Life during World War II on the Kegums side
Memories of the now distant royal era flashed through. For the older generation, it would remind them of their own experiences, while for the younger generation, it might bore them.
We lived in a very beautiful place on the left bank of the Daugava, about six kilometers from Ķegums. In a place where 12 farmsteads, collectively called Priedesmuiža, are surrounded on one side by a large forest, on the other by the steep bank of the Daugava. Our house was separated from the others by the Ėgupīte, which we called a lake, because near our house it was wider, crossed by two dams. The middle part of one dam is still connected by a concrete bridge, which was saved from destruction by a German soldier. The ends of the other dam extend into the depths, and it no longer boasts the former high wooden bridge. It once served the narrow-gauge railway, along which gravel was transported for the construction of the Ķegums power plant. After the war, the bridge still served, carrying the prevailing symbolism on its sides – sickles and hammers. The tail of the Ėgupīte stretches into the evergreen forest. In the middle of Priedesmuiža there is a children's paradise - large gravel pits with ponds and wild strawberries. At the edge of the forest there are two underground springs with clear water.
June 1941. My mother cried when she found out that the war had started. My sister was ten years old, I was younger. We had a small cottage farm. My stepfather Juris Lazda, a very nice and romantic man, also helped. I can no longer tell the sequence of events, but I remember certain episodes well.
Refugee carts and troops pass our homes day and night. People are sleeping in carts and wagons. Livestock are tied to the backs of carts.
Priedesmuiža is full of Germans. At night, bombers hum hollowly high in the sky. The searchlights try to catch them at the intersections of the beams and they shoot like huge bolts of lightning in the dark vaults of the sky. Here and there they drop a bomb.
Our house was about a hundred meters from the bridge, so my mother, afraid that the house might be ransacked, put her belongings in bags and carried them to the basement at the edge of the forest. While she was coming for the next bag, a man stole the bag and ran into the forest. My mother and I went to the forest and searched under the thick fir trees, hoping that the thief had hidden the bag there to take it again at night. We found a large jar of tomato puree, a new puff pastry, a rifle and some other things. Who would have thought that all kinds of good things grow under the fir trees. But we didn’t find our bag of things.
No bombs hit the bridge, nor the house, but two large craters were knocked out near the basement.
The Germans were not shy about liquidating one pig or one cattle at a time, and imposed a kind of ban on farmers liquidating their own livestock. They assigned the farmer's son, Kārlis, to count the livestock. So, probably against his will, he went around all the houses. He also came to our house. Mother was at the barn at the time. Kārlis did not go into the barn, but asked if we had any pigs. Mother replied that we did not. At that moment, the piglet squealed loudly. Kārlis smiled and said: "I will write that down, that there are none." After that, the stepfather set up a hut and a pen for the piglet in the thicket of the forest and spent the night with it himself.
The Germans threw grenades into the Negupīte, blowing up the fish. The bigger ones were taken, but the smaller ones, with their bellies turned up, washed up along the shores like white waves and smelled bad.
Once, my mother and I were walking along the highway embankment when the shooting started over the embankment, the bullets were whistling. My mother ran down from the embankment and called out to me to follow her. That's when my stubborn nature was revealed. My mother later told the neighbors: "...but that toad doesn't listen, he stands on the embankment and insists that he's not afraid of anything." We children were running everywhere, there was really no fear, and miraculously, not a single bullet hit us.
For a while, the residents were ordered to move into the basement of the Krūmiņi houses, probably for self-defense. The basement under the house was very large and had thick walls. Each family had one of each. We took the most necessary little things with us. The rest was left in the house to fate. Mother buried the potatoes in a hole in the garden and leveled the ground. She buried a barrel of salted pork in the barn under the floor. Chickens roamed everywhere, including a hen named Špicka that I owned. We also had a big, fat, beautiful cat named Janka. While we lived in Krūmiņi, Janka, forced by circumstances, turned into a forest brother.
The Germans set up a horse stable in our barn. Oh, how I loved those horses! They bathed them right there in Negupīte.
Since my foster father was a colporteur in his youth, we had a lot of good books at home. The Germans threw the books into the water, but we found the bookcase in the forest with broken glass. The Germans dug bunkers in the forest and carried tables, chairs, and other furniture from nearby houses into them.
