The memories of Jānis Miesnieks from Ezere about the end of World War 2 in Ezere
The repository of cultural history and regional research materials of the lake "Muitas nams" has been established in a historically important building. On May 8, 1945, the act of capitulation of the units of the Nazi German army surrounded on the Kurzeme front was signed here.
Jānis Miesnieks (b. 1930), a former resident of Ezer, shares his memories about the events of that day.
The spring of 1945 came and the front line was already near Saldus. All the neighbors also returned from the forced evacuation in Lithuania. Due to the coincidence of fate, I became a witness of an important historical event. One day in May, a guy from Mažeikikai came to receive payment for the work done during the summer. We dragged the corresponding bags of grain into the horse-drawn cart, which was entrusted to the old, much experienced mare Irma to pull. The movement could only take place along the very narrow side of the highway, because in the middle there was a deep, hollow furrow driven out by heavy machinery. It was already afternoon when we left "Zakai" for Ezeri. The pace at which we were moving forward might have been about 3 km per hour. However, the army road patrol did not let us cross the Vadakste bridge to Mazeikikai in Ezere. The next bridge across the Vadakste was near Laižuva, and instead of 13 km, the road to the destination became 33 km long. After driving a few kilometers, like phantoms from another dimension, several excellent black limousines were moving slowly towards us along this ruined road. You could clearly see the people sitting in the cabin - high-ranking commanders of the Red Army, but at the very back, a German officer with characteristic tall uniform hats was sitting. On the way we also heard quite loud noises from the front. But when the night came on the way, the entire edge of the front was burning with one fire, a salvo of rockets, the tracks of shining bullets decorated the edge of the sky like strings of beads. Beautiful, if only without the price of blood. It was obvious that the inferno in my Kurzemīte had started to boil... The darker it became, the more intensively the fire from the front lit up the outskirts.
We reached Mazeikis at sunrise. It turns out that a modest country house was the end point of our long, worn-out road, made with considerable effort and filled with engaging events. Here the cargo was unloaded, as well as received, it seemed, mind-boggling news: the war is over!!! Yesterday, May 8, the Germans signed the capitulation in Ezere.
With the empty cart, I immediately went straight home through the Lake, dozing from exhaustion. In less than a day, the situation in the world had changed radically: when I left home yesterday, there was still a state of war, but already on the morning of May 9, peace reigned. In the lake behind the Vadakste bridge, I passed the former customs house, where yesterday the authorized representatives of the Wehrmacht had signed the act of unconditional capitulation of the armies of the Kurzeme encirclement front. It was for this reason that the road over the bridge was closed yesterday and fate gave me the opportunity to see the participants involved in the event and the surge of emotions at the front on the first night of peace. With this, the hellish cauldron in the Kurzeme cauldron had stopped boiling. When I returned to "Zaķi" on the morning of May 9, the army liaison officers living in our house were in a complete frenzy...
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Ezere local history repository “Muitas Nams” (Customs House)
The Ezere Customs House is located in Ezere near the Saldus-Mažeikiai highway at the Latvian-Lithuanian border. The act of surrender of the German Army units ‘Kurzeme’ (Kurland) surrounded in the so-called ‘Courland Pocket’ was signed in this building on 8 May 1945. It is believed that World War II actually ended in Ezere. The customs house has an exhibit covering the events of the end of World War II and exhibits detailing the history of Ezere parish from ancient to modern days. In the morning of 7 May 1945, the commander of the Leningrad Front, Marshal L. Govorov, sent an ultimatum to the command of the army group ‘Kurzeme’ to lay down arms. The act of surrender was signed by the involved parties on May 8 and it detailed the procedure of surrender, weapons collection points, documents and information to be submitted and other practical measures.
Red Army prisoner filtration camp in Grieze and Grieze Church
Grieze is located at the Latvian-Lithuanian border, where the Vadakste River flows into the Venta River. The Grieze church was built in 1580, but the parish existed before 1567. The church was rebuilt several times - in 1769, in 1845 and in 1773 the first organ was installed. Both the altarpiece and the two bells have been lost for various reasons.
In the church garden there is a cemetery where people belonging to the church and noblemen are buried. One of them is Grieze organist Friedrich Baris and his wife Charlotte, who have a monument erected in front of the church sacristy. On the south side of the church, 32 Swedish soldiers who died in the Great Northern War are buried. The cemetery also contains the graves of 110 German soldiers who died in the First World War, for whom a monument was erected in 1930.
During the Second World War, the church suffered when the front line was stretched along the Venta River in late October 1944 and the German 225th Infantry Division was stationed in the vicinity of Grieze Church. When the Soviet 4th Shock Army launched attacks across the Venta River on 19 November 1944, several artillery shells hit the south wall of the church and the church tower was badly damaged.
After the surrender of Army Group Kurzeme, the Red Army's Leningrad Front accounted for 284 171 people taken prisoner. 7493 were Red Army soldiers released from German captivity. 48 German generals surrendered to captivity. According to the documents submitted at the time of the surrender of Army Group Kurzeme, the number of soldiers was about 185 000. The rest of the nearly 100 000 people subjected to filtration were Kurzeme civilians and Soviet refugees, as the Soviet Leningrad Front ordered on 10 May 1945 that all men between the ages of 16 and 60 be subjected to filtration.
In the Red Army, unlike the armed forces of other countries, the screening, guarding, maintenance and protection of prisoners of war was carried out not by army units, but by the internal affairs bodies - the People's Commissariat for State Security. The main task of the filtration was to detect citizens of the USSR and Soviet-occupied countries who had taken part in the hostilities on the German side. Captured German soldiers were examined in order to detect possible perpetrators of war crimes.
