Uldis Maksiņš

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Uldis Maksiņš was born on 29 January 1925 in Urga, Latvia. He grew up in Braslava parish and completed vocational school in Cēsis in 1944. That year, aged nineteen, he was conscripted at Rūjiena into the Latvian Legion’s 19th Division, formally the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Latvian), a formation of Germany’s Waffen-SS.

He fought against Soviet forces in the Courland Pocket in western Latvia. In February 1945, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he suffered a serious leg wound. In temperatures around −25°C, he crawled through deep snow towards woodland, where a patrol from his own side eventually found him. Following treatment at Renda, he was evacuated by sea to Germany, where surgeons saved his leg.

After the war, Maksiņš lived in the Hanau displaced persons camp, completed secondary education and got married. They emigrated to Canada in 1949 and raised four children. He became active in the Latvian community through the veterans’ organisation Daugavas Vanagi, Latvian choirs and Toronto’s St Andrew’s congregation.

He began visiting Latvia again in 1990 and returned permanently in 2006, settling near his childhood home.