Salaspils & the Beating Heart

The second site Elder Davis took us to on Saturday was Salaspils, a nice town not too far from Riga. Although it's history stretches back to the 12th century, Salaspils is notorious as the location of a World War II German Concentration Camp known as Kurtenhof.  There is a small sign pointing the way to the memorial. There are no tour buses here, there aren't even very many people, it is out in the middle of trees and fields. The memorial though is quite impressive.
The original inmates of the camp were prisoners of war (mostly Soviet) but they were soon joined by Jews brought from several occupied countries after Riga's ghetto was closed. Jews were forced to build this camp starting in January 1942 and many died from exposure and harsh conditions.
It was still drizzling as we walked towards the entrance...

At the entrance to the camp, there is a long, sloping concrete block placed at an angle that symbolizes the boundary between life and death.  The words say: "Behind this gate the earth moans."It is a line from a poem by Eizens Veberis, who was a prisoner of this concentration camp.

About 12,000 prisoners went through the camp during its existence. In addition to the German Jews who perished during the construction phase, an additional 2,000 to 3000 people died here, of whom a particularly high number were children and young people.As you enter the gate between life and death, you see a large granite block with fresh flowers scattered on the top. As you draw closer, you start to hear a sound...what is that? It seems to be coming from the ground.

THUMP-thump,  THUMP-thump,  THUMP-thump. It is a heart beat. And the ground seems to vibrate with the sound. We try to analyze where it is coming from and it is hard to pin-point. If it is in the granite block, the sound amplifies and gives the impression it is coming from somewhere else. If it is buried in the ground, the heart beat rhythm can be heard clearly. Where ever it is coming from, it is eery and you get a feeling that those who died here are still here... the ground truly does moan.
Now look up....WAY UP. There are four HUGE, concrete statues in a spacious field where the 45 camp buildings used to be. They were made in 1967 by the Soviet regime to honor those Soviet soldiers who died here under German brutality.    THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump.... a slow steady rhythm. Beating for all those who suffered and died here.
The first one is titled "The Unbroken". It depicts a man barely able to crawl, trying to pull himself up. It is hard to comprehend the size of it with this picture.

The next sculpture is titled, "The Humiliated". It depicts a lady with her head down and one arm trying to shield her face. You can see Sister Davis is in this picture to show the size of the statue.       THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump.....hearts beating through time and space, under the ground we stand on.....

This sculpture was entitled "Solidarity". It looks like three men but there are actually four. One man on the left is holding up another man. We were told that in a concentration camp, if you couldn't stand at roll call, you were killed. So it looks like one man is too weak to stand on his own so another is holding him upright.
Elder Davis is standing below that one to show how GIA-NORMOUS it is!    THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump, THUMP-thump..... eerily, beating in time with your own heart.   A great side view with Elder & Sister Davis looking tiny.




The children were separated from their parents so medical experiments could be done on them. Most of them were tortured by pumping out their blood (500 grams from each) to supply German military hospitals blood for the wounded soldiers. Most children died of either typhoid fever or blood loss. From 1942 to 1944 some 12,000 Soviet children, of whom at least 7,000 were Jewish, came through Camp Kurtenhof.
According to an eye-witness account, the Nazis killed about 150 children a day through "medical experiments". In one of the burial places by the camp, 632 corpses of children of ages 5 to 9 were revealed, with total number of Soviet children killed in the camp estimated to be 7,000.