Holocaust memorial ceremony held in Riga

  • 2014-07-04
  • From wire reports, RIGA

A solemn ceremony will be held on the day of commemoration of the Jewish Victims of Genocide in Latvia, (July 4) with leading state officials and dignitaries in attendance, 

Latvian President Andris Berzins, Saeima Speaker Solvita Aboltina, Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkevics, Riga Mayor Nils Usakovs and other state officials and foreign diplomats will participate in the event at 25 Gogola Street in Riga.

Former ghetto and concentration camp inmates - historian Margers Vestermanis and Professor George Schwab, U.S. Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Douglas Davidson, and Chairman of the Association of Latvian & Estonian Jews in Israel Elie Valk will address those present.

The ceremony will be led by the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia board member Dmitrijs Krupnikovs.
The event is being held where Riga Choral Synagogue once used to stand before it burned to the ground. The ruins were razed during the Soviet times. A memorial sqaure now stands in its place.

With flags raised with black ribbon, Latvia remembers the more than 70,000 Latvian Jews killed during the 1941-1945 Nazi occupation, the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia Executive Director Gita Umanovska told LETA.