Litene

Litene - center of Litenes parish, in Gulbene District, Latvia. Other names: Lytene, Myza Lytene Population - (?). Notable buildings - Litene Manor.

History
Litene became a known symbol in the summer of 1941, the "year of terror" of the Soviet occupation. Eleven hundred Latvian army officers were arrested by NKVD in 1941. For it was Litene Army camp where most of them were arrested under disguise of "training exercise". Two hundred Latvian officers were shot in Litene, 80 in Riga and 560 were deported to Norilsk to forced labor at Norillag. After the war only 90 of them returned from Siberia.

In the spring of 1941, units of the Latvian Army 24th Territorial Corps were sent for summer training to the former Latvian Army base at Litene. On 14 June 1941, the remaining officers, while on an alleged training mission, were disarmed, arrested and deported to Norilsk, north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia, where they were sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment.

During the commemoration ceremonies on 14 June 2001 at Litene fraternal cemetery Latvian Defence Minister Girts Valdis Kristovskis unveiled a memorial to Latvian army officers killed in 1941.

In 1988, excavation was undertaken at the former Latvian Army summer camp in Litene, where in June 1941 officers of the former army of the Republic of Latvia (which by then became the 24th Territorial Corps) were arrested and killed. The excavators uncovered the remains of 11 individuals, evidently officers of the 24th Territorial Corps.

List of Latvian Army officers killed at Litene
According to The Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Senior Lieutenant Fridrich Jakovlevich Feldmanis was shot dead while trying to escape between August 1 and 10, 1941. The last place of his military service is shown as 183 Infantry Division of the Red Army.
 * First Lieutenant Fridrichs Feldmanis

Reference: foundation (fond or фонд) 33, volume (opis' or опись) 11458, case (delo or дело) 7.

Litene tragedy in music and art

 * Litene : ballad for 12-voiced chorus, composed by Pēteris Vasks to a text by Uldis Berzins (1993). ISMN M-001-10158-5 EAN 7318590011454