On Sunday, July 7 a group of researchers from the United States started their third season of work at the sites of mass murders of Jews in Liepāja in the Škede dunes .
"Here was a shed where the Nazis kept people before they were shot," said Professor Harry Jol of the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire.
The working methods of the team are non-invasive - only modern geological and geophysical technologies are used. Every year, the professors take new groups of students with them – they both learn the latest work methods in practice and get to know the history of the Holocaust. Students are also responsible for entering new data into the online progress report every day. After the expedition, students prepare their papers for conferences of various levels.
On Sunday, the research team worked north of the Škede memorial. Thousands of people were killed here, with the main mass executions taking place in December 1941.
Students with the equipment walk along the stretched measuring tapes, collect data. Professor Jol manages both to control the process and to find time to speak about the work.
"We are currently studying one of the trenches [it is 250 meters long and four meters wide]. It was found by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, and then us again last year. Professor Martin Gotl – here he is, teaching students to work with a drone – managed to find the remains of the barn where Jews were kept before they were shot," says Jol.
He laments again that there is a lack of data on the coastline because it is constantly changing. There are data from the Second World War, but after that, only from 1991. The Soviet period is a "black hole". Judging by the researches of the first two years, there does not appear to be a single mass trench with victims here in Škede. Last year, a small, nondescript ditch was found that runs perpendicularly from the Soviet monument to the sea. There is an incredible amount of work here – a year ago, researchers said that even the 250-meter-long trench, which has already been "tested", would take months to fully research.
On Monday, the team went further north and closer to the sea. Several people surveyed the coastline, while the main group made a mark and highlighted the location of a new possible "shooting ditch".
This year, director Stanislavs Tokalovs joined the team: "I have been interested in the Holocaust in Latvia for a long time, I believe that this topic is insufficiently researched. I have related ideas for films. And I decided to record everything that is happening here – for a deeper understanding."
This time, the team from the USA will also continue research at the lighthouse – one of the first shooting sites in 1941 – and at the Liva cemetery. More updates are expected thru the season.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance organization has this information about the fate of Liepāja's Jews under both Soviet and then Nazi German occupation.
