Herberts Cukurs Explained

Herberts Cukurs
Birth Date:17 May 1900
Birth Place:Liepāja, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia)
Death Place:Shangrilá, Canelones Department, Uruguay
Death Cause:Assassinated by the Mossad
Occupation:Aviator
Known For:Involvement in the Holocaust
Spouse:Milda Bērzupe
Children:4
Country:German-occupied Latvia
Targets:Jews
Beginyear:1941
Endyear:1944
Other Names:The Butcher of Latvia
The Hangman of Riga
Nationality:Latvian

Herberts Albert Cukurs (17 May 1900 – 23 February 1965) was a Latvian aviator and Nazi collaborator. He served as the deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, a collaborationist unit that carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust.[1] [2] Although Cukurs never stood trial, the accounts of multiple Holocaust survivors, including Zelma Shepshelovitz, credibly link him to personally supervising[3] and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for the duration of the German occupation of Latvia.[4] [5] [6] His crimes included shooting Jewish children and babies in captivity,[7] burning Jews alive, and sexually assaulting Jewish women.[8]

Two decades after World War II, Cukurs was identified in Brazil 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 by Nazi hunters who were working for Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel.[9] [10] In the aftermath of the assassination, Israeli journalist Gad Shimron and one of the Mossad agents ("Künzle") who killed Cukurs authored a book on the experience, titled The Execution of the Hangman of Riga. In it, they referred to Cukurs as the Butcher of Latvia, a name later used by several other sources.[11] [12] [13] [14]

Biography

Aviation career (1930s–1941)

As a pioneering long-distance pilot, Cukurs won national acclaim for his international solo flights in the 1930s (Latvia-Gambia and Riga-Tokyo). He was awarded the Harmon Trophy for Latvia in 1933, and was considered a national hero, in analogous fashion to Charles Lindbergh.[15]

Cukurs built at least three aircraft of his own design. In 1937, he made a 45000adj=onNaNadj=on tour visiting Japan, China, Indochina and India, flying the C 6 wooden monoplane "Trīs zvaigznes" (registration YL-ABA) of his own creation. The aircraft was powered by a De Havilland Gipsy engine.[16]

Cukurs also designed the Cukurs C-6bis prototype dive bomber in 1940.[17] After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, Cukurs was summoned to Moscow in an attempt to recruit him to build planes for the Soviet Union.[18]

Participation in the Holocaust (1941–1944)

See also: Burning of the Riga synagogues and Rumbula massacre. In mid-1941, during the German occupation of Latvia, Cukurs became deputy commander of the newly formed Latvian Auxiliary Police unit, the Arajs Kommando.

In his book The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1945, the Latvian historian Andrew Ezergailis writes that Cukurs played a leading role in the atrocities that were committed in the Riga ghetto in conjunction with the Rumbula 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:

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.[22] 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".[23]

However, according to eyewitness accounts, Cukurs had participated in the burning 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.[24]

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 the Rumbula massacre in a forest near Riga. Multiple eyewitnesses said they saw Cukurs snatching infants from the arms of their mothers and shooting them.

Fall of Nazi Germany and Cukurs' flight to Brazil (1944–1945)

Cukurs retreated to Germany with German forces[25] and after the war fled to Brazil via the ratlines. The Brazilian Consulate in Marseille 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,[26] [27] but it identified three minor children: Gunārs, Antinea and Herberts.[28]

In Brazil, Cukurs established a business in São Paulo, flying Republic RC-3 Seabees on scenic flights. While living in South America, he neither hid nor tried to conceal his identity.[10]

Assassination by Israeli agents (1965)

After it was learned that he would not stand trial for his participation in the Holocaust, Cukurs was assassinated by Nazi-hunting Mossad agents, who persuaded him to travel to Uruguay[10] under the pretense of starting an aviation business.[29] An acquaintance named "Anton Künzle",[30] in reality the disguised Mossad agent Yaakov Meidad who had taken part in the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960,[31] cabled Cukurs from Montevideo. He was invited to a house in a remote suburb of the city that had just been rented by a man from Vienna. Inside, he was ambushed by a group of men.

