the period that theGerman army occupied Latvia.[1] The first inmates of the camp were several hundred convicts from Germany.
Following theliquidation of theRiga,Liepāja andDaugavpils (Dvinsk)ghettos in June 1943, the remainder of the Jews of Latvia, along with most of the survivors of the liquidation of theVilna Ghetto, weredeported to Kaiserwald.
In early 1944, a number of smaller camps around Riga were brought under the jurisdiction of the Kaiserwald camp.
Following the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, Hungarian Jews were sent to Kaiserwald, as were a number of Jews fromŁódź, in Poland. By March 1944, there were 11,878 inmates in the camp and its subsidiaries, 6,182 males and 5,696 females, of whom only 95 weregentiles.
UnlikeAuschwitz orTreblinka, Kaiserwald was not anextermination camp, and the inmates were put to work by large German companies, notablyAllgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, which used a large number of femaleslaves from Kaiserwald in the production ofelectrical goods, such as batteries.
On 5 August 1944, as theRed Army advanced westwards and entered Latvia, the Germans began to evacuate the inmates of Kaiserwald toStutthof concentration camp, in Poland. All Jews under 18 or over 30 were murdered along with anyone who had been convicted of any offense or anyone who it was thought would be unable to survive the trip from Latvia to Poland. The remaining inmates who did not die during the journey arrived at Stutthof in September 1944.
The Red Army took over the camp on 15 October 1944 and later used the camp to house Axis prisoners of war.
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56°59′49″N24°07′53″E / 56.99694°N 24.13139°E /56.99694; 24.13139
