Sonderkommando Arajs

  • Arajs Sonderkommando
Identifier
655
Type of Entity
Corporate Body

Dates of Existence

Founded in 1941-07-02

History

Viktors Arajs, head of the Sonderkommando Arajs, recruited about three hundred men from the Latvian police and military. Under German supervision, they proceeded to shoot Jews at killing pits in the Bikernieki Forest. Between 1941-07 and 1941-09 Arajs's Latvian killers accumulated a body count of about four thousand Jews and a thousand Communists.

Places

  • Active in Latvia.

Sources

  • Approaches to Auschwitz : The Holocaust and Its Legacy / L. Rubenstein, J.K. Roth. - Louisville, 2003. - p. 177