Details

The Holocaust in Latvia lasted for four years and the result of the ideology of antisemitism was a tragic destruction of the Jewish community. Until now, there was almost no artistic evidence of the everyday life of the ghetto prisoners in various Latvian cities, towns and shtetls where Jews were forced to move soon after the German forces (Wehrmacht) occupied Latvia in summer of 1941.

Recently unique artistic evidence was discovered by chance in the collection of the museum dedicated to the famous Latvian modernism artists Romans Suta (murdered during the Stalin terror in 1942) and his wife, a Russian born Latvian modernist Aleksandra Beļcova, who remained in Riga during the Wehrmacht occupation with her daughter.

The sketches were discovered in the desk of the artist, who passed away in the early 80’s and were unknown even to her closest relatives. Various sketches and drawings, small size pictures in ink, oil pastel and other techniques were finished in 1941-1944 and reflect various details of the everyday life of the ghetto prisoners. These are unique testimony of artistic reflection on Holocaust and especially the Ghetto in Riga.