Latvian Occupation Museum

Occupation Museum building

The Latvian Occupation Museum (Lat. Latvijas Okupācijas muzejs ) is a museum in the Latvian capital Riga . It is dedicated to half a century from 1940 to 1991, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941 , then by Nazi Germany until 1944 and then again by the Soviet Union. The museum is visited by more than 100,000 people annually. This makes it the museum with the most visitors in the country.

history

The museum is located in a building erected in 1971 on City Hall Square in Riga's old town. Until the restoration of Latvia's independence (1990/1991), it was the Museum of the Latvian Red Riflemen , to which the Latvian Riflemen Memorial in front of the museum is dedicated.

At the beginning of 1993, 11 private individuals came together and established a foundation to set up an occupation museum. On July 1, 1993, the first makeshift exhibition was opened in the premises of the Museum of the Latvian Red Riflemen. As before, the museum is legally distinct from that resulting from the Foundation club Occupation Museum worn, moral and financial Latvian of great concern citizens. Regular supporters include a. the Daugavas Vanagi association and the Daugavas vanadzes choir . The museum has received a state grant since 1997. The donations remain the main source of income.

The permanent exhibition

The permanent exhibition is structured chronologically:

The first section represents the first occupation of independent Latvia by the Red Army in 1940 as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 23, 1939, as well as the first wave of deportations to the Soviet Union.
The second section applies to the time of the German occupation from 1941 to 1944/1945. She shows u. a. how Latvians fought on both the Soviet and German sides during World War II , and the Holocaust in Latvia .
The third section is the largest because it deals with the longest period of occupation, namely the second occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union in 1944/1945 and the era of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (until 1990). She shows u. a. the second wave of deportations to the Soviet Union in 1945 and the third in 1949 as well as the resistance of the Forest Brothers .
The fourth section is devoted to Latvian emigration (more than 200,000 Latvians fled to the West in 1944/1945) and the contribution made by Latvians living abroad to maintaining Latvian culture and language.
The fifth and final section documents the emergence and protest activities of the Latvian freedom movement since the mid-1980s and the regaining of independence in 1990/1991.

Special exhibitions (selection)

From 2005 to 2007 the Occupation Museum documented the fate of deported families by recording more than 2000 interviews with survivors and their relatives. A selection of these life stories was made public in a special exhibition.

From 2011 to 2014, the Occupation Museum presented the highly regarded special exhibition Rumbula. Nozieguma anatomija. 1941 ( Rumbula. Anatomie einer Verbrechens 1941 ) on the mass murder of Latvian and German Jews in November and December 1941 in the Rumbula forest . It was created in collaboration with the “Jews in Latvia” museum and was largely designed by Marģers Vestermanis .

The planned extension

An urgently needed extension has been under discussion since 2001. The architect Gunnar Birkerts , who was born in Riga in 1925 and lives in the USA and who planned the Latvian National Library , submitted a design approved in 2008, according to which the dark cuboid of the former Museum of the Red Latvian Riflemen is extended by a light cuboid symbolizing regained freedom should. Since the financing was unsecured, the plans were suspended. There was also a controversy about whether the exterior of the existing building should be preserved unchanged as a monument . In this sense, several well-known Latvian architects pleaded: It was a monument to Soviet modernism . The State Monument Authority, however, had no concerns and approved the plans for the extension, as did the Council for the Preservation and Development of Riga's Old Town . However, the Riga City Council did not issue a building permit.

In September 2016, the Saeima passed an amendment to the Act on the Occupation Museum, which transferred planning authority to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. This cleared the way to resume the project. During the renovation, the museum is showing its exhibition in the building of the former US embassy (Raiņa bulvāris 7).

