Shortly after we arrived in February, we visited the Peitav Shul in the old city area of Rīga. In winter, the shul has few visitors, and the man at the entry, who we assume was part of the Jewish community, spoke only Russian. That he spoke Russian was no surprise; the active Jewish community here is predominantly Russian-speaking and orthodox. Peitav is the only Rīga shul that survived the Holocaust. It is also the only active shul in Rīga and one of the two active shuls in all of Latvia. For a small fee, we were allowed to see the interior of the shul, and although the man seemed to think the upstairs wasn't in use or wasn't of interest to us, we ventured to the women's gallery and noted that up there were open siddurim from recent prayers.
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| Peitav Shul |
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| Peitav Shul from the women's gallery |
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| Peitav Shul |
When he visited, Saadya went to Shabbat services there. If you are curious about the Shul, the Jewish Community produced this video with better images than I've put here (yes, it is in Russian). Rīga also has a Jewish Community Center, where we attended a lecture on the old shuls of Latvia and which houses a Jewish museum. The center is in a nondescript older building that was constructed as a Jewish club in 1913 and also housed an old Yiddish theater in the early 1920s.
This past weekend was Shavuot. Rīga is an easy place to find a good blintz, so I did!
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| My Lido blintzes for Shavuot |
Shavuot is also a holiday on which it is traditional to recite Yizkor. Yizkor means to remember in Hebrew, and with some quiet time on my hands, I chose to remember by visiting three Holocaust memorials around Rīga.
I've learned more about the history of the Holocaust in Latvia from visits to the Museum of the Rīga Ghetto and the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. Latvia was an independent country from 1918-1939. In 1939 Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union. In June 1941, the German army invaded and soon occupied all of Latvia. Germany held Latvia from 1941 to 1944 when it was retaken by the Soviet Union, who then occupied the country until 1991.
During the German occupation, the main Jewish ghetto in Rīga was built in the Maskavas neighborhood, and initially, it contained only Latvian Jews (~35,000). Later the ghetto was used to house Jews transported from Germany, Austria, Czech, and Lithuania.
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| Train car that brought Jews to the Rīga ghetto from Germany, Austria, and other countries |
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Personal stories from the ghetto
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Evidence of Jewish life or lives lost is sparse in Rīga, but in front of the building next to ours on Stabu are the only stumble stones we've found, and a few houses down on our street, there is a school that used to be the Stabu iela Shul.
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| Stumble stones: Isaac Brahman Z"L, Sholom Brahman Z"L, Malka Brahman Z"L, Bers Brahman Z"L |
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| Stabu Shul drawing |
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| The site of the old Stabu Shul, rebuilt and now a Montessori school. |
At least twice in the city, I've also spotted this version of a stumble stone.
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| "Here, people of Latvia sheltered Jews from certain death during Nazi occupation." |
Rīga is surrounded by sites where Jews were killed. The memorials at these sites are mostly new. During the Soviet occupation (1944 to 1991), monuments were erected for the people killed by the fascists, with nothing about how the killings were directed at Jews. Latvia's efforts to reconcile with the Holocaust on its soil include a restitution law passed in October 2022 that compensates lost Jewish property and provides funding to revitalize the Jewish community.
For Shavuot, I made Yizkor visits to Dreiliņi Forest, Rumbula, and Biķernieki Forest to place stones, say kaddish, and remember.
YIZKOR
Dreiliņi Forest
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| Dreiliņi |
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| Dreiliņi Memorial: "The Mass Graves of the Victims of Nazism." |
Rumbala
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| Rumbala entry |
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| Rumbala entry and history |
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| Rumbala memorial |
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| Original Soviet memorial, the only Jewish Memorial in the entire USSR |
Biķernieki Forest |
| Memorial sign on the forest road |
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| Information about the site |
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| Memorial at the roadside |
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| Biķernieki entrance |
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| Biķernieki Memorial |
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| Job 16:18 "Earth do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest." |
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| The cities from which Jews were transported |
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| The path in the woods with granite stones that mark the mass burial pits |
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| The path in the woods with granite stones that mark the mass burial pits |
"The Holocaust was a unique and uniquely Jewish event, albeit with universal implications. Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims." --Elie Wiesel
YIZKOR
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