Jewish Memorial at Rumbula Memorial site

Located in Rumbula, near Maskavas Street.

Rumbula is one of the largest sites of mass extermination of Jews in Europe. During two actions – on November 30 and December 8, 1941, which were carried out based on the decision of the Nazi leadership to completely destroy the Jews imprisoned in the Riga ghetto, more than 25,000 people were shot in the Rumbula forest, including approximately 1,000 Jews deported from Germany. In 1944, several hundred Jewish men from the Kaiserwald concentration camp were also killed in Rumbula.

The first attempts to immortalize the memory of the Jews killed in Rumbula date back to the late 1960s. Despite the restrictions of the Soviet government, as a result of the initiative of individual Jews, in 1963 a wooden memorial plaque with an inscription in Yiddish was attached to one of the Rumbula pine trees, while a large poster by artist Josif Kuzkovskis “Jew” was installed near the Rumbula railway (near the Riga-Moscow line). The poster showed an image of a man who seemed to be rising from the grave with a clenched fist, symbolizing a protest against what had been done. Both the memorial plaque and the poster were removed in 1964, but the Jews managed to obtain permission to install a memorial stone in Rumbula with the inscription “To the Victims of Fascism” not only in Latvian and Russian, but also in Yiddish.

On November 29, 2002, a memorial ensemble was opened in Rumbula, designed by architect Sergejs Rižs. Its construction was financially supported by institutions from Latvia, Israel, the USA and Germany, as well as private individuals.

On the side of the highway, by the road leading to the memorial, a metal structure has been installed as a sign, symbolizing the forces of Nazism. Nearby is a stone with an explanation that thousands of Jews were driven to their deaths along this road. At the entrance to the memorial itself, several stone plaques with inscriptions in Latvian, English, German and Hebrew introduce the events of the Rumbula tragedy and the history of the establishment of the memorial. In the central part of the memorial, above the square, which is made in the shape of a Star of David, a seven-branched candelabrum rises – a menorah, around which are placed stones with the names of the Jews killed in Rumbula. The names of the streets of the former Riga ghetto are engraved in individual stones, with which the square is paved. There are several mass graves on the territory of the memorial, the places of which are marked with rectangular concrete borders.