Page 22 - TORCH Magazine #17 - Autumn 2020

22
CUFI.ORG.UK
food ration of a non-Jew. A second yellow star was also issued to prohibit the Jewish wearer from walking on the pavement, forcing them to walk in the road instead. This was worn on the middle of the back so that they could be distinguishable in a crowded street.
to be one of the many in the Riga ghetto to be transported to the nearby Rumbula forest, but being too weak and frail he was shot dead in the street. Surviving witnesses have said that just before his death, the historian turned to other Jews surrounding him and implored them saying, "If you survive, never forget what is happening here, give evidence, write and rewrite, keep alive each word and each gesture, each cry and each tear!"
Within the first three months of German occupation, more than 6,000 Jews were killed in the city and on 25 October the Riga Ghetto was created. Around 30,000 Jews were relocated to a small, 16-block area separated from the rest of the world by barbed wire fences and armed guards.
As the Red Army closed in on retaking Riga, the Germans hurriedly attempted
to exhume the mass burial sites in the forest to burn victims’ remains to cover up their heinous crimes. But we can be certain that no vain attempt can ever cover-up the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators. Their monstrous actions are recorded for eternity. Our responsibility is to ensure that the memory of their victims and lessons of their plight are never forgotten.
But their stay in the ghetto was short. Around 26,000 were massacred on 30 November and 8 December 1941 in the forest of Rumbula outside Riga. New space was created for 25,000 Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, 20,000 of whom were later massacred in a similar manner in the forest. After the Riga Ghetto was shut in 1943, the remaining Jews were transferred to concentration camps in Latvia.
Since gaining independence in 1991, public and official apologies have been made in Latvia and a number of museums and cultural centres have opened and monuments have been erected.
One of the thousands of victims was Simon Dubnow, regarded as one of
the greatest Jewish historians. He had originally fled Berlin to Riga for his safety. On 8 December 1941, aged 81, Dubnow was
But the Riga Ghetto Museum, one
of the Latvian capital’s three Holocaust museums, faced possible closure in 2020
Jews in the Latvian capital, Riga, were forced to walk on the road. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-N1212- 319 / Donath, Herbert / CC-BY- SA 3.0