One day, my mother discovered that the Germans had dug up our potatoes, were boiling them, and were feasting on them. Then she went to the stable to save our barrel of meat. A horse was standing right there. My mother told the German stable master to harness that horse and take the barrel of meat to Krūmiņi. The German did not object and obeyed my mother.
The German soldiers liked bacon and eggs best. If we heard the clucking of chickens, then some German or we children would run to look for eggs. Whoever found them first, got them. The Germans often treated us children to chocolates. If a local fell ill, they would go to a German paramedic, who would even give them some medicine.
Once my mother sent me to Lielvārdi to get groceries. I had to walk about three kilometers through the forest, then cross the Daugava River by ferry. On the way back, I unloaded my bag on the side of the road, and looked around. Then I saw Germans coming towards me with a cart, two horses in front. I threw everything in my bag and walked towards them. When they got to the place where I was sitting, they stopped their horses, and one German, shouting something and waving his hand, ran after me. If they run after me, then I have to run, and I run as fast as my legs can carry me. I looked back, he was still running and running. So was I. I ran after the German, and finally he stopped. At home, my mother discovered that I had lost my wallet with money. Then, that's why the German was trying so hard to catch up with me.
We made a little money by collecting berries and mushrooms in Lielvārde and Ķegums, for which we were given so-called points. By showing the points, we could buy products.
Every day, a country kitchen arrived at the Krūmiņi farm – a substantial pot on two wheels. Then the soldiers lined up with pots. I thought I could join that line too. I found a pot and stood at the end of the line. The soldiers smiled. My turn came, and the kind cook filled my pot.
Once I entered the kitchen of Krūmiņi, where the Germans were running the house. A soldier was covered up to his elbows in honey. He was squeezing the honeycombs, and the honey was flowing down his fingers into a bowl. The owner had probably stored the honeydew.
The Germans had a telegraph in the large basement hallway, where a soldier transmitted encrypted messages, but we children stood around, our mouths agape. We were interested in everything.
The Germans installed binoculars on the banks of the Daugava, and when they were not there, the children lined up at the binoculars, and then we saw Lielvārdi up close.
Sometimes at night, my mother and I would come out of the basement and watch from the shore the reflections of fires on the opposite bank of the Daugava, where a house was often on fire. Sparks and plumes of smoke rose against the black sky.
Huge balloons were hoisted above the Kegums power plant. However, the dam of the station was bombed. Something was burning there too, I saw plumes of smoke myself. Later, a rope bridge for pedestrians was hung over the destroyed section, but it swayed a lot.
The waters of the Daugava flowed without obstacles, so it became much narrower and shallower. Ice blocks lay directly on the bed. In the middle of the Žegupīte, the walls of an old mill with a deep pit were revealed. The Germans had sunk boxes of ammunition in the pit. Everyone could take whatever and how much they wanted. The boxes were broken open. They contained shiny cartridges of various sizes and colorful markings. In the yard, incendiary bombs the size of a medium-sized dog were left. The villagers unscrewed them and poured fuel out. The empty bombs served us as a bridge support long after the war. There were also mines, similar in size and shape to cakes. When the deminers arrived, they asked the children where the mines were, and we showed them all around and therefore felt important people.
NRA. 13.07.2004. Back when we had a war.
Related timeline
Related objects
Nega (Melderupe) and its surroundings
Nega is still called Melderupi on maps from the 1940s. Along with the construction of the Ķegum HPP, its last 2.6 km was flooded, creating a more than 100 m wide extension of the river. In order to ensure the construction of the Ķegum HPP with gravel, a quarry was built on the eastern bank of the Nega, and a railway bridge was built across the river. The gravel was transported along the 6 km long railway line to the new construction of the HPP with the help of a narrow-gauge railway. The first two kilometers of the railway site are visible both in nature and on LIDAR maps. Further on, the railway site coincides with the modern Jaunjelgava - Ķegum road (P85). On the west bank of the Negus, in the north, about 0.2 km north of the houses of the Bridge Guards (the owners have memories of the Second World War and related events in this place), there is a source - a popular water intake point. Active military activity took place in the vicinity of Nega in both 20th centuries. in world wars. If you look at LIDAR maps and nature, trench positions are visible north of the P85 road and along the banks of the river. To the south of the P85 road, a 0.8 km long ridge of dunes, the top and slopes of which are dotted with trenches, adjoins the flooded part of the Nega from the southwest. On the side of the small forest road that connects the P85 road with the houses of Liepdegumu, there is a standing dune, the rectangular pits on the slopes of which indicate that buildings or warehouses were located here. The mentioned dune is surrounded from the north and west by a strip of ditches about a kilometer long. Man-made negative landforms are also visible south of the P85 road. A dense network of trenches and buildings or/and warehouses (a network of pits of various sizes is in nature and can also be seen on LIDAR maps on the eastern bank of Nega between the P85 road and Širmeļupīti. 1.8 km east of Nega is the cemetery of the Lezmani brothers. You can go to them along the small forest road , which unfolds in the vicinity of ņegas and Širmeļupīte. The third line of trenches (farthest to the south) marked on the map of the National Library of Latvia ""Zusamendruck Riga, Gezeichet u.gedruckt vd Vermessungs"" is clearly visible on LIDAR maps and in nature even today - a century later.
