Roberts Blūzmanis

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When the Nazis entered Daugavpils on June 28, 1941, they found a group of 240 Latvians — former police, army officers, and members of the Aizsargi organization (Organization for Self Defense) ready to collaborate.  The Latvians were prepared to do the Germans' "dirty work" in return for immediate and future reward.  Roberts Bluzmanis became a chief of the Latvian auxiliary police in Nazi-occupied Daugavpils. 

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There is no trial data for Roberts Bluzmanis

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Over 1,000 Jewish men perished within first week of German occupation. 

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Source: http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0143_Daugavpils_ghetto.html

• July 29, 1941 - Since the Ghetto was overcrowded, the Germans proposed that all people over 60 years old would be separated and transferred to the nearby Sanatorium in Mežciems.  Over one thousand left the Daugavpils Ghetto and were killed next day.

• August 2, 1941 - The Ghetto was still overcrowded and the Germans decided that Jews from other towns and villages would be set up in another ghetto.  Only Jews from Daugavpils and Griva and Lithuanian refugees would remain in the Ghetto.  A few thousand left Daugavpils ghetto and were killed in Mežciems forest.

• August 17-18, 1941 - Big selection days.  The Germans said that a large number of healthy people were needed for sugar-beet harvesting in the Krustpils region and promised increased food rations for them.  All ghetto inhabitants were gathered for selection and arranged in two groups; the right column for healthy people and the left column for the old, children, and ill, and owners of "worker's certificates" who remained in the Ghetto.  The people in the left column had a feeling of doom when the healthy people column marched out of the Ghetto.  In that way once again the Germans succeeded in covering their intentions and brought the remaining Jews to a place to be killed without resistance.

• From Jaeger's Report: Dunaburg - during the period July 13, 1941 through August 21, 1941, 9,012 Jewish men, women, and children were shot.

• November 8-10, 1941 - The next big action in the Daugavpils Ghetto took place when 11,034 people were killed in the Mežciems forest.  All local Latvian auxiliary police sources were involved in this mass killing, and even the Arajs commando came in blue municipal buses from Riga to help to quickly handle the killing.

• December 5, 1941 - The Daugavpils Ghetto had 962 inhabitants, according to a document signed by Zaube, commandant of the Ghetto.

• May 1, 1942 - The day of the final liquidation of the Ghetto.  According to June 1942 Food Card distribution, there remained 487 Jews (245 men, 242 women, 22 children) in Daugavpils.  That means that in the May 1 action about 500 Jews was killed.  After the Ghetto liquidation, all remaining Jews were concentrated in a few working factories, the largest of which was "Unit 322" in the Daugavpils fortress.

• October 1943 - All Daugavpils Jews were transferred to Kaiserwald Concentration Camp near Riga.

• According to the List of Jewish survivors in Dvinsk registered with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow on 05-Feb-1945, only 39 Jewish survivors lived in Daugavpils immediately after the war.  A few hundred later returned from Russia, where they stayed during the War period and also a few survivors returned from German camps.

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