O.80 - Documentation from the “Jews in Latvia” Museum

O.80 - Documentation from the “Jews in Latvia” Museum
 
 The “Jews in Latvia” Museum was established in 1989 on the initiative of Holocaust survivors headed by well-known historian Marger Westermann. In the beginning the museum acted as a center for documentation. Its first permanent collection was opened in 1996. At present its collection is displayed in three galleries; the third gallery is dedicated to Latvian Jewry during the Holocaust and there is a special department dedicated to the Righteous Among the Nations.
 
 The Record Group is composed of 159 files in Latvian, German, Russian and Hebrew.
 
 The Record Group includes official German documentation photocopied by Westermann in various archives in Germany, and documentation from the Central Archives of Latvia; 
 
 Description of the Record Group:
 
 The material includes reports, instructions, summaries and orders by local administration personnel, including official documentation of Reichskommissariat Ostland. The second part of the collection includes memoirs and letters by individual Jews collected by the Westermann Center during the 1990s.
 
 Outstanding documentation in the collection:
 
 - Correspondence between Hermann Goering and Reinhard Heydrich regarding the Final Solution;
 
 - Correspondence between Security Police offices and Einsatzgruppe A, regarding the Jews (Jewish physicians, Jewish patients and Jewish property) in Riga and Latvia;
 
 - Directive by the Gebietskomissar (District Commissioner) of Riga to certain police stations in various places in Latvia;
 
 - Comments by the Einsatzgruppe A headquarters in Riga to Einsatzkommando 1A, 1B, 2 and 3, regarding the temporary guidelines issued by the Reichskomissar of Ostland concerning the Jews residing in the areas controlled by the Reichskommissariat of Ostland;
 
 - Reports submitted by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission; administrative documentation from Hamburg, regarding the deportation of Jews to Riga; lists of Jews deported from Western Europe to the Riga Ghetto; diagram of the Riga Ghetto; memoirs regarding the family of Herbert Cukurs.