The story of the murder of Herbert Cukurs

jonniebgood1

Any thoughts on the first hand account that I have linked to where the witness identified Cukurs committing war crimes?

I take your continued refusal to consider first hand sources and the other documentation on board to be nothing more than right wing revivalism of a known Nazi who is identified as perpetrating crimes (as per my previous post). Constantly refering back to your OP does not hide this fact and I think your refusal to acknowledge the sources provided sets a precedent that should not be allowed pass unchallenged.

your stance is right in line with that condemned by the Latvian ministry of foreign affairs in 2009-

It is important to recognize that Herberts Cukurs was not simply a talented pilot. He was also guilty of war crimes: during World War II, he took part in the activities of the notorious Arajs Commando, which participated in the Holocaust and was responsible for the killing of innocent civilians. The General Prosecutor's Office of Latvia has twice rejected the exoneration of Herberts Cukurs.

Mr Artis Pabriks asks the law enforcement institutions to assess the actions and motives of those who issued the envelopes. He urges the people of Latvia to evaluate critically the dissemination of the envelopes and to dissociate themselves from it. http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/news/Newsletters/CurrentLatvia/2004/October/576/

I will report my own post and allow the moderators deal with this as they see fit as I have already tried to be rational in this discussion without success. Thus ends my input.

Morlar

On the contrary, you are refusing to address a single point raised, by ignoring what has already been comprehensively addressed in post # 1.

It's clear from your initial thanking of the threadspoiling post, to your repeated spamming & refusal to address any point raised in the lengthy first post of this thread that you have no interest in the facts of this story.

Your interest began at threadspoiling, then when that didn't work wavered to slur and insinuation :

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

So then are there any more likely suggestions (other than driver) for his role?
There are other more plasusible suggestions that he had a more prominent role.

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Another query that requires attention is why did Cukurs feel the need to move to Brazil. If he was innocent of any crime then surely he would have had no fear of being found guilty of any charge.

to point blank refusal to address a single point raised.

To your most recent post where you post a quote which does not indicate a single act committed by the person in question, but rather the group he was a peripheral member of (driver). As previously stated and ignored :

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=74093856&postcount=27

Morlar wrote: »

Which parts of your post refer to this man personally ?

Which parts are NOT already covered in post #1 ?

Which parts would even remotely resemble 'evidence' ?

You are trying to justify gruesome butchery of a human being on the basis of guilt by association and 'I wonder what else he could have done aside from being a driver', . . ' I wonder why did heemigrate to South America'.

Pathetic.

All without any a shred of legal process or a trial.

Is this a moral standard you apply to all sides of the WW2 conflict or just to Axis ?

Here for anyone who is interested is the Latvian TV documentary, shot in Riga, Sao Paolo, Montevideo & in Las Vegas, unfortunately it's mostly in Latvian, ( & apologies in advance for the presenters fashion sense)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1983576701158305850

Mahatma coat

hang ona minute here lads

Are we now making a distinction between Murder & Revenge Killings???

If so then a lot of the Axis Murders would have to be viewed in a new light

Morlar

That's a good point. You could go one further if you reversed the facts of this scenario for the purposes of illustration :

Say, a 64 yr old Jew, living peacefully and with no hint of official/judicial interest in him, struggling financially, trying to make a living despite a campaign of harrassment. Say he was befriended by someone who promised a rewarding business partnership (but secretly wanted to murder him).

Gets lured to another country (because where he lived had a death penalty for murder and the intended murderers are too cowardly to risk getting caught in a death penalty jurisdiction).

In that other country he is taken under false pretences to an isolated farmhouse where 5 men, let's say they are sons of SS Veterans (to give this paralell scenario some symmetry).

These 6 men in total proceed to use hammers to beat the 64 yr old repeatedly about the skull before finally finishing him off with a gunshot to the head when he proved too difficult to overpower (all of these facts btw are what in reality happened to Cukurs).

Assume for a second that was the scenario being discussed here.

Add to that unsubstantiated and discredited allegations of involvement on the part of the dead Jew in (say for example) bolshevik partisan atrocities against captured unarmed German soldiers. Let's say he was a driver in a unit known for atrocities.

If that was the scenario we were discussing would we be giving such credence to 'group guilt' theories as justification for cold blooded murder 20 yrs after the war ?

Would vague slurs and insinuations against the dead be enough in that case?

