RIGA | Baltā Kaza – Riga Ghetto – Latvian Academy of Sciences

August 2025. We’re travelling to the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and more specifically their respective capitals Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. Are they interconnected by rail? Yes, but not in the most straightforward or userfriendly way possible. The Rail Baltica project should remedy this. Unsurprisingly though, this megaproject faces political and budgetary hurdles. It will most likely not be ready by 2030. But that doesn’t stop us. What to expect from the Baltics? Is it affected by overtourism?

After a traditional Russian dinner at Senās Tradīcijas (Old Traditions, Старые Традиции) the evening before; we now at lunch at Baltā Kaza or White Goat, offering, contemporary Latvian cuisine, with “a twist on tradition, served fresh, with local and seasonal ingredients”. We both had the duck burger.

Riga Ghetto and Holocaust in Latvia Museum

The Warsaw Ghetto and its history is well known. The Riga Ghetto less so. But the NS persecution and mass-murder of Jews, Sinti (gypsy) and other undesirables was as fierce as in other Eastern European areas. The Riga Ghetto and Holocaust in Latvia Museum (Rīgas geto muzejs) tells that story.

A sheet recto-verso sheet of paper gives you all explanations. That sheet of paper is available in many languages.

The Riga Ghetto

During the Nazi occupation of Latvia in World War II, the Riga Ghetto became one of the central sites of persecution and mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe. Established in the Maskavas Forštate district of Riga in October 1941, it was created after the German authorities expelled non-Jewish residents and forced all Jews from Riga and the surrounding area into a confined space of just sixteen city blocks. Barbed wire enclosed the ghetto, and armed Latvian guards patrolled the perimeter under German command, shooting anyone who came too close.

Before the ghetto’s creation, the occupation had already seen the burning of Riga’s synagogues and the introduction of harsh anti-Jewish laws. Jews were banned from public spaces, compelled to wear two yellow stars—one on the chest and one on the back—deprived of access to sidewalks, and given only half the food rations of non-Jews. These measures came alongside public humiliation, assaults, and a complete stripping of civil rights.

The original ‘large ghetto’ housed around 30,000 Latvian Jews. Within weeks, most were murdered in the Rumbula massacre on 30 November and 8 December 1941, when approximately 27,500 were shot in pre-dug pits in nearby forests.

Skilled male labourers and a small group of women, kept alive for forced work, were confined to a smaller section—the ‘small ghetto’. The rest of the vacated area was turned into the ‘German ghetto’ to hold Jews deported from Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia (in present-day Czechia and Slovakia).

Between late 1941 and early 1942, about 20,000 Jews from across the Reich were transported to Riga. The first group from Berlin was executed upon arrival at Rumbula, but later transports were accommodated either in the ghetto or in a provisional camp at Jungfernhof.

Deportees were robbed of their belongings, given no food, and forced to survive on what they could scavenge from the homes of murdered Latvian Jews. The German and Latvian ghettos were run separately, each with its own Jewish Council and police force, but both under brutal Nazi control.

Life in the ghetto was dominated by overcrowding, hunger, and fear. Rations were meagre—220 grams of bread a day, spoiled fish once a week, and occasional vegetables. Black market food was smuggled in at great risk; those caught were often beaten or executed. Housing was severely overcrowded, with as little as four square metres per person. Sanitation was poor, and epidemics were a constant threat.

Work was compulsory and unpaid. Thousands laboured in German military facilities, factories, and workshops inside and outside the ghetto. Skilled trades offered a slightly better chance of survival, but even those with valued skills were not safe from random killings.

In March 1942, the Nazis staged the so-called Dünamünde Action, deceiving about 3,800 people—mainly the elderly, sick, and children—into believing they were being sent to a better work site, before executing them.

Despite the horrors, cultural life persisted in small ways. Deportees organised concerts, theatre performances, and even schools for children, though these relied on bribery to secure food for teachers. Some German officers attended these events, applauding the performances while continuing to oversee mass killings.

