ABOUTNEWSEVENTSCONTACT US
In preparation for the upcoming ceremony for the Jewish Genocide Memorial Day on July 4, the Uniting History Foundation has supported the cleaning of the territory around the memorial on Gogoļa Street, trimming trees and a thorough cleaning of the monument for Žanis Lipke and other saviors of Jews in Latvia.
On July 4, 1941, when Rīga was occupied by German Nazi forces, the German army burned down five of the six synagogues in Rīga, condemning hundreds if not thousands of Jews to death.
Jews had been brought to each of these buildings from surrounding neighborhoods and ordered to pile synagogue relics and holy scriptures and set them on fire. Meanwhile, supporters of the ruling regime indifferently trapped Jews in these synagogues and let them burn alive.
This day was the beginning of violent Holocaust politics that took the lives of no less than 65,000 Latvian citizens of Jewish descent in the following months. It is the largest massacre of an innocent population not only in Latvian history of the twentieth century, but possibly even the entire history of our land.
After World War II, the remains of the burned down synagogue were destroyed to be replaced by a Soviet town square. In 1988, a memorial stone featuring a Star of David was erected at this location. Using the archeological artefacts found at the site of the former synagogue, a memorial was built in 1993 with architect Sergey Ryzh’s design, resembling ruins of the synagogue, and in 2007 a monument for Žanis Lipke and other saviors of Jews was erected next to the ruins.
The monument embodies a large falling wall that threatens to destroy the Jewish people, and the columns supporting the wall hold the names of known saviors who saved over 400 Jews from death during World War II.
This crime has no limitation period. Only through remembering and commemorating can we honor the victims of the Jewish genocide and make sure such events never, ever happen again.