Or, would the overwhelming force of argument be that in this case due process was bypassed, presumably due to the absence of credible evidence against the intended victim.

Manic Moran

I will report my own post and allow the moderators deal with this as they see fit as I have already tried to be rational in this discussion without success.

In fairness, I can't go about moderating people for having a minority viewpoint unless they're being disruptive. Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut, and Mr Cukurs may indeed have been unjustly killed.

However...

Morlar wrote: »

On page 2 of this thread you have posted 7 times, your posts consist of nothing which has not already been addressed in post # 1 of page 1.

The irony of this post cannot be overlooked.

Would you care to address Mr Goods statements regarding either the position of the Latvian government, or the sworn eyewitness statement quoted? (Preferably both, mind)

NTM

Morlar

The Latvian govt. statement refers to group involvement and not individual guilt as already mentioned.

The jewish organisation witness statements have already been addressed on post 1 of page 1 of this thread.

Morlar wrote: »

If you read the wikipedia page about this event - it is simply presented as an open and shut case (based largely on the unchallenged account of the mossad killer who wrote a book called'The Hangman of Riga').

However I thought it would be interesting to present the other side of this story.

The killing was also recently covered in the schlock tv series 'Nazi Hunters', where the mossad killer is interviewed and his version not just of the murder but of history is inexplicably accepted as accomplished fact.

Though in fairness to that programme they did briefly feature one of the the Herbert Cukurs' family (for about 1% of the programmes duration) - pointing out the absence of evidence against the dead man.

Margers Vestermanis leads the Jewish museum in Riga. He himself was a slave worker of the Nazis during World War II. The book "Execution of the Hangman of Riga" is " a complete nonsense ", he says. Indeed, Cukurs has been a member in the murder group of Viktor Arajs, but Herbert Cukurs was not responsible for assassination of 30,000 Jews. "Neither Viktor Arajs nor Cukurs were a member in the Perkonkrust whose history is well known." .....

Herbert Cukurs membership within the Arajs command is proven. He was his chauffeur and his right hand man. The fact that those troops committed heavy crimes - shootings, tortures, synagogues burned - is likewise recorded. Whether and how Cukurs was involved in these actions personally, cannot be proven today. With certainty, he carries a joint responsibility for his membership in this terrorist group, but whether he carries a penal responsibility, is not clear. Margers Vestermanis knows well the documents, both for, and against him. For him, two Jewish women have spoken out. Ella Medalje (born Ella Guttmann), was aided in escaping her being shot because she had presented herself as an "Aryan". Cukurs had driven her to the Waldemar Street nazi headquarter s building and he did not betrayed her, although he knew that she was a Jew. And later, Miriam Keitzner gave testimony in Brazil saying that Cukurs had hidden her on his farm.

The book " The Execution of the Hangman of Riga " quotes eight witness's statements of surviving prisoners of Waldemar Street. They have been filed before Jewish organisations. The originals are in the archive of the memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, copies in the Jewish museum in Riga. The fact that these witnesses were victims of the worst humiliations, is excepted without any question. However, something in these statements is inexact, something even wrong, means Vestermanis. The fact that in it Cukurs is named as a member of the Perkonkrust, proves nothing. The witnesses have been tormented and been traumatised and would have hardly differentiated anyone on the other side according to their party affiliation. It is very strange, Vestermanis says that not in the Soviet archives nor in the Latvians archives, are there any incriminating records against Cukurs. After the war, the Soviet Union wanted to exert a big war crimes trial because of the nazi massacres in the Baltic States and, therefore, interrogated thousands. "After the war, 365 members of these fascist commands were condemned. The astonishing thing is that in the all the testimonies, there are no criminal incriminations against Cukurs". The book about the supposed "Hangman of Riga "mentions a request for extradition by the Soviet Union to the Brazilian government. However, such a request has never existed. The Brazilian embassy in Buenos Aires informed me that‚‘‘Neither the Soviet Union, nor Israel, ever applied for the extradition of Cukur‘‘. On a list, published in 1960 in Israel, with the names of nazi war criminals, the name of Herbert Cukurs did not appear.

Historian Andrew Ezergailis said:

“MASAAD killed an innocent man”.

"TO change the question from how many Jews did Cukurs, to did he even kill one Jew?”

