- Dates
- 30 Nov. & 8 Dec. 1941
- Location
- Near Riga
- Victims
- About 26,000 in principal actions
- Organizer
- Friedrich Jeckeln
Riga before the massacre
After German occupation, Jews in Riga were subjected to persecution, forced labor and ghettoization.
Jeckeln’s killing system
Friedrich Jeckeln organized the operation. Victims were driven from the ghetto to prepared pits, forced to surrender possessions and undress, and shot in layers.
November 30
The first principal action murdered large numbers of Riga Jews. A transport of Jews deported from Berlin also arrived and about 1,000 were murdered.
December 8
A second major action completed the murder of most of the targeted ghetto population.
Victim totals
In the two principal Rumbula killing actions of November 30 and December 8, 1941, German and Latvian forces murdered about 25,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto and approximately 1,000 Jews deported from Berlin.
Memory
Rumbula became one of the central Holocaust sites in Latvia. Later memorial work more explicitly restored the Jewish identity of the victims.
Sources
This page draws on the institutional sources listed below.