My Latvia Journal
The following is a brief summary of my trip to Latvia in August of 2003. I visited newfound relatives: Yuri, visiting from Israel, and his cousin Victor, living in Riga. Victor graciously took time away from his work to serve as a wonderful tour guide and translator. His wife Irina accompanied us for most of the trip. Photos of Talsi, Valdemarpils and Tukums can be found at the links below.
Wednesday, August 6
Travel day. Arrived safely in Riga, and Victor was at the airport holding a “Betsy” sign, waiting at the airport. He had my “schedule” all ready for me, handwritten with times and everything! Unfortunately, his daughter-in-law’s father had died, and he had to go to the funeral, so I was left to get to the archives and pick up my materials while he was gone. I got the papers, headed back to the hotel, and had a bite to eat before Victor came back. At that point, we walked around Riga a bit checking in antique shops for postcards (no luck) and buying me a small Latvian dictionary. He also showed me his office and his house – both buildings of his family’s that he had reclaimed and renovated. We sat in his living room and looked through a couple of his notebooks and did some taping. His wife arrived later, and around 9:30 or so, we left to go to a nearby cafeteria for dinner. I was starving! After a nice dinner, they walked me back to the hotel, and I got to bed around 11:30, I think. I am staying at the Reval Hotel Latvia – a decent air-conditioned room with two twin beds. Not luxurious, but very adequate, with a nice 15th floor view of the city.
Thursday, August 7
Victor and Irina (his wife) picked me up outside the hotel at 8:30 am. We picked up Yuri in Jurmala and then started on our two-day trip to Kurland in Victor’s Honda Civic. The weather was glorious. We stopped briefly at Jaunmokes Palace on the way to Talsi – a baron’s (?) house turned museum and park. In Talsi, we went directly to the Registrar’s office and met Leva Ratniece. She helped us look through the Sassmacken records that they held, as well as Talsi records before World War II. Found several new ones. However, their rules prohibit any photocopying, so I had to just transcribe the records. While we were working, Irina went down the street and got her a box of chocolates for her trouble. She was very helpful and asked that I send a copy of my book when I finish! Also suggested looking in the Tukums Registrar’s office for additional records.
After the Registrar’s office, we walked around Talsi a bit, photographing houses. We stopped for lunch in a local basement pub which was quite nice. I tried their cold beet soup, which was surprisingly good – probably because of a good sprinkling of dill. It is bright pink, and quite a traditional dish, apparently. Walking through the old streets, I was able to imagine the sledding on the church hill across the street from the lake, as mentioned in Paula’s tapes. We then went to the Talsi Jewish cemetery, which I had not seen before. As with all the Jewish cemeteries, it was very overgrown, and we did not find any relatives.
In Sassmacken, we looked up Eric Prokovics, and he invited us into his home to look at his records. His home was much as I expected, but Victor was apparently a bit surprised by the low standard of living. Just a country farm house in a way, with three small rooms. I scanned some documents and several pictures, and then he took us to the site of the cemetery, as well as to the pile of tombstones that was at another place in the town. Apparently the stones were stolen from the cemetery, sanded down and re-used. A few are left, which he is trying to get made into a monument at the cemetery site. He also took us to his historical museum of Sassmacken, which had some good pictures and interesting artifacts. Then we went to the site of the mass killing of Valdemarpils Jews – those who were “able to work”– on August 7, 1941. It was a fairly creepy coincidence that it was the same date as we were visiting. We hiked rather far into the woods and found a site marked by a rectangle of evergreen trees. There was no stone. The site had been marked with the trees shortly after the war. Those that were able to work were forced to dig turf (peat) for fuel for a month before they were killed. Others were killed in July at another location. After that, we dropped Prokopovics off and stopped by Sassmaka Lake to take a few pictures. Then we headed off to Ventspils.
Ventspils is apparently one of the wealthiest cities in Latvia, probably second to Riga. Its money comes from the oil industry. It is a very large port, shipping out oil that comes from the pipeline(s) in Russia. A large part of the city has been renovated, particularly the old part. After getting a bite to eat at an outdoor café, we walked down to the harbor where several “tall ships” were parked. Got back to the hotel at about 11:45 p.m.
