General information
Program details
Our guides will show you some of the most important landmarks associated with the Jewish history. During this tour you will learn about the Jewish history in Latvia from 17th century until the present day.
We will visit Peitav Shul – the only working synagogue in Riga. Built in 1905 in Art Nouveau style, it was the only synagogue which survived the Nazi occupation, as it was located in the Old Town and there was a risk of damaging nearby buildings. Nowadays it is the center of Latvian Jewish community.
Other synagogues were burnt down, one of them being the Great Choral synagogue. It was located in the area that became the Riga Ghetto during World War II. Now you can see several memorial signs there commemorating the victims of the holocaust as well as families who helped Jewish people to survive. The memorial itself is a wall supported by columns with the names of 270 people who risked their lives and saved more than 400 Jews.
Žanis Lipke alone saved more than 50 Jews by making an underground bunker in his yard – a hiding place for people smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto.
The Old Jewish Cemetery - Odd as it might sound to modern ears, Jews were not allowed to bury their dead in Riga until 1725 and even then it was on the very outskirts of Riga – today known as the Moscow Suburbs. The Old Jewish Cemetery was part of the Jewish ghetto during Nazi occupation.
During the tour you will also visit Rumbula - one of the largest holocaust sites in Europe. Rumbula memorial site: At the entrance, several stone plates tell us the story of the Rumbula tragedy and establishment of the memorial in Latvian, English, German and Hebrew. The path leads to the central part of the memorial, which is shaped in the form of the Star of David with a menorah (Jewish candlestick) above it. The menorah is surrounded by uncut stones with the names of slaughtered Jews engraved. Several cobblestones bear the names of Riga’s ghetto streets. There are also several mass graves in the territory of the memorial, which are marked with concrete borders.
Meeting/pick-up point: Just outside Riga tourism information centre, Old Town, Ratslaukums 6, Riga.
Duration: Three hours.
Start/opening time:Between 9am and 4pm.
Languages: English, German, Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Japanese and Chinese.
Others: Children for free under age of 16.
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