Litene

Litene (German: Lettin) is the center of Litene Parish, in Gulbene Municipality, in north-eastern Latvia. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene.[1] A notable building is Litene Manor.[2]

Litene
Litene manor house

History

Litene became infamous in the summer of 1941, the "year of terror" of the Soviet occupation. Eleven hundred Latvian army officers were arrested by the Soviet NKVD in 1941. For it was at Litene Army camp that most of them were arrested under the pretext of a "training exercise".[3] Two hundred Latvian officers were shot in Litene, 80 in Riga and 560 were deported to Siberian gulags. Only 90 of them returned from Siberia after Joseph Stalin's death.[4][5][6]

In the spring of 1941, units of the disbanded Latvian Army now called the 24th Territorial Corps of the Red Army were sent for summer training to the former Latvian Army base at Litene.[7] On 14 June 1941, the remaining officers, while on a supposed training mission, were disarmed, arrested and deported to forced labor at Norillag, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia, where they were sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment.

In 1988, excavation was undertaken at the former Latvian Army summer camp in Litene. The excavators uncovered the remains of 11 individuals, evidently officers of the 24th Territorial Corps.[5]

During commemoration ceremonies on 14 June 2001 at Litene fraternal cemetery Latvian Defence Minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis unveiled a memorial to the Latvian officers killed in 1941.[8]

List of Latvian Army officers killed at Litene
  • First Lieutenant Fridrichs Feldmanis;[9] according to the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Senior Lieutenant Feldmanis was shot dead while trying to escape between August 1 and 10, 1941. The last place of his military service is shown as 183 Infantry Division of the Red Army.[10]

Litene tragedy in music and art

See also

References
  1. Litene, Latvia Page.
  2. "Photo: Litene Manor". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2006-12-31.
  3. Valdis O. Lumans Latvia in World War II Fordham Univ Press 547 pages, 2006 ISBN 0-8232-2627-1 ISBN 9780823226276
  4. Vieda Skultans (Vieda Skultāne) The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia Published by Routledge, 217 pages 1998 ISBN 0-415-16289-0 ISBN 9780415162890
  5. Archaeology of Terror by Dr. hist. Guntis Zemītis
  6. Latvian:No NKVD līdz KGB. Politiskās prāvas Latvijā 1940–1986: Noziegumos pret padomju valsti apsūdzēto Latvijas iedzīvotāju rādītājs Archived 2007-02-27 at the Wayback Machine Latvijas Universitātes, Latvijas vēstures inst.; Red.: R. Vīksnes, K. Kanger; Sast.: Dz. Ērglis, R. Vīksne, A. Žvinklis, S. Boge.— Rīga, 1999.— XVIII, 975 lpp.
  7. Photo Gallery: Litene army camp, 1937-1938
  8. Latvia marks 60 years since Communist regime deportations.
  9. "Tragedy of Maslenki - Latvia's Tragedy, June 15, 1940" Archived May 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  10. Foundation (fond or фонд) 33, volume (opis' or опись) 11458, case (delo or дело) 7.

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