Liepaja unveils memorial to Holocaust victims from across Europe

Liepaja has opened a renovated memorial to Holocaust victims who were deported from several European countries, imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, and later brought to the city, LSM reported. The ceremony was held on October 8, the day the Liepaja ghetto was liquidated.

Research found that people buried in a mass grave at Līva cemetery, in its Jewish section, were prisoners from the Liepaja ghetto who died during the city’s bombing in 1944. A memorial stone had stood at the location since the 1960s.

In 2021, Fred Zimmak, the son of a German Jewish Holocaust survivor, came to Latvia to search for the grave. Cemetery employee and researcher Mareks Furmanis helped locate it. Furmanis said he had believed the graves were for soldiers killed in the war, but the research showed they held ordinary residents who were victims.

The memorial honours Jews deported from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, said Ilja Ķenskis, director of the Jews in Latvia museum. Descendants of Holocaust survivors also attended the ceremony.

Zimmak, who initiated the memorial, said he hoped remembrance events would help pass knowledge of what the Jewish people endured to younger generations. A project is also planned for a memorial at Mazjumprava Manor in Riga, where a concentration camp was located.