Star of David at the Dundagh Concentration Camp Memorial
After regaining independence, the residents of Dundaga installed a large wooden star of David at the place of the murder and reburial of the Jews near the Mazirbe - Dundaga highway, and later the Council of Jewish Congregations and Communities of Latvia opened a memorial stone next to it.
The concentration camp Dundagen II (Dondagen II) was opened on 26.11.1943 and its first commandant is Gröschel Max Ernst. From the initial 155 prisoners (1944), the camp was expanded to 1000 prisoners. Most of the prisoners are from the ghettos of Riga, Vilnius, Daugavpils and Liepāja, as well as ghettos of other German-occupied countries. The prisoners are women and children, who are employed in warehouses, building barracks, forestry, railway and bunker construction, as well as airfield construction.
The camp is evacuated when the Red Army 24-25.07.1944. reaches Tukuma. It takes place by railway to Liepāja and Ventspils and further to the Stutthof concentration camp. Gräschel was convicted by the SS and police court for crimes committed in the Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp (SS camp Dondangen), he was sent to the Stutthof SS and police concentration camp in Danzig-Matzkau.
Greschel tortured the prisoners so cruelly that many suffered fatal injuries and died. He was sentenced to death by the Dresden court on February 23, 1951, and executed in Dresden prison on June 23, 1951.
In June 1992, thanks to the initiative of local researcher Jautrīte Freimutes, the inhabitants of Dundaga installed a large wooden star of David at the site of the murder and reburial of the Jews in Čiekuros, which has not survived in the object.
However, in October 2007, the Council of Jewish Congregations and Communities of Latvia also opened a memorial stone next to it with two stars of David and an inscription in Latvian "Dundagas death camps 1943-1944. in memory of the 1,200 Latvian and European Jews who were destroyed in The opening of the monument was attended by representatives of the Council of Jewish Congregations and Communities of Latvia, the government and local government, as well as the embassies of Germany, Israel, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.
http://www.tenhumbergreinhard.de/1933-1945-lager-1/1933-1945-lager-d/dundaga-ii-dondangen.html
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