Battle of Stompaku III National Partizans, II WW2

The Stompaki Bog Area is a specially protected nature and NATURA 2000 territory located between the cities of Balvi and Viļaka. The eastern part of the bog features a marked 1.5-kilometre trail that crosses the forest and also a small part of the high bog (wooden footbridges), leading to five islands within the bog where the national partisans had built residential bunkers. Information stands along the edges of the trail tell about the local natural values and historical events. There is a rest area by the trail. Directions from the P35 road will help visitors find the trail. In early March 1945, one of the largest national partisan settlements in the Baltic States was established at the Stompaki Camp. About 350 to 360 people lived here, including 40 to 50 women. Starting from January 1945, national partisans carried out regular attacks on the military personnel of the occupation regime and their supporters. The camp had a bakery, a church bunker and 25 residential bunkers, immersed halfway into the ground, for accommodating 8 to 30 people. The bunker sites are still visible today. The Battle of Stompaki, the largest battle in the history of Latvian national partisan battles, took place here on 2-3 March 1945. The anti-partisan forces consisted of a total of about 483 soldiers, including subunits of the 2nd and 3rd Rifle Battalions of the 143rd Rifle Regiment of the NKVD 5th Rifle Division, the rifle platoon (armed with submachine guns), mortar company, reconnaissance and sapper platoons, as well as the so-called ‘istrebitel’ (destruction) fighters.

It is located 15 km from Balvi in the direction of Viļakas, on the right side of the road.

A memorial is visible.

The memorial to the members of the resistance movement, dedicated to the memory of the national partisans of Pēteras Supes who fell in the battles of March 2 and 3, 1945, on the side of the Balva - Viļaka highway opposite the Stompaki swamp, was opened on August 11, 2011, on the day of remembrance of Latvian freedom fighters. At the end of July, a capsule with a message for future generations was embedded in the base of the monument. A document with the names of 28 national partisans who fell in the battles of March 2 and 3, 1945 is placed in the capsule.

"In February 1945, Latvia's largest national partisan camp was established on the islands of the Stompaku swamp, which the people began to call the islands of the Stompaku swamp, 2 km from the Balvu - Viļaka highway, where 360 people lived in 22 dugouts. Among them, some legionnaires who, for the legion division retreating, they had stayed at their father's house with all their weapons. In order to destroy the partisans, on March 2, 1945, the soldiers of two battalions of Czech troops attacked the dugouts together with destroyers, which also had four mortars in their armament. The battles took place all day, the partisans resisted stubbornly, and the attackers suffered suffered great losses, so that they could not capture the camp and destroy the partisans. 28 inhabitants of the Stompaku swamp had also fallen or died after being seriously injured in the battle. The next night, the partisans broke the siege of the camp with a battle and left undefeated" - this is what a member of the national resistance movement of the award department writes about the Stompaku battle chairman of the case commission, Zigfrīds Berķis.

Honoring the memory of the national partisan commander Pēteras Supes, on May 28, 2005, a monument dedicated to him was unveiled in Vilakas. It is placed near the Viļaka Catholic Church, on the edge of the trenches dug during the war, where the Chekists buried the shot national partisans. A capsule with the names of 386 fallen national partisans, battle descriptions and materials about the partisan commander is placed under the monument dedicated to P.Supem. The words engraved in stone: "I remained faithful to you, Latvia, until my last breath".
The monument was created by Pēteris Kravalis.

Next to it is a memorial place in the Stompaki forest and other places of battle for Latvian freedom fighters who fell and were murdered by the Chekists in 1944-1956.
On June 20, 2008, a granite plaque with the names of 55 fallen partisans arranged in three columns was discovered on the right wall.
The monument was erected in the place where the communist occupation authorities once displayed the remains of the murdered partisans to intimidate the rest of the population.

Words of thanks to Pēteris Supe and a poem by Bronislava Martuževa are engraved on the adjacent plaque:
"Get up, Peter Supe,
Soul, in battle!
Today Your blood sacrifice,
Risen in the nation.
Go out to live forever
In the strength and vigor of the young,
Wraps, flutters, folds
In the rising flag!"