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.[32] 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 a suppressed automatic pistol, killing him instantly. 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 the Riga Ghetto.[33]

Media outlets in South America and Germany received a note stating:

The note was initially dismissed as a prank, but then police were notified and the body was discovered.[25]

One of the main motives of Cukurs's assassination was to deter West Germany from allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Nazi war crimes.[34]

Legacy

Exoneration by right-wing Latvian nationalists

The American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter Efraim 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".[35]

In 2004, postal envelopes with the image of Cukurs were issued and distributed by National Power Unity, a far-right nationalist political party in Latvia.[36] The act was condemned by Yad Vashem,[37] as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Artis 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 the exoneration of Herberts Cukurs".[38]

In summer of 2005, a controversial exhibition "Herberts Cukurs: The Presumption of Innocence" was organized by the culture and art NGO K@2 in Liepāja. In a letter, members of the Latvian Jewish community called the exhibit "an attempt to rehabilitate a war criminal," and criticized Latvian ultra-nationalist politician Aleksandrs 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 the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, he was expelled from People's Party. Marģers Vestermanis, director of the Jews in Latvia museum, summarized the overall message of the exhibit as "Jews killed our hero."[39]

Documentaries

Episode 1 of National Geographic's 2009 series Nazi Hunters recreated Mossad's assassination operation of Cukurs.[40]

On 11 October 2014, the musical Cukurs. Herberts Cukurs, produced by Juris Millers, premiered in Liepāja.[41] "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."[42] Another performance initially scheduled for 17 March, the day after the Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires, was postponed in fear of "serious provocations".[43] The musical was criticised by Zuroff who tweeted he was "utterly disgusted" by it,[44] [45] and Russian President Vladimir 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 Latvia Edgars 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.[46]

In 2020, Stephan Talty published an account of the Mossad's hunt for Cukurs, titled The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia.[47]

Awards

On 18 November 1937, Cukurs was awarded the Order of the Three Stars, IV class.[48]

Personal life

Cukurs had a daughter named Antinea Dolores Cukurs Rizzotto. Her granddaughter, Cukurs' great-granddaughter, is Latvian-Brazilian singer Laura Rizzotto.[49] [50]

