On July 4, on the Commemoration Day for the victims of Genocide against the Jews in Latvia, the commemorative event organized by the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia at the memorial on Gogola Street in Riga was attended by Speaker of the Saeima Edvards Smiltēns, Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs, and other officials and foreign diplomats.
The audience was addressed by a former prisoner of the Riga ghetto and concentration camps, historian Marģers Vestermanis, Israeli Ambassador Sharon Rappaport-Palgi, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia Dmitry Krupnikov, the author of the idea of perpetuating the victims of Nazism in the concentration camp Mazjumpravmuiža in Riga, prof. Karen Frostig from the USA, whose grandparents died in this camp.
Dr. Michael Gander, head of the Memorial to the former Gestapo cellar of Osnabrück and its labor camp, spoke about the cooperation between the Višķi parish of the Augšdaugavas region and the municipality of the Osnabrück region in Germany in the creation of a memorial to the Jews of Višķi who have perished in the Holocaust.
Prayers were read by the rabbi of the Riga synagogue Elijohu Krumer and Telman Guzhevsky. The ceremony was led by the director of the museum “Jews in Latvia” Ilya Lensky.
Commemorative events on this day were also held in Liepaja, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Rezekne and other places in Latvia.
In the evening, a concert of chamber music performed by violinist Daniil Bulajev, pianist Maxim Tanichev, cellist Katrina Anna Rando and violist Klinta Kluce took place in the house of the Riga Jewish Community in memory of those killed in the Holocaust.
Foto: Jewish community of Latvia, Daugavpils city council, Ģirts Gertsons, jelgava.lv. rezekne.lv
04.07.2023