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Ljuba Monastirskaja
Ljuba Monastirskaja (25 September 1906 – 30 November 1941) was a Latvian textile artist. She was a victim of the Rumbula massacre in 1941. Biography Monastirskaja was born into a secular Jewish family. Her father was a merchant who had moved to Riga from Chernihiv, Russian Empire (today Ukraine) to escape the 1903–1906 wave of pogroms. Her upbringing in Riga during the late 1910s was affected by dramatic events related to World War I. As a teenager, Monastirskaja studied at the Jewish secular school in Riga, where she graduated in 1924. Two years later, in October 1926, she began studies at the Bauhaus School of Art, Design and Architecture in Dessau. Her teachers included Josef Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Marcel Breuer and Georg Muche. Like most other female students at Bauhaus, she was put in the weaving workshop. There she could develop both her craft skills as well as new industrial weaving techniques developed for mass production, largely inspired by constructivism. She wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riga
Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planning Region, Riga metropolitan area, which stretches beyond the city limits, is estimated at 847,162 (as of 2025). The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava (river), Daugava river where it meets the Baltic Sea. Riga's territory covers and lies above sea level on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201, and is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture in 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 Riga summit, 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship, and the 2006 IIHF Wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otti Berger
Otti Berger (Otilija Ester Berger) (4 October 1898, in present-day Zmajevac, Zmajevac, Croatia - 3 May 1944) was a Croatian student and later teacher at the Bauhaus, where she was a Textile arts, textile artist and Weaving, weaver. She was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Early life Otti Berger was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. At the time of Berger’s birth, Zmajevac was part of the Baranya region of Austro-Hungary and was known as Vörösmart. Berger’s Jewish family was granted unrestricted residence and freedom in religion under the rule of Franz Joseph I of Austria, Emperor Franz Joseph I. Because of Vörösmart’s national transition from Austro-Hungarian to Yugoslavian in 1918, and later Croatian, Berger’s nationality was and still is often mistaken. Though a native Hungarian speaker, Berger was also fluent in German. Due to a previous illness, Berger suffered from partial hearing loss, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arajs Kommando
The Arajs ''Kommando'' (; ) was a paramilitary unit of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) active in German-occupied Latvia from 1941 to 1943. It was led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arājs and composed of ethnic Latvian volunteers recruited by Arājs. The Arajs Kommando was a notorious death squad and one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia. The unit was involved in the mass killing of Jews in Latvia until 1942 when it was used in anti-partisan operations in Belarus and Russia. It was disbanded and merged into the Latvian Legion in 1943. Formation In July 1941, Nazi Germany began its military occupation of Latvia, already occupied by the Soviet Union at the time, shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. One of earliest and most enthusiastic Latvian collaborators was Viktors Arājs, a former policeman and Latvian Army soldier. On 1 July, after the entry of the Germans into Riga, Arājs made contact with SS-''Brigadeführe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Einsatzgruppe A
(, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" () in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood. Almost all of the people they murdered were civilians, beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Romani people, as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe. Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS- Reinhard Heydrich, the operated in territories occupied by the ''Wehrmacht'' (German armed forces) following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact definition is not unanimously agreed upon. Mass graves are usually created after many people die or are killed, and there is a desire to bury the corpses quickly for sanitation concerns. Although mass graves can be used during major conflicts such as war and crime, in modern times they may be used after a famine, epidemic, or natural disaster. In disasters, mass graves are used for infection and disease control. In such cases, there is often a breakdown of the social infrastructure that would enable proper identification and disposal of individual bodies. Background Definitions Many different definitions have been given. The Bournemouth Protocol on Mass Grave Protection and Investigation focuses on circumstan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bikernieki Memorial
Biķernieki Memorial () is a war memorial to the Holocaust victims of World War II in in Riga, Latvia. Biķernieki forest is the biggest mass murder site during the Holocaust in Latvia with two memorial territories spanning over with 55 marked burial sites with around 20,000 victims still buried in total. The memorial was initially planned and construction started in 1986, but was delayed after Latvia declared independence in 1991. The construction was revived in 2000 by German War Graves Commission with the help of local Latvian organisations and several German cities. It was financed mostly by German government and organisations, Austrian State Fund, and involved city donations. It was designed by Sergejs Rižs and opened on November 30, 2001. Description The designer of the memorial was created by Latvian architect Sergejs Rižs, who worked for 15 years on the design of the memorial, saying it was "his human obligation" to devote his career to this. The memorial is lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riga Ghetto
Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Latvian Jewish, Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich" (Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), to live during World War II. On October 25, 1941, the Nazis evicted the ghetto's non-Jewish inhabitants and relocated all Jews from Riga and its vicinity there. Most Latvian Jews (about 35,000) were killed on November 30 or December 8, 1941, in the Rumbula massacre. The Nazis transported a large number of German Jews to the ghetto; most of them were later killed in massacres. While Riga Ghetto is commonly referred to as a single entity, in fact there were several "ghettos". The first was the large Latvian ghetto. After the Rumbula massacre, the surviving Latvian Jews were concentrated in a smaller area within the original ghetto, which became known as the "small ghetto". The small ghetto was divided into men's and women's sections. The area of the ghetto not allocat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Occupation Of Latvia During World War II
The military occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany was completed on 10 July 1941, by Germany's armed forces. Initially, the territory of Latvia was under the military administration of Army Group North, but on 25 July 1941, Latvia was incorporated as Generalbezirk Lettland, subordinated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, an administrative subdivision of Nazi Germany. Anyone not racially acceptable or who opposed the German occupation, as well as those who had cooperated with the Soviet Union, was killed or sent to concentration camps in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost. Persecutions Immediately after the establishment of German authority at the beginning of July 1941, the elimination of the Jewish and Roma population began, with major mass killings taking place at Rumbula and elsewhere. The killings were committed by the Einsatzgruppe A, and the ''Wehrmacht''. Latvian collaborators, including 500 to 1,500 members of the Arājs Kommando (which alone killed around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culture Of Latvia
The culture of Latvia combines traditional Latvian and Livonians, Livonian heritage with influences of the History of Latvia, country's varied historical heritage. Latvia is divided into several cultural and historical regions: Vidzeme, Latgale, Courland, Zemgale and Sēlija. History The area of Latvia has been inhabited since 9000 BC. Balts, Baltic tribes, the ancestors of present-day Latvians, arrived around 3000 BC. In the 13th century after the conquest of today's Latvia, Baltic Germans settled here, and gradually became the upper class and rulers of Latvia, while Latvians and Livonians lost their positions, becoming serfs in the 16th century. This caused the Germanisation of the educated inhabitants of other nationalities, yet some local traditions were preserved. In the 19th century, when serfdom was abolished, a Latvian nationalist movement, the First Latvian National Awakening, begun. Led by "Young Latvians", it encouraged Latvians to become artists and scholars, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1934 Latvian Coup D'état
The 1934 Latvian coup d'état () known in Latvia also as the 15 May Coup (''15. maija apvērsums'') or Ulmanis' Coup (''Ulmaņa apvērsums''), was a self-coup by the veteran Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis against the parliamentary system in Latvia. His regime lasted until the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. On the night of 15–16 May, Ulmanis, with the support of Minister of War Jānis Balodis and the paramilitary Aizsargi organization, took control of the main state and party offices, proclaimed a nationwide state of emergency (also referred to martial law), suspended the Constitution, dissolved all political parties and the Saeima (parliament). Ulmanis then established a non-parliamentary authoritarian regime in which he continued as Prime Minister. Laws continued to be promulgated by the acting government. The incumbent President of Latvia Alberts Kviesis, who was from Ulmanis’ Latvian Farmers' Union, accepted the coup and served out the rest of his term until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Hitler's Rise To Power
The rise to power of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919, when Hitler joined the ''German Workers' Party, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He quickly rose to a place of prominence and became one of its most popular speakers. In an attempt to more broadly appeal to larger segments of the population and win over German workers, the party name was changed to the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers' Party), commonly known as the Nazi Party, and a new platform was adopted. Hitler was made the party leader in 1921 after he threatened to otherwise leave. By 1922, his control over the party was unchallenged. The Nazis were a right-wing party, but in the early years they also had Anti-capitalism, anti-capitalist and Bourgeoisie, anti-bourgeois elements. Hitler later initiated a purge of these elements and reaffirmed the Nazi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Żagań
Żagań (French language, French and , ) is a town in western Poland, on the Bóbr river, with 25,731 inhabitants (2019), capital of Żagań County in the Lubusz Voivodeship, located in the historic region of Lower Silesia. Founded in the 12th century by Polish monarch Bolesław IV the Curly, Żagań was the capital of an Duchy of Żagań, eponymous principality from 1274 to 1935. The main sights are the former Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Żagań, Augustinian Monastery, one of the burial sites of the Piast dynasty, listed as a List of Historical Monuments (Poland), Historic Monument of Poland, the Ducal Palace and Park ensemble and the POW Camps Museum, located at the site of German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II, German-operated WWII prisoner-of-war camps for over 60,000 Allies of World War II, Allied soldiers of various nationalities, where the ''List of Allied airmen from the Great Escape, Great Escape'' took place. The town hosts the Polish 11th Armour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