Friday, August 8
After breakfast, we went off to the Ventspils museum, located in the old castle and very nicely renovated, to visit Victor’s acquaintance there, the archivist/curator. After leaving Ventspils, we drove down to Liepaja, stopping to visit the beach briefly on the way and another Holocaust memorial.
In Liepaja, we met Ilana Ivanova, a representative of the Jewish community there. After a brief drink and discussion of what we wanted to see, she guided us around the city, showing us the addresses on my list, as well as the park, beach and a few other buildings. She also gave us each copies of Edward Anders’ Liepaja Memorial book, which she would not take money for. We later hunted down an envelope, which I put a 20 Ls donation in for the Jewish community, and we delivered after a late lunch – about 4:00 p.m. We then visited the Jewish cemetery in Liepaja, which was huge and very overgrown. Though I knew that there were relatives buried there, and we looked for a while, it was hopeless to try to find the stones. Most were so overgrown they couldn’t be read, and it was very difficult to crawl around. Before leaving Liepaja, we stopped at the memorial at Skede, where the largest killing took place nearby. The site is difficult to find, near the Baltic Sea, in a grove of trees. There is a memorial stone. We then drove back to Jurmala, arriving at Victor’s house about 9:00 p.m. I think, possibly later. The drive is only about 120 miles or so, but the roads are two-lane all the way, and it took about three hours. I met Victor’s sons and their wives, and we had a light supper on his deck. The house is a short walk from the beach, and was purchased and completely renovated by Victor.
Saturday, August 9
At 9:30 a.m., I took a taxi out to Victor’s home in Jurmala. (The whole family stays in their Jurmala homes from late spring to early fall.) He had copied several papers for me, and I scanned his copies of family passports, and copied a Kurland map from a CD he had. We then went to his sister’s home in Jurmala, a former family home. She had a table set with “tea” waiting (this was about 11:00 or so), and I met her younger son and two grandchildren, the latter visiting from Toronto. We filled in a few blanks, looked at a few pictures (which the grandson was instructed to scan onto Victor’s CD for me), and then headed off, trying to stay on schedule. We then visited more relatives, doing a bit of taping and filling in several blanks. We left in a rush as Irina needed to get back to go to a concert with her sons (I think), and then Victor and I headed out to Tukums. We visited the Jewish cemetery there, and walked around the old part of town. The town square had been nicely renovated, each building labeled with a brass plaque telling what it used to be before Soviet times. We stopped at the Holocaust memorial near Tukums on the way home. This one, like the rest, was a grove of trees with a memorial stone, but it was near the road. Victor said that the road was not paved at the time of the war, and was not used much. The site had been very overgrown until it was cleaned up a few years ago.
Returning to Jurmala, we went to the home of another relative, where she was waiting outside with a copy of her second book, just published this spring. We sat outside with tea and cookies and talked. About 7:00 or so, she saw us off, and Victor took me to see the main street of Jurmala and the building that was the drugstore where his great uncle Abram worked. We walked up and down the very pretty pedestrian street – very lively, nicely renovated – which had a very resort-like atmosphere, Jurmala being technically an old resort town. Victor then put me in a cab back to Riga, and I arrived back at the hotel around 9:00.
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Victor, Irina and Yuri picked me up at 10:00 at the hotel and we headed for Jaunjelgava (Friedrichstadt). On the way, we stopped at Rumbula. A new monument was just placed there last fall to add to the original Soviet-era stone. It is an extremely powerful monument. There is a sculpture on the highway that is supposed to resemble an outstretched hand. Back at the actual monument, stones in the shape of a Star of David, resembling tombstones (some etched with names of victims), surround a large menorah. Between the stones are areas representing the streets of the Riga Ghetto. It is not a quiet place – very near the highway, the parking lot used seemingly as a rest area for some, and also near a railroad track – but the monument is very well done. Apparently they are still collecting names of victims, but it is unknown whether they will be eventually put on the stones or not. Victor and/or Yuri had already turned theirs in, but they were not inscribed on any stones. When I commented that there was no Russian on the marker at the entrance to the monument – just Latvian, German, English, and Hebrew, I think – it prompted a small discussion. Victor claimed that it was not necessary to have Russian, since the official language was Latvian. However, Russian is pretty much the language still used by the local Jewish community, so it’s a little strange. The project was funded in large part from outside the country – Germany, especially, I understand - so that may explain it.