1- Even as I was writing my book about holocaust in Latvia, I noticed that there were many exaggerations as far as the question about holocaust , the matter of Cukurs did not seem like an important question. I could have looked as microcosm to a wider problem about exaggerations and untruth in literature about Holocaust in Latvia. If I had known ten years ago, that Massada’s version about Cukurs being the biggest mass killer of Hebrews in Latvia, who be assigned the destruction of 30 000 people, contains deep lack of knowledge, if not lies. Massada version not only contains simple falsehoods, but also shows a lack of knowledge about the system of destruction as such. Destruction system was brought to Latvia by and under Einsatzgrupe leadership, not one individual was given the opportunity to set records .
Ten years ago I did not have the opportunity to access materials which these days the movie makers were able to gather. A very important document which has come to light is that which Cukurs provided as testimony to the police in Brazil. To the film makers’ credit is that they changed the questions, from how many Hebrews Cukurs killed , to did he kill any. What happened to the democratic system’ s presumption of innocence? If someone would ask me if there was a possibility while serving under Arajs command to kill a Hebrew in his home ,I would say yes. In 1941. 300 men served under Arajs and his unit needed administrative people, who were responsible for maintaining modern inventory. Lieutenant Leimanis served as an officer for arms. He was still alive in the 70’/80’ and Eriks Parups testified in his behalf , he said that Latvian officers’ resistance movement infiltrated into Arajs commando to spy on their activities. He cooperated with American judiciary instances thus no accusations were raised against him. Among many hundreds of Arajs’ former soldiers depositions, nowhere is Leimanis or Cukurs mentioned. When Arajs was tried in Hamburg (Germany) among his documents Cukurs was not mentioned.

2. The only accusations about Cukurs as “butcher” of Riga come from surviving Hebrews, who wanted to find explanation for the tragedy of their people , but there are multiple problems with their testimony. In first place they lack information about holocaust internal organization, and methods of destruction. They had no knowledge about the Latvians who did the shooting. Many of them think, that killing of Hebrews in Latvia were improvised on the spot and did not follow an organized plan. Majority of those who survived ,could not name one shooter except Cukurs .We arrive at crass conflict of testimony: none of those who testified ,are able to place Cukurs at the edge of shooting pit, but the only Latvian, whom Hebrews were able to name was Cukurs . If I was given a choice of whom I would believe, I would lean towards the Latvian testifier, who was with Cukurs . At least those testimonies were given under oath. If Cukurs had participated, as an officer ,he would have given orders and would not have participated as a shooter. The Latvian shooters would not have forgotten his name .

3. As far as testifiers testimony has been analyzed and examined , the coefficient of truth has been low and full of contradictions .As an examples we could mention SD officer Elke Scherwitz’ , of Hebrew ancestry , trial, who was accused by survivors, especially Max Kaufman , and in his 1948 trial (Scherwitz) in Munich was found guilty of killing 30 000 Hebrews in Latvia . German historian Anita Kugler has made a study about Scherwitz and sees these accusations as exaggerated and false. Then follows the trial of captain Vilis Hazners , who was tried in the USA .He was accused of destroying 30 000 Hebrews in Latvia. Again, accusations were based by survivors testimony .These were full of contradictions and exaggerations .These evaporated in cross examinations by lawyers. Hazners was found not guilty. More than 70 000 Hebrews were exterminated in Latvia, but that did not happed the way testifiers gave depositions. The same 30 000 exterminated Hebrews in Latvia were assigned to Cukurs and on these same depositions of survivors ,Massada overhastily killed Cukurs. This is not the time to analyze all of supposedly Cukurs’ cruelty , yet we can without doubt affirm that during the first weeks of German occupation he was on his farm in Bukaisi village( might even have come under German arrest ) ,arrived in Riga, as he states , only on July 14, 1941.Thus all the testimony (about 75%) about his cruelty before July 14th are nullifiable . That also means that all other testimony should be looked at through skeptical / rational grinding stones.

The fact that Cukurs was part of Arajs’ unit as supervisor of a garage, is not deniable. In Cukurs’ book of life one should also note that he helped at least three Latvian Hebrews to survive holocaust, this fact in Massada’ s book about Cukurs was omitted. A girl named Miriam Kaizner ,the family Cukurs hid in their farmstead in Bukaisi and later took her with them to Brazil; a youth named Abram Shapiro ( who to this day plays the violin in Las Vegas) was given working papers in the summer of 1941 and Lutrins , whom Cukurs’ garage workers saved from shooting in Rumbula ,hid him and brought him back to the garage on Valdemar street where he worked as a garage mechanic.
In summing up everything, one must say that testimony against Cukurs was exaggerated , even absurd .

