Battle of Stompaku III National partizans
On March 2-3, 1945, the Battle of Stompaku took place in Viļaka Parish, Abrene District (now Susāji Parish, Viļaka District) - the largest battle of the Latvian national partisans against the armed formations of the Soviet occupation regime at the end of World War II.
An armed national resistance movement in Abrene County began to form in the summer of 1944, when the territory was re-occupied by the Soviet Union. In order to avoid arrests and forced mobilization in the Red Army, many residents became illegally living in the forests individually or in small groups. On the night of October 2, 1944, the Germans landed a group of 11 divers under the codename "Lapland" in the Abrene district. It was headed by the former chief agronomist of the county Pēteris Supe ("Cinītis") and his deputy, Stanislavs Ločmelis ("Ace"), a student of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Latvia. On December 10, 1944, they founded the Latvian National Partisan Association (LNPA).
At the beginning of January 1945, the partisans of the LNPA, on the order of P. Supe, began to gather in the Stompaku bogs between Balvi and Vilaka, where a camp was established on several bog islands, which is considered to be the largest partisan camp in the entire Baltic region. Its official name for the partisans was "Island Shelters".
The camp, which housed about 350 partisans, was attacked by the NKVD (USSR People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) troops from the 143rd Rifle Regiment of 483 men. The battle lasted from March 2 at 7.30 to 19.30, when the battle noise subsided by the morning of March 3rd. The positions of both sides were only 70-80 meters away, and longer or shorter shots continued from time to time. Using heavy snow and night cover, most partisans managed to escape the siege. 28 national partisans were killed or later wounded in the battle, but the enemy lost 46 people.
A monument with the names of the fallen partisans has been erected in Vilaka near the Catholic Church on the side of Parka Street.
A monument to the 28 national partisans killed in the Battle of Stompaku was unveiled on the side of the Balvi - Vilaka highway on August 11, 2011.
A marked trail leads to the National Partisan settlements in the nature reserve “Stompaku Purvi”, which was opened on March 2, 2019.
More information sources
Zigmars Turčinskis. Battle of Stompaku on March 2, 1945. SARGS.LV (12.04.2016): https://www.sargs.lv/lv/otrais-pasaules-kars/2016-04-12/stompaku-kauja-1945-gada-2-marta
Uldis Neiburgs. We had to die to live a hundred. Battle of Stompaku - 70. LA.LV (14.03.2015): https://www.la.lv/mums-bija-jamirst-lai-dzivotu-simtistompaku-kaujai-70
In the dreams of a distant bog edge come ...: [Book about national partisans in Latgale] / iev. aut. J.Kīdzējs. -. Rezekne: Latgale Culture Center Publishing House, 1997.
Related timeline
Related objects
Trail and partisan memorial in Stompaki bog
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.
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.
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!"
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Pēteris Supe - the initiator of the founding of the Latvian National Partisan Association
From 1944 to 1946, Peter Supem managed to unite the national partisan units scattered in the forests in an organized movement that fought against the occupation of Latvia in the Abrene district for several years after the Second World War. Pēteris Supe, nicknamed "Cinītis", was one of the most outstanding organizers and leaders of the national guerrilla movement in Northern Latgale.
Forest Daughter 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.