Herberts Cukurs | |
|---|---|
 Cukurs in 1934 | |
| Born | (1900-05-17)17 May 1900 Liepāja,Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia) |
| Died | 23 February 1965(1965-02-23) (aged 64) |
| Cause of death | Assassinated by the Mossad |
| Nationality | Latvian |
| Other names | The Butcher of Latvia The Hangman of Riga |
| Occupation | Aviator |
| Known for | Involvement in theHolocaust |
| Spouse | Milda Bērzupe |
| Children | 4 |
| Details | |
Span of crimes | 1941–1944 |
| Country | German-occupied Latvia |
| Target | Jews |
Herberts Albert Cukurs (17 May 1900 – 23 February 1965) was a Latvian aviator andNazi collaborator. He served as the deputy commander of theArajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders ofLatvian Jews during theHolocaust.[1][2] Although Cukurs never stood trial, the accounts of multipleHolocaust survivors, including Zelma Shepshelovitz, credibly link him to personally supervising[3] and committingwar crimes andcrimes against humanity for the duration of theGerman 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 afterWorld War II, Cukurs was identified inBrazil 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 byNazi hunters who were working forMossad, the national intelligence agency ofIsrael.[9][10] In the aftermath of the assassination, Israeli journalistGad Shimron and one of the Mossad agents ("Künzle") who killed Cukurs authored a book on the experience, titledThe Execution of the Hangman of Riga. In it, they referred to Cukurs as theButcher of Latvia, a name later used by several other sources.[11][12][13][14][15]
As a pioneering long-distance pilot, Cukurs won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia andRiga-Tokyo).[10] He was awarded theHarmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was considered a national hero, in analogous fashion toCharles 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 visitingJapan,China,Indochina andIndia, flying the C 6 woodenmonoplane "Trīs zvaigznes" (registrationYL-ABA) of his own creation. The aircraft was powered by aDe Havilland Gipsy engine.[citation needed]
Cukurs also designed theCukurs C-6bis prototypedive bomber in 1940.[17] After theSoviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Cukurs was summoned to Moscow in an attempt to recruit him to build planes for theSoviet Union.[18]
In mid-1941, during theGerman occupation of Latvia, Cukurs became deputy commander of the newly formed Latvian Auxiliary Police unit, theArajs Kommando.[10]
In his bookThe Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1945, the Latvian historianAndrew Ezergailis writes that Cukurs played a leading role in the atrocities that were committed in theRiga ghetto in conjunction with theRumbula massacre on 30 November 1941.[19] After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians.[20]
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."[21] 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.[22]
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.[23] 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".[24]
However, according to eyewitness accounts, Cukurs had participated in theburning 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.[25]
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 theRumbula massacre in a forest near Riga.[26] Multiple eyewitnesses said they saw Cukurs snatching infants from the arms of their mothers and shooting them.[27][7]
Cukurs retreated to Germany with German forces[26] and after the war fled toBrazil via theratlines. The Brazilian Consulate inMarseille 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,[28][29] but it identified three minor children: Gunārs, Antinea and Herberts.[30]
In Brazil, Cukurs established a business inSão Paulo, flyingRepublic RC-3 Seabees on scenic flights. While living in South America, he neither hid nor tried to conceal his identity.[10]
After it was learned that he would not stand trial for his participation inthe Holocaust, Cukurs was assassinated by Nazi-huntingMossad agents,[31] who persuaded him to travel toUruguay[10] under the pretense of starting an aviation business.[32] An acquaintance named "Anton Künzle",[31] in reality the disguised Mossad agentYaakov Meidad who had taken part in the capture ofAdolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960,[33] cabled Cukurs fromMontevideo. He was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man fromVienna. 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.[34] 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 asuppressed automatic pistol, killing him instantly.[26][27] 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 theRiga Ghetto.[35]
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 delDepartamento de Canelones, Montevideo, Uruguay.[26]
The note was initially dismissed as a prank, but then police were notified and the body was discovered.[26]
One of the main motives of Cukurs's assassination was to deterWest Germany from allowing the statute of limitations to expire onNazi war crimes.[36]
The American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunterEfraim 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".[37]
In 2004, postal envelopes with the image of Cukurs were issued and distributed byNational Power Unity, afar-rightnationalistpolitical party inLatvia.[38] The act was condemned byYad Vashem,[39] as well asMinister of Foreign Affairs of LatviaArtis 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 theexoneration of Herberts Cukurs".[40]
In summer of 2005, a controversial exhibition "Herberts Cukurs: The Presumption of Innocence" was organized by the culture and art NGO K@2 inLiepāja. In a letter, members of theLatvian Jewish community called the exhibit "an attempt to rehabilitate a war criminal," and criticized Latvian ultra-nationalist politicianAleksandrs 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 theSoviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, he was expelled fromPeople's Party.Marģers Vestermanis, director of theJews in Latvia museum, summarized the overall message of the exhibit as "Jews killed our hero."[41]
Episode 1 ofNational Geographic's 2009 seriesNazi Hunters recreated Mossad's assassination operation of Cukurs.[42]
On 11 October 2014, the musicalCukurs. Herberts Cukurs, produced by Juris Millers, premiered in Liepāja.[43] "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."[44] Another performance initially scheduled for 17 March, the day after theRemembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires, was postponed in fear of "serious provocations".[45] The musical was criticised by Zuroff who tweeted he was "utterly disgusted" by it,[46][47] andRussian PresidentVladimir 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 LatviaEdgars 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.[48]
In 2020, Stephan Talty published an account of the Mossad's hunt for Cukurs, titledThe Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia.[49]
On 18 November 1937, Cukurs was awarded the Order of the Three Stars, IV class.[50]
Cukurs had a daughter named Antinea Dolores Cukurs Rizzotto. Her granddaughter, Cukurs' great-granddaughter, is Latvian-Brazilian singerLaura Rizzotto.[51][52]
Cukurs had been a notoriously cruel SS officer, who supervised massacres at the Riga concentration camp from horseback.
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.
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.
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.
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