Courland Fortress and National Partisans
This route covers the evidence of World War II, national partisans and Soviet occupation, starting at the Īle national partisan bunker and leading through the former Zvārde training ground to Saldus and further - the Ezere Customs House. Along the way, you can get to know both the dramatic scale of the partisan battles and the impact of Soviet military infrastructure on the environment and local residents. Finally, a historical turning point is revealed in Ezere - the place of the capitulation of the Kurzeme Cauldron, which marks the final stage of World War II.
What the tour includes
Students will be able to explore the Īle partisan bunker, which is the largest reconstruction of a national partisan bunker in the Baltic States, where in 1949 a 27-man Latvian and Lithuanian unit led by Kārlis Krauja fought against approximately 760 Cheka (VDM) soldiers. The former Zvārde training ground tells the story of the creation of Soviet military infrastructure – in 1953, where a USSR military aviation training ground was established on an area of 24,418 hectares. Residents were forcibly evicted from this territory, and homesteads, churches and cemeteries were destroyed during aviation training. In the Saldus German soldiers' cemetery, about 25,000 German soldiers, as well as some Latvian legionnaires, are reburied on an area of eight hectares. Ezere is home to a historically significant object - the "Customs House", where the act of capitulation of the German troops surrounded in the Kurzeme Cauldron was signed on May 8, 1945.