The German army's concrete fire point in the Kegum HPP reservoir near the Nega inlet
It is located in the Ķegum HPP reservoir at the Nega inlet (in front of the Nega houses), on its left bank. One of the most visually and scenically impressive and also the best-preserved concrete fireplaces, washed by the waves of the Daugava. It can be seen from a larger piece. A footbridge has been built from the shore to the top of the fire point (overgrown with grass). Narrow-gauge railway (?) tracks embedded in the concrete walls of the fire station. You can get inside from the side of the footbridge. This is one of the fire points of the defense line of the German army during the First World War on the left bank of the Daugava, which can more or less be traced along the entire length of the left bank of the Daugava. The aforementioned line of defense is a large-scale military system that has not really been evaluated as a whole until now. The remains of the fire point can be seen by boat on the Ķegum HPP.
Prince Leopold Straße (Prinz – Leopold Straße)
The name of the place (road) during the First World War - "Prinz - Leopold Straße" - Prince Leopold's road. About 7 km long historical forest road or the place that started at the junction of Große Kurfürsten Damm and Kaiser Damm near the so-called Kurland Denkmal and winds through the forest towards Birzgale, connecting with the First World wartime narrow-gauge railway line: Lāčplēsis – Latgali. To the west of the road and about 2 km south of the site of the Kurland Denkmal is a First World War shooting range. Today, the Prince Leopold Road can be walked, cycled and driven (under suitable conditions). The road crosses Konupīti and the Nega tributary.
It is thought that the soldiers of the German army, staying for a long time on the front of the left bank of the Daugava, named this road after the Bavarian Prince Leopold (1846 - 1930), who led the German and Austro-Hungarian forces on the Eastern Front during the First World War.
Possible location of Otomaras Oškalns bunker
A remote and difficult to access place - a large forest massif about 200 m west of the Nega river and about 0.5 km southwest of the Nega flood. It is recommended to go to the mentioned place on foot or by bicycle, using LIDAR maps and geographical coordinates. In the mentioned place, there is an inland dune embankment about a kilometer long (in the W-E direction) and half a kilometer wide (in the N-S direction) covered with coniferous forest. At the top of the northern and eastern slopes of the dune massif are well-preserved trenches, believed to date from the Second World War. Harijs Jaunzems (former Ķegums HPP engineer) believes that the bunker of the Red Army partisan unit formed by Otomaras Oškalns was located in this area (the exact point is unknown).
Große Kurfürsten Damm
The approximately 4 km long west-east oriented forest road marked on the maps of the First World War started at the former Kurland Denkmal (Kurland Denkmal) or later popularly known as the Mother's Monument and ended at two roads (passable in nature) Hütten Straße and Morgen Straße junctions. Approximately 2 km long, it stretches as a straight forest-dirt road, 0.8 km - a gravel road (coincides with the Egles - Kaulupes road formed by the Latvian State Forests), and the rest - a road that cannot be driven by road transport, but can be walked in nature or can be driven on a bicycle - since. Judging by another map (Zusamendruck Riga, 1: 100,000) and LIDAR maps, a World War I German army camp or warehouse (Lager) was located at the junction of the Great Kurfirst Dam and Morgen Straße.
It is thought that the name, which was born here during the stay of the German army during the First World War, comes from Kurfürstendamm - the name of one of the central avenues of Berlin (in memory of the Elector of Brandenburg), which today is a popular sightseeing and shopping place for tourists. The name of the avenue was first mentioned between 1767 and 1787.
