THE MEMORY OF THE SHOAH IN THE POST‐SOVIET LATVIA

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Notes

1. From Russian kulak (fist), a word used to mark out prosperous peasants, who were considered “class enemies.”

2. Levin, “Some Basic Facts on Latvian Jewry.”

3. Ibid.

4. Ezergailis, Holokausts vacu okupetaja Latvija.

5. For example, Leo Dribins’s historical works on Antisemitism in Latvia and on Latvian–Jewish relations.

6. Ezergailis, Holokausts vacu okupetaja Latvija. This and all other translations from the Latvian are my own.

7. Dribins et al., Latviesu ebreju kopiena, 41.

8. Stranga, Ebreji un diktaturas Baltija, 154.

9. See, notably, internet forums of the leading Latvian news portal Delfi (⟨rus.delfi.lv⟩ and ⟨www.delfi.lv⟩) in Russian and in Latvian. Articles concerning the Holocaust in Latvian school manuals (for instance, an article by Lato Lapsa on January 28, 2005, available online at ⟨http://www.delfi.lv/news/comment/comment/article.php?id=10194386⟩ (accessed 7 November 2005) have provoked animated debate.

10. Ieva, Holokausts.

11. Ieva et al., Holokausts.

12. Juris, Kholokost v latviiskikh uéebnikakh istorii.

13. For instance, see Lejins, Latvian–Jewish Relations.

14. On the dichotomy Nazism/Stalinism, see notably Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism and Le système totalitaire.

15. Todorov, Abuse of the Memory.

16. Rudite, “Arāja komandas dalībnieks pēc padomju tiesas prāvu materiāliem.”

17. Interview with F. in Riga, July 2003.

18. For example, Alexander Galitch, whose songs about the Shoah became extremely popular among Soviet, and, particularly, Latvian Jews.

19. Field studies show that attachment to Israel remains nevertheless relatively significant for members of today’s Latvian Jewish community. Most of the interviewees claim that they feel a special bond with Israel and consider that it is important to help the State of Israel. This claim is often linked to the affirmation that one must remember the Shoah. This interesting paradox was revealed by James E. Young in his article “Holocaust Memorials in America,” explaining this phenomenon using the example of American Jewry:

In fact, without the traditional pillars of Torah, faith and language to bind them, the majority of Jews in America turned increasingly to the Holocaust as their vicariously shared memory … For many Jewish Americans, the point of common identification with the Jews of Israel seemed to lie in their potential destruction. In a perverse way, love of Israel and Holocaust memory now seemed to be two sides of the same coin: the more acute the Holocaust memory, the greater the fear that Israel now stood on the brink of another Holocaust.

This observation can also be made about Latvian Jews.

20. This phenomenon seems to persist in other countries of the former Soviet Union. Zvi Gitelman, in his article “Thinking about Being Jewish in Russia and Ukraine,” shows that “remembering the Holocaust” remains more important for Russian and Ukrainian Jews than any other identity referent, except for “defending Jewish honour and dignity” and “being proud of one’s nationality.”

21. Zhanis Lipke, a labourer from Riga, saved several dozens of Jews from the Riga ghetto and Riga Kaiserwald concentration camp. He was awarded the title of Righteous among Nations.

22. The inscription on the Rumbula monument today reads, ‘Here in the forest of Rumbula, on November 30 and December 8 1941, Nazis and their local collaborators shot dead more than 25000 Jews , the prisoners of the Riga ghetto—children, women, and old people.’

23. Interview with H.F., Riga, June 2004.

24. Interview with R.S., Riga, June 2004.

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Bella Zisere

She is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Sciences Po Paris where she is researching “Memory of Latvian Shoah Survivors in Post‐Soviet Latvia, Israel, and the USA.” She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Yale International Center for Area Studies.