Awards

2007: Prize of the Foundation for Occidental Ethics and Culture (STAB), Zurich, together with Sandra Kalniete .

literature

in order of appearance

Matthias Knoll , Valters Nollendorfs (ed.): Latvija zem Padomju Savienības un nacionālsociālistikās Vācijas varas, 1940–1991 / Latvia under Soviet and National Socialist rule. A representation of the Latvian Occupation Museum . Latvijas 50 gadu okupacijas muzeja fonds, Riga 1998, ISBN 9984-9332-0-2 (Latvian and German).
Gundega Michel, Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum Riga . In: Volkhard Knigge , Ulrich Mählert (ed.): Communism in the museum. Forms of conflict in Germany and East Central Europe . Böhlau, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-412-20705-2 , pp. 117-130.
Rebekka Blume: The Latvian Occupation Museum. The historical picture of the museum in the context of the discussions about the occupation period in the Latvian public . Research Center Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen, Bremen 2007.
Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum and Public History: Insights and Prospects . In: Svetlana Bogojavlenska, Jan Kusber (ed.): Tradition and a new beginning. Research on the history of Latvia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Small commemorative publication for Erwin Oberländer . Lit, Berlin and Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12732-7 , pp. 203-223.

Footnotes

↑ ^a ^b History on the museum website, accessed on November 5, 2016.

↑ Jānis Lejnieks: Rīgas centrs - problemas un risinājumi . In: Jānis Zilgalvis, Kristiāna Ābele (ed.): Arhitektūra un māksla Rīgā: Idejas un objekt ( Materiāli Latvijas mākslas vēsturei series ). Published by the Institute of Art History at the University of Latvia . Neputns, Riga 2004, ISBN 9984-729-54-0 , pp. 163–169, here pp. 168–169 (Latvian, translation of the article title: Rigas Stadtmitte - Problems and Solutions ).

↑ Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8305-3425-9 , p. 34.

↑ Museum Guide, German version, 2015 edition.

↑ Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, p. 220.

^ Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum and Public History: Insights and Prospects . In: Svetlana Bogojavlenska, Jan Kusber (ed.): Tradition and a new beginning. Research on the history of Latvia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries . Lit, Berlin and Münster 2014, pp. 203–223, here pp. 216–221.

^ Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum and Public History: Insights and Prospects . In: Svetlana Bogojavlenska, Jan Kusber (ed.): Tradition and a new beginning. Research on the history of Latvia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries . Lit, Berlin and Münster 2014, pp. 203–223, here p. 218.

↑ Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, p. 263.

↑ Izstāde “Rumbula. Nozieguma anatomija.1941 ” , accessed on November 5, 2016 (Latvian).

↑ Okupācijas muzejs sveic Marģeri Vestermani 90. jubilejā ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on November 5, 2016 (Latvian). @1@ 2

↑ Museum press release of September 27, 2016: The Reconstruction Project of the Museum is Back on Track , accessed on November 5, 2016.

^ Latvian Occupation Museum: Permanent exhibition , accessed on October 25, 2017.

^ Awardees , accessed on November 5, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Latvian Occupation Museum - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

56.9470925 24.1063643Coordinates: 56 ° 56 ′ 49.5 ″ N , 24 ° 6 ′ 22.9 ″ E

[History-1] History on the museum website, accessed on November 5, 2016.

[2] Jānis Lejnieks: Rīgas centrs - problemas un risinājumi . In: Jānis Zilgalvis, Kristiāna Ābele (ed.): Arhitektūra un māksla Rīgā: Idejas un objekt ( Materiāli Latvijas mākslas vēsturei series ). Published by the Institute of Art History at the University of Latvia . Neputns, Riga 2004, ISBN 9984-729-54-0 , pp. 163–169, here pp. 168–169 (Latvian, translation of the article title: Rigas Stadtmitte - Problems and Solutions ).

[3] Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8305-3425-9 , p. 34.

[4] Museum Guide, German version, 2015 edition.

[5] Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, p. 220.

[6] Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum and Public History: Insights and Prospects . In: Svetlana Bogojavlenska, Jan Kusber (ed.): Tradition and a new beginning. Research on the history of Latvia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries . Lit, Berlin and Münster 2014, pp. 203–223, here pp. 216–221.

[7] Valters Nollendorfs: The Latvian Occupation Museum and Public History: Insights and Prospects . In: Svetlana Bogojavlenska, Jan Kusber (ed.): Tradition and a new beginning. Research on the history of Latvia at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries . Lit, Berlin and Münster 2014, pp. 203–223, here p. 218.

[8] Katja Wezel: History as a political issue. Latvia and the process of coming to terms with the dictatorship . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag (BWV), Berlin 2016, p. 263.

[9] Izstāde “Rumbula. Nozieguma anatomija.1941 ” , accessed on November 5, 2016 (Latvian).