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Memorandum. cia.gov. 31 March 2024.
  2. Stephan Talty. Good Assassins . website . Diversion Audio & iHeartPodcasts . April 2, 2021 . September 25, 2022., Season 1, Episode 1: The Spy & The Murderer
  3. Book: Posner . Gerald L. . Mengele: The Complete Story . Ware . John . 2000 . Rowman & Littlefield . 978-0-8154-1006-5 . 212 . en . Cukurs had been a notoriously cruel SS officer, who supervised massacres at the Riga concentration camp from horseback..
  4. Book: Lumans, Valdis O. . Latvia in World War II . 2006 . Fordham Univ Press . 978-0-8232-2627-6 . en . 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..
  5. Book: Kaufmann, Max . Churbn Lettland: the destruction of the Jews of Latvia . 2010 . Hartung-Gorre . 978-3-86628-315-2 . Konstanz . 81.
  6. Web site: Herberts Cukurs. A criminal. Just a criminal . https://web.archive.org/web/20190409213313/http://www.latviannews.lv/news/6232/. 2019-04-09. Latviannews.lv.
  7. Book: Walters, Guy . Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice . 2010-05-04 . Crown . 978-0-307-59248-4 . 231–232 . en . 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..
  8. Book: Zuroff, Efraim . Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice . 2009-11-10 . St. Martin's Publishing Group . 978-0-230-10138-8 . en . 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..
  9. News: Aderet . Ofer . 1 July 2012 . Mossad agent who helped abduct Eichmann dies at 93 . Haaretz .
  10. News: Kinstler . Linda . 24 May 2022 . Nazi or KGB agent? My search for my grandfather's hidden past . The Guardian . 2 June 2022.
  11. Book: Press, Bernhard . The murder of the Jews in Latvia: 1941-1945 . 2000 . Northwestern University Press . 978-0-8101-1729-7 . Evanston, Illinois . 69–70 . Mazzarins . Laimdota.
  12. Künzle and Shimron, The Execution of the Hangman of Riga, at page 127.
  13. Lumans, Latvia in World War II, at page 240.
  14. Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak, at page 150.
  15. Operation Last Chance: One Man's Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice, by Efraim Zuroff, Macmillan, Nov 10, 2009 p. 117
  16. Web site: Herberts Cukurs - "the most famous Latvian" . 2022-07-19 . The Apricity Forum: A European Cultural Community . en.
  17. Web site: Cukurs C-6bis . Airwar.ru . 2012-04-28.
  18. Book: Purs . Aldis . Plakans . Andrejs . Historical Dictionary of Latvia . . Historical Dictionaries of Europe . 2017 . 82 . 978-1-5381-0221-3 .
  19. Book: Ezergailis, Andrievs . Andrew Ezergailis . Holokausts vācu okupētajā Latvijā 1941–1944 . 1999 . Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds . Riga . lv . 978-9984-601-02-1 . 44502624 . 222, 230 . Also available in English as: Andrew Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1944: The Missing Center (1996), .
  20. Book: Wynn, Stephen . Holocaust: The Nazis' Wartime Jewish Atrocities . 2020-04-19 . Pen and Sword . 978-1-5267-2822-7 . en.
  21. Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, at pages 192 and 267, n.55
  22. Web site: Jāmeklē patiesība par Herbertu Cukuru. Andrievs Ezergails. 2014-10-17. Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze. 1 November 2015.
  23. Web site: Zuroff. Efraim. Efraim Zuroff. The Mass Murderer As Hero . Operation Last Chance. July 25, 2005. 4 December 2010.
  24. The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, p. 46. "Eyewitnesses heard the people who were locked inside screaming for help and saw them breaking the synagogue's windows from inside and trying, like living torches, to get outside. Cukurs shot them with his revolver."
  25. Uruguay: Man in the Icebox. March 19, 1965. Time. 3 December 2010.
  26. Book: Anderson . Jack . Peace, War, and Politics: An Eyewitness Account . Gibson . Daryl . 2000-10-13 . Macmillan . 978-0-312-87497-1 . en.
  27. Book: Talty, Stephan . The Good Assassin: Mossad's Hunt for the Butcher of Latvia . 2020-04-15 . Amberley Publishing Limited . 978-1-3981-0359-7 . en.
  28. Visa number 42575 issued by Brazilian Consulate in Marseilles France on 18 December 1945.
  29. Book: Kuenzle, Anton . Shimron, Gad . The Execution of the Hangman of Riga: The Only Execution of a Nazi War Criminal by the Mossad . 2004 . . London . 978-0-85303-525-1 . 53389986 . 2016-03-18 .
  30. Web site: Talty . Stephan . How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia . CrimeReads . 22 April 2020 . 21 April 2020.
  31. Web site: Aderet. Ofer. Mossad Agent Who Helped Abduct Eichmann Dies at 93. Haaretz. 1 July 2012. 9 October 2021.
  32. News: Shimoni . Mor . 2022-07-30 . Yoske Yariv: The Israeli James Bond . en . . 2022-09-10.
  33. Web site: MONTERO. MIGUEL ÁLVAREZ. Medio siglo de dos historias de sangre que conmovieron al país. El País. November 2015 . 1 November 2015.
  34. News: Executing the hangman . 2022-10-11 . . en-US.
  35. Web site: Zuroff . Efraim . Herberts Cukurs: Certainly Guilty . June 7, 2005 . . 4 December 2010.
  36. Web site: Yad Vashem Condemns Distribution of Envelope Commemorating Latvian Nazi War Criminal. October 28, 2004. Yad Vashem. September 25, 2022.
  37. Web site: Yad Vashem Condemns Distribution of Envelope Commemorating Latvian Nazi War Criminal. 28 October 2004. Yad Vashem. 4 December 2010.
  38. Web site: Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs condemns the issuance of postal envelopes dedicated to Herberts Cukurs . . September 30, 2004 . 4 December 2010.
  39. Web site: Artistic quest ignites historic fire . Eglitis . Aaron . June 15, 2005 . . December 4, 2010.
  40. Web site: About Nazi Hunters Show. https://web.archive.org/web/20120603004349/http://natgeotv.com/ca/nazi-hunters/about. dead. 3 June 2012. June 15, 2005. National Geographic. December 4, 2010.
  41. Web site: Controversial 'war crimes' musical set for premiere. 1 October 2014. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 22 January 2015.
  42. Web site: Review: Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs. Collier. Mike. 12 October 2014. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 22 January 2015.
  43. Web site: Touchy musical postponed to avoid 'serious provocations'. 11 March 2014. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 22 January 2015.
  44. Web site: Zuroff criticizes Latvian musical about Herberts Cukurs. 8 October 2014. The Baltic Course. 22 January 2015.
  45. Web site: Nazi-hunter Zuroff condemns Cukurs musical. 8 October 2014. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 22 January 2015.
  46. Web site: Putin blasts 'Nazi' Latvia against backdrop of controversial musical. 16 October 2014. Public Broadcasting of Latvia. 22 January 2015.
  47. Book: Talty, Stephan. The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2020. 978-1328613080. New York.
  48. "Kurzemes vārds", 1937. gada 18. novembris (Nr. 263), 3. lpp
  49. Web site: Bērnībā man vecmāmiņa ar degsmi stāstīja par skaisto Latviju – beidzot es to sajutu. Rīta Kafija. 2018-02-03. Jānis Ogle. lv.
  50. Web site: Ļaudis soctīklos reaģē uz Lauras Rizoto uzvaru "Supernovā". tvnet.lv. 2018-02-26. lv. 4 June 2023. 30 June 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180630190030/http://www.tvnet.lv/sejas/sovbizness/775199-laudis_soctiklos_reage_uz_lauras_rizoto_uzvaru_supernova. dead.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Herberts Cukurs".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.