The alleged testimonies of Abraham Shapiro (Latvian: Abrahams Šapiro),


a Jewish Holocaust survivor, were widely believed to be crucial in accusing Cukurs of personally executing Jews in Riga. He was contacted in person by Latvian TV crew "Legend Hunters" (Latvian: Legendu mednieki) in Las Vegas, where he is currently living under changed identity as a successful musician. Shapiro was amused and surprised to learn that he is believed (and claimed so by Mossad) to have provided testimony on Cukurs personally executing Jews. Shapiro claimed on record in front of video camera that he had never done so. It was found out by the TV crew that while Shapiro had never actually given such a testimony, it had been written down by a legal department of some "unidentified" "organization of Jews liberated in Germany", along with two other similar "testimonies" (also likely to be fabricated evidence) and used as a basis for false accusations against Cukurs which led to his death.

1) He definitely was connected to Arajs's group, seems that at the minimum, he was their mechanic.
2) The only account that I have seen on his involvment in mass killings is dubious - him killing infants and drinking their blood and singing, dancing during this in public, shouting "give me their blood" (??), I have seen just one ource for this and I doubt it, especially the "drinking blood" part. However, modern russian (and former soviet) sources consider this to be enough to dispell any doubts. Seems that especially Soviet historiography felt very certain that Kukurs is guilty. I'm not so sure.

3) Seems that UK and Brazil considered him to be not responsible for war crimes, or at least it is mentioned in his letters that they have issued such documents (and even done rather serious researches, as other posters here imply) for his usage. Should be possible to trace such documents. Also in his letters it seems that he is openly and without trace of shame searching support letters from some embassy's and institutions because jewish organisations are saying bad things about him and in his own words, doing what they can to prosecute him and harm his business (if organising demonstrations and vandalism in his company is true, then it's not overrating).
4) I haven't seen that any court or war tribunal - Israel's, Soviet Union's, Allied or any other would have had his case and judged him as responsible for war crimes. Even though modern Russian institutions seems to imply that "beyond doubt" he was blood drinker and everything. Maybe there has been such court, then it's authority might be enough to consider him war criminal or not (though modern research would be much better). Though it seems to be true that he was killed by Mossad (or some non-governmental organisation).
5) In his letters he writes that during the war he was hidding one jewish girl in his house and that jewish organisations forbid his family to meet this girl after the war. It should be possible to find if any other source can confirm this, though I have seen it only in his letters. Grellber mentioned that this is also in "A book by Frank Gordon which i bought in Rigas occupation museum also contains a story about a woman, which Cukurs "spared/saved", or was it the Jewish org in Rigas web-site?" If it is in jewish org then it would be even more interesting. (might be a small window of opportunity for conspiracy theory that maybe it was not Mossad actually who's responsible for his death, but some soviet agent! )
6) While living in Brazil he did not try to hide his identity.
7) His letters seemed to indicate that he was slightly antisemitic (by modern standarts). However, it looked very much like tipical attitude towards the jews that existed in interwar period in Latvia - it was NOT aggresive, more like "let's better go shopping in Latvian shops", slogan used sometimes (for example dictator Ulmanis I think used it once), with nobody trying to implement it. So slight, folkish/rural-minded antisemitism - yes, probably. Nazi like antisemitism - didn't notice a trace of it. Jews in interwar period (or any other time for that matter) were never enemy of society, the small aggresive nazi-like antisemitic group Perkonkrusts was banned.

Some salient points

1. Cukurs was never charged, tried, or convicted of any crimes.

2. The Brazilian authorities investigated accusations against him, including requesting submission of evidence from other countries - including Israel. The Brazilians concluded that there was no case to answer, and no country ever requested extradition.

I would now expect the same standard be applied and jbg be asked to clarify of his multiple posts on this thread :

Morlar wrote: »

Which parts of your post refer to this man personally ?

Which parts are NOT already covered in post #1 ?

Which parts would even remotely resemble 'evidence' ?

