The Riga Committee

At the behest of the German War Graves Commission (German: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.), representatives from thirteen German cities and the president of the Commission established the “German Riga Committee” in Berlin on May 23rd, 2000.

Founding members were, in addition to Hannover, the cities of Berlin, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Kassel, Cologne, Leipzig, Münster, Nürnberg, Osnabrück, and Stuttgart. In 2011, 38 German cities, and the city of Vienna, were part of the Riga Committee. Jewish people from these cities were deported to the Riga ghetto in 1941/1942. The purpose of this committee is to ensure that the fates of these more than 25,000 deportees do not fade from the memory of people.

To fulfill this mission, the Volksbund, in collaboration with Latvian organizations, created a dignified burial and memorial site for the victims of the Holocaust in Riga in 2001.

In addition, Wolfgang Scheffler and Diane Schulle were contracted by the Volksbund to produce the publication “Book of Remembrance: The German, Austrian, and Czechoslovakian Jews deported to the Baltic States”. This extensive scientific investigation of the historical context includes a documentation of the names of all deportees from German cities to Riga.

The documentation of the names and the summary of the state of research form the indispensible basis for further investigations and for historical and political education in schools and other learning facilities.

Picture credits

German War Graves Commission