“Death is always among us”

Riga was the centre of Jewish life in Latvia – until the arrival of German troops in the summer of 1941. At that point, the city became a destination for deportation and the scene of countless crimes committed under the Nazi policy of extermination. The SS, police, army and local auxiliaries murdered almost the entire Jewish population of Latvia, as well as those Jews deported to Riga from the German Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Riga, as a site of atrocities and place of remembrance, is the focus of this exhibition. It positions the city within the history of deportation, German policies of occupation and the Holocaust in the Baltic. It also looks at the lives survivors went on to live, the judicial treatment of the crimes and initiatives to remember the victims.

In autumn 2022, Riga was the first location where this touring exhibition by the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centres was presented. Since then, it has been shown in German cities that were the points of origin for deportations to Riga between 1941 and 1942.

The exhibition is presented in German and Latvian.