Waldtochter Domicella Pundure (Lucia)
Domicella Pundure is 90. At Riga Castle on May 3, 2018, she received the Order of Viesturs from the hands of President Raimonds Vejonis for special merits in the national resistance movement and in defending the country's independence. Domicella Pundure remains the last witness to the battle of Stompaku bog.
Domicella Pundure is a national partisan who spent more than a month since February 1945 in the Stompaku marsh settlement, where about 360 partisans lived at the time, including women, children and the elderly. He married in 1948, but already in 1949 the whole family was sent to Siberia to the Omsk region. He returned to Latvia in April 1960. The young family bought a house in the then collective farm "Borec", worked in a collective farm in the collective farm. When her husband died, Domicella Pundure moved to Balvi in the autumn of 1987. Already retired, she worked in the hotel buffet for a few more years.
The life story of Domicella Pundure can be read in Sanita Reinson's book "Daughters of the Forest".
Born on December 1, 1927 in Kručinova home of Šķilbēni parish. After completing four classes at the nearby Augstasila Primary School, Domicella began working on her father's farm.
"My father was a guard during the independence of Latvia, but during the German rule he worked in the Šķilbēni police. When the war front crossed for the second time in July-August 1944, we were not at home. The neighbors were local Russians and they persuaded them to leave. We left, but they didn't go too far, they stayed with relatives here even in Balvi. So after a while we drove back.
But my father stopped driving and no longer lived at home. He didn't show up at first, but then we met him. He no longer appeared in Šililben. They lived in such a small group, only later entered a larger group. Then his father went to Stompaku swamp. Later, when the Forest Brothers became more numerous, the Chekists began to terrorize everyone, and when I was sent a summons to go to work in a peat bog, my father took me with him in February 1945. Took a horse to Stompak. In the woods I left with what I had on my back and everything. Rosary, yes, it was with me - it had to be with me already. And we went to pray and God protected us. Whoever had to fall has already fallen.
The forest of Stompaku was not thick, and the camp was not so far from the road. We didn't drive on the big road, there we could drive straight through the forests. In winter, when the forest works, the roads were already entered by lines. Everyone in the camp was given a name. My father had Irbitis, but I probably had Lucia. Until the battles started in the camp, we did in the camp what we had already ordered. There was one elder in each bunker, and then it commanded. I live in a bunker with my father. It was not cold in winter. We had a small stove where we were going to eat. The walls are made of logs. The height is such that you can get up on your feet, and the mermaids where someone was up, who was at the bottom. Other bunkers were bigger, others smaller. There were places where there were more people, where there were few people. There were also horses. There were three horses at our own bunker. For them, such huts are made of spruce branches. They also fell in battle.
In general, there were quite a few women in those Stompakos. There were also children. For young children. … There was even a special bunker where bread was baked. But in general, each bunker took care of its own food - where everyone could get it, went to relatives or to a family who had a home. Food as from the countryside. As in winter, the pig was slaughtered, meat, cottage cheese was, milk. There was no hunger… I was told that the bunkers in Stompakos were numbered or that those numbers were now in place. Ours was the sixth bunker.
We didn't walk around the bunkers in the camp and didn't see others. We met others in the camp church and here and there. The church was located in the camp itself. For me, my husband and his brother had participated in the making. It was such a small bunker, more than twenty people could not enter. Catholics came to the church. Services were held every morning. And there even the confessions were accepted. The priest was from Šķilbēni - Ludwig Stagars.
About the day when there was a battle on 2-3. in March. The shooting started in the morning. I didn't know what was going on. People ran around the camp. My father's sister and I were at church. And we kept going there all day. Later, the wounded began to be brought to us. There were a lot of them. We had the Roman paramedic Romans. It commanded us. We helped as much as we could - we bandaged the wounded, gave us what we needed, and did everything else. There I met my future husband. He was injured in the leg. And then from then on, it all started for us.
