The Salaspils camp near Riga, which was operated during the Nazi occupation of Latvia, has long been the subject of controversy. Around 23,000 people were imprisoned there: half were political prisoners, labor resisters, and convicted soldiers, the rest were prisoners from special operations against civilians in Belarus, Russia, and the Latgale region of Latvia. The death toll in the camp, including the number of Jews who died during its construction, was well over 3,000 people.

Despite the relatively small size of this camp, it became a model for Russian remembrance policy. Soviet propaganda claimed that up to 100,000 prisoners were killed there, charged that children were used to extract blood, and greatly exaggerated the extent of the persecution of imprisoned lawbreakers and political dissidents. Salaspils became a myth in Russian-speaking society in Latvia that served to reinforce Soviet narratives of the “Great Patriotic War.”

The three authors drew on sources from the archives of Latvia, Germany, and Russia and critically analyzed oral testimonies and earlier research to create a comprehensive account of the Salaspils camp in Nazi-occupied Latvia. Their book furthers the understanding of the processes of deformation of collective memory and the techniques of memory politics from the Cold War to the present.

Kārlis Kangeris, Ph.D., Honorary Doctor of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Head of the Commission for the Study of KGB Materials and Chair of the Public Memory Center. Author of more than 100 research articles and co-author of fi ve books. His main research areas are diplomatic relations among the Baltic Sea countries during the interwar period and the Second World War, with particular attention to the German occupation of the Baltics and Latvia.

Uldis Neiburgs, Ph.D., Director and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Latvian History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia, and a Corresponding Member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Author and co-author of two monographs, two popular-science books, and more than 80 research articles and reviews; editor and co-editor of ten essay collections. His research interests include the history of the Second World War, resistance and collaboration during the Soviet and Nazi occupations, social memory, and public history.

Rudīte Vīksne, Ph.D. Author of more than 40 research articles, and editor and compiler of seven essay collections. Her main research areas are the repressions carried out by the Soviet occupation regime against the population of Latvia, the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation, and relations between the Soviet regime and religious denominations. She is one of the leading experts on the study of post-war KGB cases and Soviet accusations concerning the involvement of local residents in Nazi crimes.