Salaspils Memorial and Soviet Propaganda

The Salaspils Memorial was introduced to us as something unlike anything we had seen before, and it truly was. Even the sheer scale of the memorial was impressive and overwhelming. The camp was originally built to hold prisoners of war and political opponents. It was constructed by Jewish prisoners and was later used to detain various groups of people, including also Jews.

Until a few years ago, the memorial contained no clear explanation of whom it was dedicated to or who had been imprisoned there. It was constructed by the Soviets, which explains the immense scale of the site. The Soviet authorities used the memorial to reinforce their own narrative about Europe and Nazi Germany during the Second World War: 

The narrative promoted the idea that all of Europe had suffered equally under Nazi Germany, which was largely true, but did not accurately reflect the specific history of this particular camp. The memorial’s design was deliberately chosen to highlight the suffering of Soviet communists under Nazi persecution.

I was often reminded of our lecture with Prof. Dr. Diekmann, who explained that none of the sites and memorials in the Baltic states are part of the original camps or buildings. Instead, these are reconstructed or newly created sites, and as such, one always experiences them, and the historical narratives they convey, through the lens of the their creator. Each memorial reflects a particular interpretation of history, which can make it difficult to grasp the full, complex truth of what actually happened.