Monument for the Freedom-Fighters Memorial site
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Located in Tukums, Mālkalns, Jelgavas Street 15A.
The monument was unveiled in 1975 to highlight the merits of the Red Army during World War II. It served as a means of Soviet ideology and propaganda, symbolically strengthening the presence of the occupation regime in Latvia and creating the myth of the Soviet regime as “liberators”. The author of the monument is sculptor and Tukums native Arta Dumpe.
After the capitulation of Germany on May 8, 1945, the Red Army perceived Kurzeme as a territory conquered by the enemy, not a liberated part of the USSR. The inhabitants of Kurzeme were enemies and their property was considered trophies of war. The repressive authorities and the army began the “cleansing of Kurzeme”. Men aged 16 to 60 were detained, registered and checked. In terms of danger, the inhabitants of Kurzeme – men – were equated with the military personnel of the capitulated Germany. The Red Army’s permissiveness and a wave of crimes began – murders, rapes, robberies, arrests and “disappearances of people”. The only armed resistance came from the National Partisan groups. The Soviet authorities created destroyer battalions, including in the Tukums district, to eliminate any opposition. The wave of violence and terror reached its peak in 1949, when deportations of the population took place throughout Latvia.
The monument can be seen today. Its symbolic meaning has been interpreted in various ways - a battle scene or a mother holding her sons fighting on opposite sides. The monument is set on a hill, from which a spectacular view opens.
Used sources and references:
Latvian Occupation Museum Yearbook. Authors' collective. Liberators as conquerors. R: Latvian Occupation Museum Society. 2006.
Lauva, J. At the monument to the liberators of Tukums. Komunisma Rīts (Tukums). No. 56. 1985.
Strautmanis, I. Memorial Ensembles of Soviet Latvia. R: Science. 1986.
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About the crimes of Red Army soldiers in Tukums.
In Tukums, several monuments to the Red Army were erected during the Soviet occupation. Today, they still have not lost their former, Soviet ideological goals and continue to create the myth of the Red Army as liberators. A variety of sources have survived about the crimes of the Red Army soldiers. One group of sources can be found in local newspapers, which vividly describe the permissiveness and extent of the crimes of the Red Army.