Liepaja Museum exhibition "Liepaja under the occupation regimes"
Museum

The Liepāja Museum exhibition "Liepāja under the occupation regimes" is located in Liepāja, 7/9 Klāva Ukstiņa Street.

The exhibition covers the period from 1939 to 1991 during the double Soviet and German occupation. The inhabitants of Liepāja were among the first in Latvia to experience the outbreak of the Second World War and among the last for whom the war ended both literally and symbolically.

It was not until the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s that the opportunity arose to restore Latvia's independence. The Latvian People's Front played a major role in this process, and its exhibition, opened on 21 January 2001, is housed in the former headquarters of the Liepāja City Branch. The Liepāja branch of the Popular Front was the second largest after the Riga branch, with 13 000 members. It was from here that buses of volunteers were organised during the barricades in January 1991 to go and defend the sites in Riga. On 23 August 1991, the day of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Lenin Monument, a symbol of Soviet power in the city, was dismantled. In later years, 500 bronze bells were made from it in Germany - souvenirs of a bygone era. One of these bells is also on display.

World War II and the Soviet occupation of Liepāja ended only in 1994, when the last troops of the USSR's heir, Russia, left the city.

The museum regularly organises thematic exhibitions of its collection and artworks, as well as lectures and meetings with historians and eyewitnesses of recent Latvian history. The museum building is currently being renovated and the exhibition is being renewed.