A prisoner-of-war filtration camp was located in the vicinity of the Grieze Church from 10 May to 17 June 1945. The camp was probably located here because the Grieze Church was close to the main roads. The pits in the ground where the prisoners hid from the cold on cold nights by covering themselves with whatever was available are still clearly visible in the surrounding area. During this period, the Red Army caused considerable damage to the interior of the church (all the pews were removed - "for the war effort", the pulpit was damaged, the organ was destroyed, etc.). A laundry was set up in the church building itself.
The last service in the church was in 1950 and the congregation ceased to exist. After the dissolution of the congregation, also later under the supervision of the Latvian Society for the Protection of Nature and Monuments, the church was not repaired. However, the building stood under roof until the 1960s-1970s. The church was damaged during the storm of 1961 and in 1968 the remaining interior elements were rescued by the Rundāle Palace staff.
Since 2003, a group of like-minded people from Riga parishes have been involved in the clean-up and restoration of the church. To date, the church walls have been conserved and the tower has been restored.
Saldus German Soldiers' Cemetery
Saldus German Soldiers' Cemetery is located near the Saldus-Ezere highway. More than 25,000 German soldiers have been reburied here. From May 1 to October 1 an exhibit about the six grand battles of the Kurzeme Fortress will be available in the memorial room. Tours can be booked on Saturdays and Sundays. Registers of soldiers buried in the Saldus German Soldiers' Cemetery and German soldiers who have fallen throughout Latvia are also available. The exhibit has photographs, items and memorabilia donated to the museum by relatives of the fallen soldiers. Military burial site research and reburial of soldiers is being conducted since 1997. Work is still ongoing and all soldier burial sites have not yet been explored. The names of the reburied soldiers suggest that along with Germans and Austrians also Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, Danes and soldiers of other nationalities had been drafted into the German Army.
World War II battle sites at Pampāļi and the private collection of Arthurs Hartmanis
The "Dzirnavas" in Pampali parish houses an impressive collection of antiquities, which the young collector started to build at an early age. The private collection includes many World War II relics found in the surrounding area.
Listening to the collector's enthusiastic narration, you can see the antiquities found in Pampāļi and its surroundings, from household utensils, dowry chests, radios and working pataphones to wartime relics and a wonderful stamp collection.
The history of Pampally began in 1835, when Ludwig von Stiglitz started building the estate. In 1837 and 1839 the new church of Pampally was consecrated.
War of Independence
During the Latvian War of Independence, Pampāļi was an important road junction between Lakes and Salda, and several battles took place in its surroundings between German units of the Dzelzdivision and Soviet Latvian troops. It was from Pampally that von Borke's battalion set out in the early hours of 6 March 1919 to carry out a joint mission, and later engaged in a misunderstood battle with the Separate Latvian Battalion, resulting in the death of Colonel Oskars Kalpaks.
World War II
Hostilities in the vicinity of Pampally began on 21 November 1944, when the Soviet 4th Shock Army, fording the Venta, launched an attack in the direction of Saldus. By 24 November, the situation stabilised and the front line remained unchanged until 21 December.
On 21 December 1944, the so-called 3rd Kurzeme Bolshoi began, during which the 4th Shock Army of the 1st Baltic Front with 4 Rifle Corps (12 Rifle Divisions) and the Mechanised Corps of the 3rd Guards attacked towards Saldus to link up with the units of the 2nd Baltic Front there. The German 132nd Infantry Division was defending in the Pampally area, with the 1st Battalion of the 436th Grenadier Regiment fortified in the vicinity of the manor and the church.
The attack on Pampally was carried out by the 357th and 145th Rifle Divisions of the 1st Rifle Corps, supported by the 39th Guards Tank Brigade, under massive artillery fire. During the first 24 hours of the battle, the Pampally garrison, commanded by Captain Eberard Coll, commander of the 14th (anti-tank) Company of the 436th Grenadier Regiment, was surrounded and virtually destroyed in fierce fighting.
As Pampally was directly on the front line, all the buildings suffered from artillery fire and are practically non-existent today. However, the outline of the former church, which was converted into a workshop during the Soviet period, has been preserved, as have the marks of shells on the wall of the former .. building.
Pampali church and the walls of the destroyed house
Pampāļi is a settlement in Pampāļu parish of Saldus county, the center of the parish is on the banks of Zaņas and its tributary Abrupe, 27 km from the county center Saldus and 147 km from Riga. The settlement was formed around the center of Pampāli manor after the agrarian reform. In 1933, Pampālis was granted the status of a densely populated place.
The hostilities on the outskirts of the Pampali began on November 21, 1944, when the Soviet 4th shock army, forcing Venta, began an attack in the direction of Saldus. By November 24, the situation stabilized and the front line remained unchanged until December 21.
On December 21, 1944, the so-called 3rd Battle of Kurzeme began, during which the 4th shock army of the 1st Baltic Front with 4 rifle corps (12 rifle divisions) and the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps attacked in the direction of Saldus to connect there with the 2nd Baltic Front units. The German 132nd Infantry Division, whose 1st Battalion of the 436th Grenadier Regiment had fortified itself in the vicinity of the manor and the church, was defending itself in the Pampali district.
The attack on Pampāliai was carried out under the support of massive artillery fire by the 357th and 145th Rifle Divisions of the 1st Rifle Corps, supported by the 39th Guards Tank Brigade. During the first 24 hours of the battle, the Pampali garrison, commanded by the commander of the 14th (Anti-Tank) Company of the 436th Grenadier Regiment, Captain Eberard Coll, was encircled and virtually destroyed in fierce fighting.
Since Pampali was located right on the front line, all the buildings were hit by artillery fire and practically have not been preserved today.
