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Letter from Riga:

Cold Light Is Cast On Dark History Of a Baltic Nation

By Libby Garland

The end of November is the coldest, darkest time of the year in Riga, Latvia. Gone are the outdoor cafes and 11 p.m. sunlight of my last visit in June. Instead, two soldiers in camouflage uniforms blow on their frozen hands as they patrol the newly restored Freedom Monument — "For Fatherland and Freedom" — that was erected where a statue of Peter the Great once stood.

But the chill in the air is matched by the warmth of the reception that I receive by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On my previous, and first, visit to Latvia, I came to see a German friend give a klezmer concert at an international gathering of Latvian Holocaust survivors. The article I wrote about the event for the Forward caught the eye of someone in the Latvian government; the Ministry arranged for me to return , to attend a conference, "The Issues of the Research into the Holocaust," and see a small exhibit on Latvian Jewish history.

At Riga's petite new airport, I am met by a tall, solemn driver from the Ministry, who ferries me in his black Volvo to my hotel, a restored 15th-century convent that now houses visiting diplomats and businessmen. Inside the entrance stands a sign, the kind with movable white letters: "Welcome Mrs Garland from USA." The Ministry staff even provides tickets to "Carmen," sung in Latvian at the imposing National Opera, which was founded during Latvia's first independence.

The warm welcome reflects the fact that Latvia, population 2.4 million, is often bypassed by the international media (notwithstanding the November incident in which a teenage girl protesting the war in Afghanistan slapped Prince Charles with a carnation after he visited the Freedom Monument). The government, however, would like to smooth its path into the European Union and NATO by showing the world that its 10-year makeover from former Soviet republic into modern Western European democracy has been successful.

But to do this, it must prove that it has come to grips with the country's tangled past.

November is a month of two anniversaries in Latvia, one celebratory, the other grim. In November 1918, Latvia declared its first, short-lived independence. In November 1941, the Nazis marched thousands of Latvian Jews into the nearby forest of Rumbala and shot them en masse. The conference that the Ministry has arranged for me to attend is dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Rumbala shootings.

The bloody history of the Holocaust here, buried during the Soviet era, is just beginning to be exhumed. Only 1,000 of Latvia's 90,000 Jews survived. Approximately 75% of Latvian Jewish Holocaust victims remain unidentified, according to Professor Ruven Ferber, director of Latvia University's new Center for Judaic Studies, which is co-sponsoring the conference.

"The Wallenberg of our age," he tells me, referring to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who rescued scores of Jews from the Nazis, "will be a patient researcher going through thousands of files to save these victims' names."

But Latvia's dilemmas are not just about memorializing the past. "History has left some problems for us," concedes Janis Kahanovics, Deputy Head of the Latvian Naturalization Board, the government agency that implements Latvia's citizenship laws.

Latvia is home to a multiethnic, multilingual population that includes Latvians, Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Poles and Jews. The fierce crosscurrents of the 20th century — wars, occupations and independence movements — have kept changing the rules governing who is enfranchised and who is expelled, who is permitted to speak his native language in public and who is not, and, sometimes, who lives and who dies.

In 1994, the fledgling Latvian Parliament decided that the only people to be granted automatic citizenship in addition to ethnic Latvians were "historical minorities," meaning those who resided in Latvia before the Soviet occupation of June 1940, and their descendants.

The third of the population not considered "historical," mostly Russians who migrated to Latvia during the postwar Soviet era, was barred from national belonging. Since 1994, the government has liberalized naturalization requirements and worked toward creating a more integrated society. Even so, a quarter of the population remains non-citizens, including almost 4,000 of Latvia's 10,000 Jews. In diplomatic circles, Latvia has been criticized on this score, especially by Russia.

In this charged political climate, the history of the Holocaust raises particularly painful questions about Latvia's track record with ethnic minorities. To what extent did Latvian patriots collaborate in the Nazi persecution of Jews? How deep does anti-Semitism run here? Does the persecution of Latvians under the Soviets compare to Jewish victimization by the Nazis?

The conference has an atmosphere of gravity. It is held in the central auditorium of Latvia University, founded, like the National Opera, during the nation's first independence. The speakers, Latvians and foreign guests alike, are formal and serious. The history presented here is a combination of detective work and a kind of scholarly census-taking. Who was shot? Where and when were they shot? By whom? And who was deported where? Translators seated in little soundproof boxes render speakers' words into English and Russian for the audience, and a multilingual hum emanates from the headphones around the room.

During a break in the conference, I meet with Armands Gutmanis, Deputy State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Regarding me through stylish glasses, radiating intellectual thoughtfulness, he speaks about his commitment to seeing Latvia confront its Holocaust-era history. He tells me about Latvia's Historians' Commission, which is co-sponsoring the conference, and which he has played a crucial role in assembling.

Established in 1998 and comprised of 12 Latvian and 12 foreign members, the Commission is charged with fostering research about both Nazi- and Soviet-era crimes against humanity. These historical parameters have proven controversial, even making for minor diplomatic incidents. Russia, unwilling to define Soviet rule as "occupation," Mr. Gutmanis tells me, balked at participating. Israel, meanwhile, objected to considering Soviet and Nazi occupation under the same conceptual umbrella. Nevertheless, the work continues.

Mr. Gutmanis also had a hand in creating the historical exhibit "Latvia's Jewish Community: History, Tragedy, Revival," which I peruse when I return to the conference. Mounted on 20 beautifully designed panels displayed in the conference auditorium, the exhibit makes it clear that Latvian Jewish history is about more than the Holocaust. Photographs and documents give a kaleidoscopic sense of the bustling Jewish culture and economy that flourished here. But even this rich record of Jewish life is, like Latvia's recent history, a story of wartime losses and reclamation. Some of the exhibit's contents come from the extensive holdings of the Latvian state archives, which were spirited away to Moscow when the Nazis marched in and were returned intact to Riga after the war.

Indeed, despite all the newness that marks at least the wealthier segments of Riga as an up-and-coming West European capital — the tasteful renovations in government buildings, the Internet cafés and cell phones, the teen fashions that could come straight from the streets of Manhattan — sometimes it seems like the weight of history is inescapable here.

The Saturday after the conference, I discover a small cabaret around the corner from my hotel. It is called "Austrumu Robeza," meaning "Eastern Border." The theme is Retro Bunker Kitsch: The ceilings are done in camouflage colors, and busts of 20th-century dictators gaze out of niches in the wall. The audience is young, hip and Russian-speaking. The show this evening: three young women performing Soviet tunes interspersed with comic routines in what I gather is a mix of satire and nostalgia. My entry ticket features a graphic of a swastika and sickle inside a red star; my coat-check tag is a bullet casing on a metal ring.

As I walk back to my hotel after the show, I realize that something about the juxtaposition of conference and cabaret appeals to me. It strikes me, on the whole, as a good sign that however saturated Riga is with its troubled past, there is room for dark humor as well as solemnity.

 

To view other articles by Libby Garland, click here.

    

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