Arājs Kommando: Latvian Nazi Unit Behind Massacres During the Holocaust

The Arājs Kommando was a Latvian collaborationist unit that helped carry out mass murder during the Holocaust in occupied Latvia and Belarus. The rise of the Arājs Kommando marks one of the darkest chapters of the Holocaust in the Baltic region during the Second World War. In July 1941, as Nazi Germany advanced into Latvia following Operation Barbarossa, the collapse of Soviet authority created a deadly power vacuum. Into this chaos stepped Viktors Arājs, a young Latvian nationalist and former police officer who eagerly offered his services to the German occupiers. With the approval of SS commander Franz Walter Stahlecker, Arājs was authorized to form a local auxiliary unit that would soon become infamous as the Arājs Kommando. Composed largely of radicalized students, nationalists, and opportunists, the unit quickly transformed into a brutal killing force. Backed by Einsatzgruppe A, the Arājs Kommando played a central role in the mass murder of Latvia’s Jewish population. One of its first crimes occurred on 4 July 1941, when members burned the Great Choral Synagogue in Riga with Jews trapped inside. What followed was a systematic campaign of terror: Jews were rounded up, beaten, marched to forests and ravines, and shot in mass executions. The Kommando was instrumental in the destruction of the Riga Ghetto and participated directly in the Rumbula massacre, where approximately 25,000 Jews were murdered in two days in November and December 1941. Similar atrocities followed in Liepāja, Jelgava, Daugavpils, and across the Latvian countryside. Men, women, and children were stripped of their belongings, forced to dig their own graves, and executed at close range. By early 1942, the Jewish community of Latvia had been almost entirely annihilated. The Arājs Kommando later took part in so-called “anti-partisan” operations in Belarus, which often meant the destruction of entire villages and the execution of civilians. Although the unit numbered only around 1,500 men at its peak, its impact was catastrophic. After the war, many perpetrators were prosecuted, though justice came unevenly and often decades late. The Arājs Kommando stands as a chilling example of how local collaboration turned Nazi ideology into mass murder—face to face, village by village, victim by victim.This episode is part of the series Forces of WWII: Inside the Units.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv