Shortly after the arrival of German occupiers in Riga in July 1941, the synagogues were destroyed; only one in the old city of Riga remained intact. A German institute was close to the building, and the invaders were afraid to damage their building. As always, the beautiful Art Nouveau building was taken for its own purposes. The same thing happened in Denmark. The occupiers had good taste and found the best buildings for their administration.

We found it after searching up and down a narrow street in Riga. Different from many places in Europe, there was less security. Only one man inside the Synagogue checked us in.

Riga’s Synagogue

From our trip to Riga in late September this year:
On the subject of the persecution of Jews, we found four so-called Stolpersteine. In English, stumble stones. To create 25.000 or more Stolpersteine and put them down at the doorsteps of the murdered Jews’s former homes would be a monumental task.

A father and mother and their two young sons murdered because they were Jews.