The musical, with its unpromising title, ‘Cukurs, Herberts Cukurs’ is apparently part of a move to clear the man’s name. Many of Cukurs’s supports say that as no written evidence of his alleged crimes has ever come to light he was guilty of nothing other than bad judgement in joining Latvia’s notorious auxiliary police. They believe that it is this lack of evidence that led Mossad to execute him, rather than bring him to trial. They dismiss eyewitness accounts as mistakes but this raises the age-old question that could be applied to every single ‘unreliable’ witness in history - why would they lie?
Herberts Cukurs had been a popular figure in Latvia since before the war. In the 1930s he undertook solo flights to Africa and Asia. He was loved by the people of a newly independent country who looked on him with great national pride.
Latvia had been a part of the Russian Empire for centuries. It had a large Jewish community who had lived there in relative peace. They continued to do so during Latvia’s brief independence. In 1939, Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union and within a year over twenty five thousand Latvians had been slaughtered. It is little surprise then, that when German troops marched into Latvia a couple of years later they were welcomed as liberators. How could anyone have known that part of Germany’s plan for Eastern Europe would include wiping out the Jews, Roma, Slavs and other groups they considered undesirable? The Nazi’s plans for ethic Latvians were not much better. Many of them were to be deported to Siberia to make way for Germans who would be resettled in the Baltics.
In 1941 Viktors Arājs, a police officer with known connections to the Latvian fascist party, was approached to form the Arājs Kommandos – the Latvian SS. Cukurs was to be his right hand man. Their first task was to round up Latvia’s Jews. The Kommandos went on to burn down the Riga Synagogues, killing everyone inside. They earned themselves the nickname ‘kickers’ because of their job kicking people into trenches so they could be shot. They marched thousands of Jews to their deaths throughout the country.
I found my seat and sat down. Music began to play and the curtains parted to reveal – Little Herberts playing with his paper aeroplane. The first half was as saccharine and sentimental as one could imagine. It lumbered through Herberts meeting his wife and instantly becoming a loving father, to him flying off to Gambia. Cukurs apparently crashed in Spain along the way. In the musical he is rescued by a sexy flamenco dancer – because everyone in Spain is a sexy flamenco dancer.
The curtain eventually closed on the first half and I shot up from my seat, eager to get to the bar. Unfortunately, in my haste I was accosted by one of the many news crews set up in the foyer. Dazed, I could not find anything to say other than ‘Erm, it’s rubbish.’ What I would have said had I been thinking was that the musical was full of racial stereotypes and the lighting so ‘experimental’ I could hardly see what was going on. The minimalistic set was interesting and there were some beautiful tableaus but the music did sound a little too like the soundtrack to The Mission in places. But overall, I think the most offensive part of the whole first act was the ‘black-face’ performance in the Gambia scene. There are one or two people of African descent in Latvia, some of whom have appeared on stage with the Latvian National Opera. I have no idea why one of these actors could not have been cast for this part.
In the final scene of the musical Cukurs stands on the stage, shielded by Shapiro’s imaginary son as everyone points an accusing finger at the collaborator while chanting ‘murderer!’
After the war, Cukurs fled to Brazil. In 1965, desperate for money, he was lured to Uruguay by the promise of a business deal. Once there he was confronted by four Mossad agents. He pleaded to be allowed to speak but instead they shot him in the head, placed his body in a trunk, called the press and then went home. No one will ever hear what Herbert Cukurs had to say, not even those who needed to hear it most – the families of his victims.
Over a coffee in a Liepaja café, I asked a young Latvian friend if he had heard that the musical had taken place. He had not. He did not even know who Herbert Cukurs was. When I told him about this controversial figure he said he had vague memories of learning about him at school, but had pretty much forgotten him. Maybe it’s about time the rest of us did too.
Follow the link to The Violinist, a short video about Sasha Semenoff.