We then proceeded along the Daugava river to Friedrichstadt, where we looked around the town before heading to the Jewish cemetery. Victor and his family had recently paid for and carried out a renovation/building of the Holocaust memorial there within the cemetery. It was completed this past spring and looks very nice. Apparently, the area has very good soil, as the cleared parts of the cemetery had become overgrown in a very short period of time. After two years, you couldn’t tell that anything had been done. We looked at a few stones and left discussing what would be done. Victor is very interesting in getting the cemetery cleaned up and fixed, but is wondering where to find the support for this project. He also is interested in recording the names of all those buried. From the cemetery, we went to overlook the Daugava river nearby, at the site of the ferry that used to be taken to get there from the other side of the river, and another site that was used to swim.
On the way back, we stopped on the outskirts of Riga at a large restaurant/amusement park for a late lunch (about 2:00 or so). This was a very large cafeteria, with many different areas for different types of food. It was extremely crowded, a bit of a mad house. The food was fairly good, but the “scene” was more interesting. Everyone was out for a nice Sunday afternoon. There was not a fat person in the place, in contrast to buffets at home. (Very few if any fat people in Latvia at all, that I’ve seen.) Although the restaurant was the main attraction, there were also rides, souvenir shops and arcades as well, and the parking lot was packed.
When we returned to Riga, we went to the Ghetto area and looked for addresses to photograph. According to Victor, the area has always been the poorest part of the city, and still is. It probably has not changed all that much in fifty years. We then went to the site of the old Jewish cemetery (pre-1930) which was completely destroyed during the war. It is now a park, with remains of the bases of a few stones. A large stone monument stands in one corner. We continued looking for addresses in Riga, and visited the site of the synagogue that was burned during the war – July 4, 1941, which is now considered Holocaust day in Latvia. Virtually nothing remained of the building, but the fragments that did were incorporated into a recreation that marks the site of the old building. It is built to resemble the ruins of a building, following the lines of the old one. Rather effective, though it was a little disconcerting to see people, possibly homeless, sitting and having lunch on the walls and feeding the pigeons.
We continued our tour of Riga, stopping in several places to photograph addresses. We parked and walked through a large part of Old Riga, where there were concerts taking place in honor of the festival associated with the Tall Ships, now in Riga, that we saw in Ventspils. The town was bustling, and reminded me very much of Prague. A great deal of it has been nicely renovated, and it has gone a long way to resemble other European “old towns”, such as Prague. There is very little evidence of American chains, with the exception of a few McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins, which are not too obnoxious. It is very pleasant.
Monday, August 11
Victor picked me up at the hotel at 10:00 am and we went to Shmerli Cemetery in Riga. We spent more than an hour and a half there searching out family tombstones. We didn’t see any Thal’s, but did find a few Kramer’s – don’t know if they’re related. We checked at the office of the cemetery for records. They have no records prior to 1950, though the cemetery was used from about 1930 on. After the cemetery, we checked out the three remaining Riga addresses, and then had lunch at a cute little Ukrainian restaurant right next to his office. Then we headed to the Museum and Documentation Center of Jews in Latvia. They were just opening a new exhibit or something, with several “bigwigs” visiting, so it was not a great day to stop in, but we were able to ask the head guy about Thal’s, Sassmacken and Talsen before he headed off to the ceremony. He didn’t have any record of Thal’s from any relevant towns, nor did they have any records about Sassmacken or Talsi other than what Eric Prokopovics had donated. The only item they have for Talsi is the blurb from the Museum of the Diaspora in Israel! But they did have a 1926-1927 Riga address book which we photographed pages from, and then we left.
Back at Victor’s apartment, we scanned some more of his photos, labeled most of the pictures on the CD he gave me, talked about his wife’s Ganzburg family, and talked a bit more with the tape recorder. We also had a bit of ice cream and some pastries for a “farewell”, and they dropped me off at the hotel at around 8:30. The next morning I had an uneventful flight home. What a wonderful trip!
This site was last updated on November 6, 2003.
Copyright 2003 Betsy Thal Gephart.
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