Latvia lays one of its last legionnaires to rest
Monday 3rd August 2026 on 19:30 in
Latvia
Latvia bid farewell to legionnaire and public figure Laimons Ezergailis at the Lestene Brothers’ Cemetery on August 3, LSM reported. An honour guard fired a volley at the ceremony. Ezergailis died at the age of 102.
With his death, a chapter of history has come to an end. Ezergailis was one of the last legionnaires in Latvia and preserved and passed on testimony about some of the country’s most difficult historical events.
Born on November 18, 1923, in Dzērbene parish, Ezergailis joined the Legion at the age of 19. During the Second World War, he served in the 319th Police Battalion and fought near Bauska. After the war, he was sent to a filtration camp in Kutaisi, Georgia, where half of the 2,000 legionnaires survived the first year. Ezergailis was the last known legionnaire in Latvia to have fought in Kurzeme.
“We had a duty to go. A duty imposed by order. If we did not obey orders, we were sent before a military tribunal, and the appropriate measures were taken,” Ezergailis said in an earlier interview.
Ezergailis had lived in Dobele since the 1950s, taking an active part in the city’s public life. He maintained ties with Daugavas Vanagi, a legionnaire organisation, and continued visiting the Lestene Brothers’ Cemetery each year to honour fallen soldiers until the final years of his life.
Emīls Gailis, chairman of the board of the National Association of Soldiers, said Ezergailis had been among the legionnaires involved in developing the Lestene cemetery. He also helped create the Rumba memorial site and plant trees there, and contributed to the Īle bunker. Gailis said Ezergailis attended commemorations of the Bauska battles and was among the last members of his unit to return with the battle group in spring 1945.
Ezergailis was awarded the Order of Viesturs for services to Latvia. Those who knew him described him as a man of remarkable vitality, inexhaustible energy and helpfulness. He had chosen the Lestene Latvian Soldiers’ Cemetery as his final resting place.