RIGA - A memorial honoring approximately 18,000 former prisoners of the Kaiserwald Nazi concentration camp was unveiled in Riga on June 29.
RIGA - A memorial honoring approximately 18,000 former prisoners of the Kaiserwald Nazi concentration camp was unveiled in Riga on June 29.
The project was funded by the Riga City Council, the German Embassy in Latvia and the Pax Christi public organization from Muenster, Germany.
Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks, Society Integration Minister Ainars Latkovskis, and ambassadors from several countries, including Russia, Germany and the United States attended the event, along with representatives of Latvia's Jewish community.
The memorial was built on a 455-square meter land plot in Riga's Mezaparks residential area, where Jews and other besieged nationalities were sent from across Europe during Latvia's WWII Nazi occupation. Between 1943 and 1944, as many as 18,000 Jews from Latvia, Lithuania and other European countries were imprisoned in the Keiserwald camp.
