Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

50 Pētījumi par holokausta problēmām Latvijā
Soldier Linkimer
Seduls and her daughters), but is heavily embellished with clumsy Soviet agitprop as
well as fictional events and dialogues. Thankfully, the crudity of these embellishments
makes it easy to strip them from the story. The remaining material is rather valuable,
being based on interviews only 20 years after the war, when the survivors were still in the
prime of life. It is available in a critically annotated English translation. 3 There also exists
a shorter account written by the surviving author Bergers in 1993, after restoration of
Latvian independence. 4 Although cleansed of agitprop and most of the fictional material,
it contains several errors that are pointed out in the English translation. Another relevant
source is the account by Aron Westermann, who was in the cellar with Linkimer. 5
The first year of the German occupation:
29 June 1941–1 July 1942
There exist several historians’ accounts of Holocaust events in Liepāja. Vestermanis 6
and Borgert 7 cover the first few months only whereas Ezergailis, 8 Levin, 9 and Anders 10
extend coverage to late 1943 and May 1945, respectively. In contrast to these rather
detached accounts, Linkimer presents an intensely personal “grass-roots” narrative, vividly
describing his own narrow escapes from the Nazi meat-grinder and the fates of less
fortunate Jews.