In late 1941, as Nazi Germany expanded deep into the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, the Holocaust entered a new and devastating phase in the occupied Baltic states. In Latvia, the Jewish population of Riga was confined to a sealed ghetto while German occupation authorities, assisted by local collaborators, prepared one of the largest mass shootings of the Second World War. This documentary examines the events that unfolded in the Rumbula Forest near Riga on 30 November and 8 December 1941, when approximately 25,000 Jewish men, women, and children from the Riga Ghetto were killed over the course of two days. It explores how the operation was planned, the role of SS commander Friedrich Jeckeln and Einsatzgruppe A, and the participation of the Arājs Kommando under Viktors Arājs in carrying out the killings. The film follows the establishment of the Riga Ghetto, the deception used to convince residents they were being relocated, and the systematic process that unfolded in the forest outside the Latvian capital. It also examines the experiences of survivors whose testimonies provide a rare insight into one of the Holocaust’s least understood atrocities. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, historical research, and wartime records, the documentary places the Rumbula events within the wider context of the Holocaust in Latvia and the Nazi occupation of the Baltic states. It also explores the roles of figures including Franz Walter Stahlecker, Hinrich Lohse, and Herberts Cukurs, as well as the post-war investigations and trials that sought to establish responsibility for these crimes. The events in the forest outside Riga stand as a reminder of how ideology, occupation, and collaboration combined to produce one of the darkest chapters of the Second World War, and why preserving the testimony of survivors remains essential to understanding this history.
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