Vinayak Hegde

Several months before when I was researching for my trip, I came across some photos of this place on Flickr. It looked interesting enough to photograph (because of the statues and the history of the place). I had no idea of how to get to this place, though it looked close enough from Riga (18 Kms south-west). Again after posting on CS board, LP volunteered to drive me to this place.

Salaspils (Literally “Island Castle” in Latvian) is quiet residential suburb of Riga now. But during World War II, it was a Nazi concentration camp used for killing Jews and enemies of Germany. It was particularly infamous as a large percentage of inmates were children separated from adult who died in the abysmal living conditions in the camp. Today the graves of children are marked by small dolls hanging on them (see pic below). The Salaspils memorial in 1967 was built to remember those who died in the concentration camp. The inscription on the gate to the memorial reads “Behind this gate the earth groans” (see pic below).

LP was giving me a lesson in history when we were visiting the memorial park. Latvia has been occupied alternately by Russia and Germany through the course of history. Whenever these countries were at war, there was forced conscription in Latvia. LP’s father had four brothers. It so happened that one of LP’s uncle was fighting with the Germans while his brother was fighting in the Russian when Latvia was invaded by Germany during World War II.