Tomes Evangelical Lutheran Church
The first known church was built in Tome in 1644. 1907 - 1908 instead of a wooden building, a stone church was built with Baron Schilling's money. 1956 the church was demolished and a kolkhoz chicken farm was built from its stones. The church visible today, which is located between the former Tomes elementary school (the school was closed after the school reform, the Ķegum County Museum was established there) and the Tomes cemetery, was built between 1999 and 2003. at the initiative of the Deer Family (USA). The current altarpiece was painted by Sandijs Greiškans from Kegu, after Ata Grunde in 1932. photos of the made altarpiece. The organ was donated to the church by the Lutheran congregation from Sweden.
A photo can be found in "Lost Latvia" of the National Library of Latvia (LNB) showing Tomas Church during the First World War after its destruction in 1916. The Tomes elementary school next to the church also suffered in the battles of the same year.
"Latvijas Kareivī" issue 147 of 1938 contains the article "On the towns and villages of the native land", which mentions the church of Tomes: "Further on, the road leads past the church of Tomes, which in 1916 destroyed by the Russians, thinking that there was a German observation post there. There is a small congregation - around 250 members - in 1922. with great energy started to restore the church and within 10 years built a new tower and an altar with an altarpiece by the artist Grunde. Now the church with its white walls, brown window and door frames and neat interior leaves a pleasant impression".
The former Tomes elementary school
The former Tomes elementary school is located between the Baldones - Tomes road (V4, called "Düna Straße" on the First World War map), the Tomes Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Tomes cemetery. The school, like the neighboring church, suffered during the battles of the First World War (1916). In "Lost Latvia" of the National Library of Latvia (LNB) you can see a photo of the first Tomes school in the house of Siliņi (1925). 1926 built the present stone school building. After the school reform, the school was closed. Today, the Ķegum County Museum and Library are located here. 2017 On December 13, the sculpture "Man needs a dog" dedicated to Regina Ezer was opened in the courtyard of the museum, sculpted by Aigars Zemītis. On the wall of the building, a commemorative plaque has been installed for the inhabitants of Tome who were deported to Siberia.
Wheel Hill
The highest point of the massif of inland dunes, located to the west of the village of Tomes, is Mount Rata (67.8 m above sea level). Light pine forests stand in its vicinity, allowing a good view of the backs and slopes of the impressive dunes. It is easy to get to Rata Hill on foot (0.6 km) from the "Sēņotaju māja" recreational area of the Latvian State Forests (LVM). On both sides of the small forest road along which we go towards the mountain, nature (and LIDAR maps) show more than 40 similar-sized quadrangular pits and three trench-like trenches about 50 m long. It is possible that during the First World War, a German army warehouse was located here, surrounded on three sides by the nearby dunes. It is thought that the concrete structures at the highest point of the Wheel Hill are the remains of the former fire observation (or triangulation?) tower, the wooden parts of which were attached to the concrete pillars. An article about a ski hike in the Rata Mountains can be found in a Soviet-era periodical. The annual mushroom picking championship takes place in the vicinity of the Rata hill.
Šautuve (shooting gallery)
Supposedly - an open-air shooting range built by the German army of the First World War for shooting practice. To be found in the largest forest massif between Negus, the former Kurland Denkmal at the so-called Prince Leopold Street (Prinz – Leopold Straße). The object may be difficult to find for the uninitiated, so it is recommended to use geographic coordinates for the search. The vicinity of the shooting range is covered with young pine trees, wolves live in the vicinity (you can find their feces). LIDAR maps and nature show a continuous line of trenches 1.5 km long southeast of the shooting range, while in the northwest a line of short (about 50 m long) and interrupted trenches stretches all the way to the Ķegum HPP.
The object appears in nature as an approximately 300 m long, straight, northeast-southwest oriented "passage", surrounded on both sides by ramparts up to 2 m high, overgrown with lichens and mosses. The highest rampart is at the end of the shooting range (3-4 m). The shooting range is surrounded by rectangular pits of the same size. On a World War I-era map, this location is labeled "Schießst.". Presumably, it served as a shooting training ground ("Schießstand" in German - shooting range). In the direction to Tomi (up to Tomei) two more shooting locations are marked on the mentioned map. Tomei is found and seen in nature closest to nature.
