ABSTRACT
On 22 June 1941 the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began. As the German Army advanced on Daugavpils, the Communist Party leadership organised a chaotic evacuation plan which enabled the leading party cadres to escape, but left many junior soviet officials behind; an uncertain number of Jewish families were also able to escape, but the majority did not. As the German Army and the Red Army fought for control, popular militias emerged on both sides. The workers’ guard was hastily re-established and tried to defend the town, while in the countryside nationalist partisan groups were formed by those who had escaped deportation on 14 June. The greatest success of the workers’ militia was not on the battlefield, but in implementing a scorched earth policy for Daugavpils, which saw much of the city set on fire in the immediate aftermath of its occupation.
