Beyond Nazi Crimes and Soviet Propaganda: The Salaspils Camp in Latvia, 1941-1944

The Salaspils camp near Riga, which was operated during the Nazi occupation of Latvia, has long been the subject ofcontrovery. Around 23,000 people were imprisoned there: half were political prisoners, labor resisters and convicted soldiers, the rest prisoners from special operations against civilians in Belarus, Russia and the Latgale region of Latvia. The death toll in the camp, including the number of Jews who died during construction, is well over 3,000 people.

Despite the relatively small size of this camp, it became a model for Russian remembrance policy. Soviet propaganda claimed that up to 100,000 prisoners were killed there, charged that children were used to extract blood, and greatly exaggerated the extent of the persecution of imprisoned lawbreakers and political dissidents . Salaspils became a myth in Russian-speaking society in Latvia that served to reinforce Soviet narratives of the Great Patriotic War.

The three authors drew on sources from the archives of Latvia, Germany and Russia and critically analyzed oral testimonies and earlier research to create a comprehensive account of the Salaspils camp in Nazi-occupied Latvia. Their book furthers the understanding of processes of deformation of collective memory and the techniques of memory politics from the Cold War to the present.