Sonderkommando Arājs: Latvia’s Nazi Collaborators and Their Role in the Holocaust

Viktors Arājs

On 1 July 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, German troops entered the Latvian capital city of Riga. In their wake followed a unit of the notorious Einsatzgruppen, Himmler’s infamous mobile killing squads tasked with the mass murder of Jews and others in eastern Europe. From the outset, these masters of death sought to enlist the help of local collaborators, and on the same day the Wehrmacht began its occupation, Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A, made contact wi...