Medical care was limited, and the ghetto clinic struggled to cope with disease, malnutrition, and the psychological toll. Births were forbidden; pregnancies were often ended through forced abortions, and repeated cases could lead to sterilisation. Newborns were killed.

Executions in the ghetto were frequent. Hangings and shootings punished even minor infractions, such as possessing food or reading forbidden material. Commandants like Kurt Krause and Eduard Roschmann were notorious for personal acts of violence.

By mid-1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the ghettos in the Baltic States. In Riga, surviving Jews were transferred to the newly built Kaiserwald concentration camp, marking the final dismantling of the ghetto. Of the roughly 50,000 Latvian and deported Jews who passed through Riga, only about 1,000 survived the war.

The site of the Riga Ghetto, along with memorials at Rumbula and Biķernieki forests, stands today as a stark reminder of the scale and speed of the Holocaust in Latvia, where entire communities were destroyed in a matter of weeks.

A visit of the museum

The museum presents a lot of information. Besides predictable items on life in the ghetto, some rooms explore the reactions of Jews in the eary days, the story of the MS St. Louis, which tried to bring refugees to Cuba and the United States but ended up bringing them to Antwerp.

Another room explores the plight of Jews in French colonies in Africa, such as Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. That’s an aspect of the events which is seldomly told.

The Riga Ghetto Museum reminds us what authoritarian regimes are capable of and what genocide looks like. The ongoing genocides in other parts of the world shows us these practices are never ‘just part of history’.

The Latvian Academy of Sciences

To digest all we took in at the Riga Ghetto Museum, we decided to visit the nearby Latvian Academy of Sciences or Latvijas Zinātņu akadēmija. It looks a lot like the Palace of Culture and Science or Pałac Kultury i Nauki in Warsaw in Poland.

Rising above the low rooftops of Riga’s Maskavas Forštate district, the Latvian Academy of Sciences is one of the city’s most recognisable—and debated—landmarks. Founded in the Soviet era as the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, it was intended to be the nation’s highest forum for scientific research, gathering together leading academics from across the country.

Today, it remains Latvia’s official science academy, headed by Ivars Kalviņš, but its towering headquarters speaks as much of politics and ideology as it does of scholarship.

The building itself was constructed between 1951 and 1961, a decade that left a deep Soviet imprint on Latvia’s urban landscape. Funding came, in part, from the newly established kolkhozes, the collective farms created under Soviet agricultural policy.

The Latvian Academy of Sciences and its panoramic views.

As costs mounted, additional money was extracted from the countryside in the form of so-called ‘voluntary donations’, deducted from the wages of rural workers.

Architects Osvalds Tīlmanis, Vaidelotis Apsītis, and Kārlis Plūksne produced a design firmly rooted in Stalinist architecture—sometimes called Socialist Classicism—mirroring the monumental style of Moscow State University and the other ‘Seven Sisters‘ skyscrapers of the Soviet capital.

The façade blends Soviet symbolism with Latvian ornamentation: hammer and sickle emblems are set alongside traditional folk motifs, a deliberate attempt to merge ideology with local heritage. Originally, the spire was crowned with a five-pointed star framed by a wreath, but this was removed after Latvia regained independence in 1991.

At 108 metres high, it was Latvia’s first skyscraper and remained its tallest building until overtaken by the Swedbank Headquarters. When completed, it ranked among the tallest reinforced concrete buildings in the world.

Locals, however, gave it less formal titles: ‘Stalin’s birthday cake‘ and ‘the Kremlin‘ being the most enduring nicknames.

Today, the Academy’s 17th-floor balcony, 65 metres above the street, offers panoramic views across Riga’s rooftops, church spires, and river.

For visitors, it is both a vantage point and a time capsule, a reminder of the post-war decades when architecture was used as a statement of power, and when the pursuit of science unfolded under the watchful gaze of the state.

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RIGA | Baltā Kaza – Riga Ghetto – Latvian Academy of Sciences