The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble was erected where an extended police prison and labour correctional camp of National Socialistic Germany was located from 1941 to 1945. An exhibition is constructed at the gates of the monument.
Labour correctional camp
The camp imprisoned Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian civilians and military personal, as well as transit prisoners, including small children from Latgale, Belarus and Russia. Over the various periods that the Salaspils camp was in operation, more than 20,000 individuals found themselves there. Because of heavy labour, illness, starvation and inhumane treatment and punishments, at least 2,000 to 3,000 people died in the camp.
Memorial
In 1967, one of Europe’s largest monument complexes commemorating victims of Nazism was opened on the camp territory.
The memorial creates a symbol of the border between life and death with a 100 metre-long concrete wall and seven concrete sculptures:
- Mother;
- The Unbroken;
- The Infamous;
- Protest;
- Red Front;
- Solidarity.
The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble is part of Latvia’s cultural canon.
In 2008, the German POW cemetery was opened on the memorial grounds.