Salaspils – Latvia’s Socialist Realist Memorial
Located a mere two kilometers outside the Latvian village of Salaspils is a strange sight, men made of concrete in a field of grass. This site was once home to a camp of unimaginable horrors, shielded away from the world by the thick Latvian brush, destined to be forgotten by time. Yet today, the site is now home to a memorial like no other. Who know that concrete could be so emotive!
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Exploring the Salaspils Camp
As you enter the complex, a disturbing sound begins to enter into your eardrums, it is low at first, almost imperceptible but the nearer you approach the complex louder it gets. Then it hits you…. the pulsing sound is one of a human heartbeat. It is enough to make one’s skin crawl.
At the entrance of the complex you will be greeted by a massive concrete building, resting on long rectangular concrete blocks. Nothing is symmetrical and the only thing announcing that you are at the right place is the words installed into the concrete. This brutality blob can be explored and it actually serves as a history museum for the site. The pulsing sound may come from speakers but it only makes the place more solemn and eerie.
Established in 1941, it was named the Salaspils Police Prison and Re-Education Through Labor Camp before it was turned largest civilian concentration camp in the Baltic states. At first it was a labor camp known for its harsh treamtemnt of prisoners, especially children, and was known by German guards as Camp Kurtenhof. It was chosen for its proximity to the Riga and Daugavpils rail line, the two largest cities. The camp housed Lavian Prisoners as well as Jews and in the case of the later the women were separated from the men to stop them from reproducing. The prisoners harvested peat for the Reich under harsh conditions.
The camp was built by slave labor, Jews from the Riga Ghetto were brought in to construct it. The camp was known for its unsanitary conditions and disease was rampant. In 1943, Himmler toyed with making this camp a full fledged concentration camp, a bureaucratic distinction if anything, since people were dying here by the thousands. Half the children in the camp dies of sickness caused by these conditions.
In 1967, the memorial you see today was constructed. It served as a propaganda piece for the Soviets who inflated the death toll at this camp for political purposes and a song was dedicated to the children so Salaspils. It is estimated that 2000-5000 people were killed at this camp but Soviet propaganda upped the number to 100 000, a number not in line with that of Holocaust Historians.
Outside of the small museum you will find a grass field filled with statues.
The socialist realist artwork, shows the suffering of the Jewish and Latvian people though Soviet styles, thus making their suffering a Soviet one. The statues include several ensembles and some solo works. These include a suffering woman “the humiliated”, the “unbroken” a statue of a suffering man trying to left himself from the ground, “the mother” a woman standing tall to protect her children and the unbreakable” the trio of visibly shaken but defiant people. These amongst other installations make it a truly spectacular sight
Conclusion
Despite my reservations about Soviet intentions, this memorial is an emotional and solemn space well worth the visit. I fell that the statue display a whole gamut of human emotion often missing from these displays.