You are trying to justify gruesome butchery of a human being on the basis of guilt by association and 'I wonder what else he could have done aside from being a driver', . . ' I wonder why did heemigrate to South America'.

Pathetic.

All without any a shred of legal process or a trial.

Is this a moral standard you apply to all sides of the WW2 conflict or just to Axis ?

Dades

Morlar, you seem like a poster with his already mind made up and nailed shut.

All possible evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) that displeases you is immediately shot down and dismissed. If the purpose of this thread was not to have a discussion, maybe you should have posted in a blog?

I don't know whether your OP is 100% correct or not, but sure as hell nobody will ever find out unless the case is discussed openly and all and any relevant material is entertained.

Morlar

Dades wrote: »

Morlar, you seem like a poster with his already mind made up and nailed shut.

All possible evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) that displeases you is immediately shot down and dismissed. If the purpose of this thread was not to have a discussion, maybe you should have posted in a blog?

I don't know whether your OP is 100% correct or not, but sure as hell nobody will ever find out unless the case is discussed openly and all and any relevant material is entertained.

Do you agree a good ground base for that discussion would be to refer to the original post and it's several sources ? I do, and that is the point.

The alternative approach (as taken by jbg) to play dumb and repeatedly point blank refuse to acknowledge or address anything already raised in that initial post.

If anyone would like to introduce new information to this thread then by all means fire away. The questions I asked jbg which have gone un-answered are however relevant in that :

Which parts of your post refer to this man personally ?

Which parts are NOT already covered in post #1 ?

Which parts would even remotely resemble 'evidence' ?

I'd also prefer posters to clarify if they are intending collective /group involvement, as opposed to alleged individual guilt if they are intending to justify or mitigate this particular murder.

Bearing in mind this thread was intended to bring balance to the discussion in light of both the distorted wiki entry and the grossly inaccurate schlock docu-drama.

PS My mind is not already made up.

At the same time issues already covered and re-posted by users refusing to acknowledge post#1 are not likely to change my mind & why would they.

Manic Moran

The jewish organisation witness statements have already been addressed on post 1 of page 1 of this thread

There was no need to completely re-post post #1. It was long enough the first time around. Perhaps you could simply focus in on the one or two lines in Post 1 of Page 1 of this thread refuting the sworn testimony of Mr Kram as quoted by Jonnie, because I'm not seeing it at second glance?

NTM

Morlar

Manic Moran wrote: »

There was no need to completely re-post post #1. It was long enough the first time around. Perhaps you could simply focus in on the one or two lines in Post 1 of Page 1 of this thread refuting the sworn testimony of Mr Kram as quoted by Jonnie, because I'm not seeing it at second glance?

NTM

I did not repost all of post #1, I reposted the most relevant parts, which are highlighted in Red.

It is not possible to address that isolated example in and of itself.

The group of statements are however clearly already addressed in the parts in Red, such as :

: That they were discounted by multiple other eyewitnesses.

: The response of the most prominent Latvian historian to them.

: The multiple problems and contradictions with the testimonies.

: The conflict between those 8 testimonies and the hundreds of soldiers testimonies.

: The fact that a german historian had already completed a study on another case where these testimonies were used and found them 'exaggerated and false'.

: The fact that the testimonies were previously used in the trial of captain Vilis Hazners & were found to be 'full of contradictions and exaggerations'

: That 'all the testimony (about 75%) about his cruelty before July 14th are nullifiable . That also means that all other testimony should be looked at through skeptical / rational grinding stones.'

: The fact that even given all of the above nowhere do they place him near a shooting pit.

: That one of the alleged eyewitnesses said he had 'never actually given such a testimony, it had been written down by a legal department of some "unidentified" "organization of Jews liberated in Germany'.

: The ridiculously outlandish nature of some of the claims 'killing infants and drinking their blood and singing, dancing during this in public, shouting "give me their blood".

: That (given said blood dancing allegations) Israel did not seek his extradition, nor have his name on a list of alleged warcriminals.

: Neither Britain or Brazil considered him a criminal.

: Russia did not seek his extradition.

: Nowhere in the 365 cases brought by the soviets in Latvia did his name even arise.

: That there is no incriminating mention of him anywhere in either Latvian or Soviet archives.

: The letters of reference he carried from Jews he had previously helped (during wartime).

: Also that the 8 testimonies were clearly insufficient to secure a conviction, which would explain the absence of a trial in this case.