The Museum opens an Exhibition on the Struggle of Latvian Youth against the Communist Occupation Regime

Celebrating the National Resistance Movement Memorial Day and honouring the members of the National Resistance Movement, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia opens the exhibition    "...The Spirit of Freedom Cannot be Killed!", about the struggle of Latvian youth against the communist occupation regime in the 1940s. This is a topical continuation of the Museum's present environmental exhibition.

The opening of the exhibition will take place in the Exhibition Hall of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Latviešu strēlnieku laukums 1, Riga, on March 15 at 15:00.

When the Soviet Union occupied Latvia in 1940, the patriotically raised youth actively founded resistance groups, as well as implemented various resistance campaigns. Youth activities – formation of national organisations, production and distribution of patriotic slogans, collection of weapons, hanging of the prohibited flag of the Republic of Latvia and celebration of prohibited national holidays – continued also in the subsequent years of occupation. 

The stories about the national struggle of Latvian youth presented in the present environmental exhibition at the Museum are now complemented by original documents, letters and photographs from the Museum's collection and texts from the Audiovisual Archive’s video testimonies in which former young people talk about their activities.

In November 1945, Ausma Anda Ubarte, a student at the Jelgava Secondary School, who was arrested at the age of 16, remembers: "We were all young – from 15 to 17 years old. We wanted Latvia to be free. We loved our Latvia very much. The beginning was here in my room. We found out that there is such an organization of students in Riga. We decided that there should be one in Jelgava as well. It was the "Three Star Organization" of the resistance movement. We wrote proclamations, of course, by hand, and tossed the leaflets in the city. The content was something like this: "The Germans were animals, but the Bolsheviks are beasts" and "Latvians, be vigilant!" Of course, we were afraid, we wandered through the ruins, climbed high, so that the leaflets could fly away further. We had an anti-resistance magazine "Help Also", in which we wrote patriotic poems, drew cartoons. We collected medicines and food as much as we could because it was a hard time after the war. The girls carried it to the partisans." 

The zeal of young people, their desire to fight and regain their lost homeland without sparing themselves and sacrificing their lives for the fight against the communist occupation regime is a stark reminder of the value of a free Latvia and an invaluable contribution to the national resistance movement.
The exhibition "... The Spirit of Freedom Cannot be Killed!" – both at the Museum and in the Exhibition Hall, will be open until the end of October.