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p August 26, 1944

p Approx. 10 p.m.

p Dear Sis,

p You will probably be surprised at my wanting to write when you get this long letter from Pyotr. But there we are-before they pump 8 grams of lead into me today, I want to get off my chest everything that has heaped up there over the past couple of months. In this letter I shan’t write about myself but about the unfortunate comrades who have been with me. So as well as avenging me, I want you all to avenge the inhuman suffering of these poor devils a hundredfold and give them some measure of satisfaction. I don’t know whether I shall be able to put it over to you but I am going to try. I have seen mutilated corpses dug up after they have lain in the ground for several months. Before that I never imagined I would ever have to see live people in such a condition here, in Riga, in the cellars on Reimers Street  [205•*  Damn that blasted house with all its inhabitants-the German murderers and their obedient, sadistic henchmen and the other dirty swine.

p I was arrested on June 2, 1944. On that day I was put into a cellar of this frightful house. I was in the first cell which contained 7 or 8 inmates including the blacksmith 206 Klyava, or Klyavin, as far as I can remember, from Ogra Volost. At the beginning, I paid no attention to anyone being so taken up with my own worries. In a couple of hours I calmed down and began to chat with my companions-inmisfortune. Each of them spoke of his own troubles and showed signs of torture on his body. It was a terrible sight but I could hardly believe my eyes when, after some hesitation, Klyava, a pale-faced fellow, somewhere between 40 and 45 who sat all the while to one side, pulled off his shirt with an almost expressionless face. What we then saw was no longer a human body. His entire body, from head to toe, was unlike all the others-blue or all colours of the rainbowit looked like the poor man had been roasted alive-his whole body was swollen and a dark brown colour.

p Blacksmith Klyava told us about himself-he was married, father of two children and from 1940-41 had been an active trade union worker. When the Germans came, he was arrested for his union activities but after some neighbours had vouched for him was set free. He was taken in for the second time at the end of June and delivered to the Ogra S.D. police. It was there that he had been worked over. A coward of an informer had accused him of sympathy with the Bolsheviks and of keeping a revolver. For this non-existent weapon the Latvian police had beaten him up for six days on end. The first day had been awful, the second even worse, but after that he felt no more pain.

p Most of the time the German murderers had always been drunk. They “worked” in turns of three until the victim lost consciousness. When he passed out they waited until he came to and the “work” continued. As I said before, this continued for six days. Then Klyava was taken to Riga. They also arrested his wife. What happened to her and the children he, of course, hadn’t the faintest idea. I saw this unfortunate man three or four times when he was taken in for questioning. They lashed into him here too; the nazis’ “law” is based on one thing only-inhuman use of power.

p The last time I saw Klyava after interrogation I didn’t know what to do. I was horrified and speechless with impotent rage. A few hours later he was brought down to our cell. He was no longer a human being, but a martyr taken down from the wrack. If his cell-mates hadn’t supported 207 him and sat him on a bench next to the radiator which he used for cooling his battered face, he would have fallen. The martyr was only semi-conscious-his face was beaten to pulp, his left ear partly ripped off, his bloody face was swollen and as pale as a dead man’s, except for the marks left by the beating. I had never cried before, but when I saw him I felt the tears welling in my eyes.

p From then on, I had only one desire-that he and the others, like Ludvig and Malvina Kukurevic, murdered on August 8, should be avenged. I could still tell you plenty more, my sweet sister, but my time is running out-at any moment they will be taking me to Bikerniek Forest.  [207•* 

p Sis, you always were a real Soviet woman, and your duty is to do all you can so that as soon as this rotten system collapses, the names of these unfortunate martyrs, which can be read on the walls of the Central Gaol’s second cell, shall be the accusers of these blasted nazis and even more hateful Latvian quislings.

p All these curs must get their deserts. Nobody must forget the words of P. Ozol at his trial-that he was beaten with a riding crop, with a stool, that they stamped on him, and three days after the interrogation he was still giving out blood instead of urine.

p These savages can never be pardoned for feeding people only on boiled water with a bit of flour until they dropped from hunger and exhaustion, as happened with me.

p Don’t forget, you who remain alive, that we were clubbed across the face for the slightest thing and threatened to be shot. We suffered this horror every night, holding our breath and waiting to be taken to the scaffold or to Bikerniek Forest. We heard the groans and screams of our comrades as they were being carted away. We saw a battered man brought back from interrogation who died within half an hour without regaining consciousness. (It happened in cell 26 in the first block. My comrades Andrejs Grauds and M. Klanis are witnesses.) Death to the bloody S.D. curs and the lackeys of the German fascists.

p I hope you won’t doubt the integrity of this short letter. Everything written here pales terribly in comparison with reality, but, as I’ve already said, time is very short.

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p I don’t know if I’ll be able to write to the end of this page. Therefore please fulfil my only wish. Going to my death I’m deeply convinced that I and my last cell-mate Indulen and the many murdered and tortured fighters will be worthily avenged and our relatives contented. But I wish that when Latvia is again free and you receive this letter, it will be published and those who survive will learn how thousands of us died.

p Once more I beg you-don’t grieve over me and don’t shed any tears, for I die for my convictions, in the knowledge that I did a lot to destroy the country of slaves-Germanyand will ever remain in the memory of all my comrades as a man who was not afraid of either truth or death.

p Your brother Hado 

p Greetings to everyone from Inda who is always in good spirits and will go to his death with a smile.

E. Indulen

Hado Lapsa and Eduards Indulen were leading members of the Latvian underground. Under their leadership, documents and passports were prepared for members of the anti-fascist organisations in Riga. On June 2, 1944, Hado Lapsa was arrested. Shortly after Eduards Indulen also fell into the hands of the Gestapo. In the morning of August 27, 1944, the two Soviet patriots were shot by the Riga Gestapo.