In general, it was safe in that big camp, but that battle day was scary. Horror, what a noise there was! We were in one fear. After the battle, they talked in every way, but still, we see, ours was hit. The men had all kinds of weapons, there were not a few of them. The main thing in the camp was Peter Supe, but I didn't see him. And then in the evening, then we went out. The injured were taken by horse. We went those who were completely, as they say, healthy, all strong, went out. I didn't remember how many of us, but there weren't many. Bridges through the forest, through the swamp, through the forest. Men of course arms up. We went overnight. The next evening we came out to our house in the former Barec right on the edge of the forest. Gave us tea. And probably some bread was given, because we went out completely standing, everything that was in the bunker remained there.
And then our group divorced. My father and I went home. But he did not live at home. And so no one touched me anymore, I didn't go anywhere to apply or register, I live in a house. It turns out that I lived in the forest for a month. ”
On March 2, 1945, when there were about 300 people in the camp, the swamp was attacked by a unit of Soviet troops. Almost around the clock, the Forest Brothers resisted a large enemy force of about 500 people. 28 partisans and 46 Soviet soldiers were killed and wounded in the battle. The remains of the forest brothers killed to intimidate the locals were dumped in Vilaka and some nearby villages.
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Quotes from Sanita Reinson's book "Daughters of the Forest"
Связанная хронология
Связанные темы
Связанные объекты
Holzsteg ins Stompaku-Moor und Partisanenlager-Erinnerungsstätte
Das Stompaku-Moorgebiet - ein besonders geschütztes Natur- und NATURA 2000-Schutzgebiet - liegt zwischen Balvi und Viļaka. Im östlichen Teil des Moores führt ein 1,5 km langer markierter Weg durch den Wald und einen kleinen Teil des Hochmoores (Holzstege). Er führt zu fünf Moorinseln, auf denen die nationalen Partisanen Wohnbunker angelegt hatten. Informationstafeln am Wegesrand geben Auskunft über die Schätze der Natur und auch über die historischen Ereignisse. Auch ein Rastplatz ist hier zu finden. Wegweiser an der Landstraße P35 weisen den Weg zum Lehrpfad. Anfang März 1945 entstand im Stompaku-Moor eines der größten Lager der nationalen Partisanen in den baltischen Staaten. Hier lebten etwa 350-360 Menschen, darunter auch 40-50 Frauen. Ab Januar 1945 griffen die nationalen Partisanen regelmäßig Militärangehörige des Besatzungsregimes und deren Unterstützer an. Das Lager verfügte über eine Bäckerei, eine Bunkerkapelle und 25 etwa zur Hälfte in den Boden eingegrabenen Wohnbunker, in denen jeweils etwa 8-30 Personen unterkamen. Die Lage der Bunker ist heute noch erkennbar. Am 2. und 3. März 1945 fanden hier die Kämpfe von Stompaki statt - die schwersten Gefechte des nationalen lettischen Partisanenkampfes. Die gegen die Partisanen anrückenden Kräfte bestanden aus etwa 483 Mann, darunter das 2. und 3. Bataillon des 143. Schützenregiments der 5. Schützendivision des NKWD, ein mit Maschinengewehren ausgestatteter Schützenzug, eine Mörserkompanie, eine Aufklärungs- und Pioniereinheit sowie so genannte „Vernichter“.
Exposition “Abrene Rooms”
The exhibit ‘Abrene Rooms’ is located near the city centre of Viļaka. It covers the period from 1920 to 1960 when Viļaka was part of Jaunlatgale, Abrene district, and became the centre of Viļaka district and Abrene municipality. The exhibit is located in the building with the most interesting and diverse history in Viļaka. Initially located on the old Marienhausen Market Square, it later housed apartments, offices and various shops and, during World War II, the Latvian Self-Defence headquarters, the Gestapo and also the Cheka. The exhibit features items from the national partisan camp in the Stompaki Bog, which are related to the national partisan movement in the Latgale region, as well as documents and photos associated with the War of Independence. With a guided tour booked in advance, the owner, Dzintars Dvinskis, will present the testimonies available in the exhibit.
In 2023, an exhibition for military heritage in Northern Latgale was created.
Monument to the commander of the North-Eastern national partisans Pēteris Sup - "Cinītis"
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!"
Monument to members of the resistance movement in Stompakis
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.
