WARNING: VERY SENSITIVE HISTORICAL CONTENT

This article deals with the genocide during the Holocaust in Latvia and the fate of one of the perpetrators after the war. It serves exclusively educational and commemorative purposes.

Herberts Cukurs – Deputy Commander of the Arajs Command and his death in 1965

Herberts Cukurs (1900–1965) was Latvia’s most famous aviator in the 1930s and was celebrated as the “Latvian Lindbergh” for his long-distance flights.

After German troops occupied Latvia in July 1941, he voluntarily joined the Arajs Command – the infamous Latvian auxiliary police unit under Viktors Arājs, which became one of the most effective killing squads in the Baltic states during the Holocaust.

As Arājs’ deputy, Cukurs was directly involved in:

The destruction and liquidation of the Riga Ghetto. The Rumbula Massacre (November 30 and December 8, 1941) – approximately 25,000 Jews were shot in the Rumbula Forest. Numerous other executions in the Bikernieki Forest and around Riga.

After the war, Cukurs fled to Brazil in 1946 under a false identity, lived openly in São Paulo and ran a small boat tour business for almost twenty years without ever being brought to trial.

On February 23, 1965, he was lured to Montevideo, Uruguay, by Mossad agents led by Mieer “Mike” Harari. After his identity was confirmed and he was given the opportunity to make a statement (though he refused to confess to his crimes), he was executed on the spot. His body was later found in a suitcase containing a note in German and Hebrew: “Herberts Cukurs was convicted and executed for his crimes against the Jewish people.”

Israel has never officially recognized the operation, but released documents and testimonies from those involved confirm that it was one of the Mossad’s first actions against Nazi war criminals.

The case remains controversial: some see it as historical justice, others as an extrajudicial execution.

In present-day Latvia, far-right groups occasionally attempt to rehabilitate Cukurs’ image, but the vast majority of historians and the Jewish community regard him as one of the worst perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia.

Reliable sources:

Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Memorial Center

Museum “Jews in Latvia” & Riga Ghetto and Holocaust Museum

Book “The Perfect Nazi” – Martin Cüppers & Andrew Ehrhardt

Documentary film “Here I am – Herbert’s Cukurs” (Latvia, 2021 – shows both sides)