The World War II occupation of the Latvian town of Liepaja (Libau, to the Germans) produced mass executions throughout 1941.

This date in 1941 commenced one of the largest such actions: over 2,700 Jews as well as 23 Communists forced over the course of two-plus days to strip on the freezing Skede dunes overlooking the Baltic and there shot by German and Latvian teams into a vast pit. It’s one of the most recognizable Holocaust atrocities because it was extensively photographed.*

As one can see from the pictures, the victims here were mostly women.

Some of the women in this photographs can be identified by name (pdf). Left to right: (1) Sorella Epstein; (2) presumably Rosa Epstein, her mother; (3) unknown; (4) Mia Epstein; (5) unknown. Alternate identification makes Mia Epstein (5) instead of (4), and (2) Pauline Goldman.

Almost all of Liepaja’s Jews perished during the war.

* Germany’s Bundesarchiv (search on Libau 1941) confirms the precise December 15 dating for these images; it also has some other photographs of atrocities in Liepaja/Libau on other occasions.

On this day..

• 1975: Lex Aronson, aid worker
• 1896: Patrick Coughlin, shot in the mountains
• 1950: Shooting on Seoul's Execution Hill
• 1882: Myles Joyce, Maamtrasna murder miscarriage
• 1889: Abushiri, German East Africa rebel
• 1865: William Corbett and Patrick Fleming
• 1882: James Gilmore, the first hanged in Deadwood
• 1655: Henry Manning, Protectorate spy
• 1965: Joseph Bamina, former Burundi Premier
• 1983: John Eldon Smith, mafioso Willy Loman
• 1914: Regiment Mixte de Tirailleurs decimated
• 401 B.C.E.: Clearchus of Sparta