Zanis Lipke Memorial, Riga, Latvia: Honoring a Man Who Hid Jews from the Nazis

Zanis Lipke during World War II

Since 2017, I have visited ten death camps and many Holocaust memorials across Europe and in Israel. Before those visits I read three books by Timothy Snyder on the Holocaust and tyranny.  One of those books, "Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning" came back to me today on a visit to the Zanis Lipke Memorial.  

Snyder says the Holocaust was the worst, by number of killed of the entire population, in the countries conquered by both the Soviets and the Nazis.  Of the approximately 70,000 Jews who lived in Latvia in the summer of 1941, fewer than a thousand survived the war. Just 200 Jews survived the war in Latvia, the rest were concentration camp survivors. One-fifth of those were the Jews who were hidden in several different places by Zanis Lipke.  

Zanis Lipke Memorial, completed in 2014. Designed by architect Zaiga Gaile to have the appearance of an (inverted) ark--a refuge from Nazi murder.

Lipke witnessed the terrible treatment of the Jews in Riga beginning on 1 July 1941 when the Nazis entered the city. The Nazis conquered and completely occupied Latvia by 8 July 1941.  Later in the year, he decided he must rescue Jews. He got a job in a Luftwaffe warehouse in Riga and used his position to smuggle Jews out of the ghetto. 

According to Museum Researcher and Curator of Pedagogical Programs Maija Meiere-Osa, who gave me a tour of the Memorial, Lipke created a network of hiding places for small groups of Jews around the city. 

Maija Meiere-Ost, Museum Researcher and 

Curator of Pedagogical Programs, Zanis Lipke Memorial

Meiere-Osa said Lipke was the only one who knew where all the Jews were hidden and who was caring for them in hiding. Lipke was a veteran of the Latvian Army and had done some smuggling while working on the shipping docks in Riga, so he was able to create an intricate plan and keep it secret.

"He was the spider," she said. "Only he knew the entire extent of the web he created."

The entrance to the museum. The entire museum is dark and close 

and has the feeling of an underground shelter.

By the winter, hiding Jews in houses became more difficult, so Lipke began digging a bunker under a shed on his property.  Despite the frozen ground, they completed the underground shelter. His wife Johanna cared for eight Jews in that bunker. 

Many people who hid Jews offered shelter for weeks, some for more than a year, but Lipke and his wife agreed they would shelter the Jews for a decade if needed. 

Zanis Lipke was honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations on 28 June 1966. The Soviet government would not allow Lipke to travel to Jerusalem, but the wily smuggler was able to get to Australia to visit his son several years later and was himself smuggled into Israel to visit Yad Vashem and was able to visit in 1977.

The Soviet government decided they could live with the award, redefining it as an award for "saving Soviet citizens from fascist enemies."