While the 4th of July might only seem special for Americans, Riga held its own special ceremony this past American Independence Day, but for a wholly different reason. The day has been declared a day of rememberence of the Jews who perished in World War II. It was on that day in 1941 that the occupying Nazi forces burned the Choral Synagogue in Riga with approximately 1,000 Jews inside.
This July 4th, the Latvian government unveiled a new memorial to Jewish holocaust victims that day. The memorial is a sculpture which depicts several people supporting a collapsing wall, which symbolizes the tragic events of the Holocaust. It is located on the site of the burnt synagogue. The government of Latvia hopes that the memorial will make people remember the almost 90,000 Latvian Jews who lost their lives during the Second World War. |