Page 20 - TORCH Magazine #17 - Autumn 2020
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The Riga Ghetto Museum in Latvia
We continue our tour of Holocaust memorials with a visit to the Riga Ghetto Museum in Latvia.
Situated a short walk from the centre of Latvia’s capital, located by the Daugava river, the Riga Ghetto Museum and Latvian
remains as an example of the squalid living conditions. A cattle truck in
the centre of the cobbled courtyard provides an evocative memory of the final journeys of a community that was virtually wiped out.
Holocaust Museum is one of the last few preserved examples of life in the Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation.
During the years of the Nazi occupation, over 70,000 Jews in
Latvia were murdered. Every name of every victim is etched on a large wall of remembrance together with the names of more than 25,000 Jewish victims transported to the ghetto from elsewhere.
But 2020 was a challenging year for the museum. And its survival remains uncertain.
For ten years, the important site allowed free entry for visitors touring the small but extremely moving museum. Photographs and exhibits portray the vibrant pre-war Jewish community and then the atrocities perpetrated during WWII. A house
To compound the tragedy, the Nazis were infamously aided by Latvian collaborators. The Jews were completely isolated.
