Commemoration Day of Genocide against the Jews

On July 4, 1941, local Nazi collaborators burned down Riga’s Great Choral Synagogue, built in the late 19th century, killing people sheltering there and destroying cultural treasures.

This was one of many crimes committed against Jewish people under the occupying regime that summer, when German forces occupied the territory of Latvia.

In the months that followed, a comprehensive genocide took place against the Jews and Roma of Latvia, who were confined to ghettos and murdered. During the Nazi German occupation, more than 70,000 Latvian Jews and 25,000 Jews deported here from other European countries were killed.

On this date, Latvia commemorates the Commemoration Day of Genocide against the Jews, to not let these crimes be forgotten, so that they may never be repeated.