People in Riga remember Latvia's worst Holocaust tragedy

RIGA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- A number of events were held on Thursday to remember the worst Holocaust tragedy in Latvia - the killing of 25,000 Jews in just two days of the winter of 1941 in a forest outside Riga, the capital city of Latvia.

Hundreds of people gathered at a memorial in the Rumbula forest where the atrocious crime was committed 76 years ago to lay flowers and light candles in remembrance of the victims.

The event started with a minute of silence to honor the memory of the people who on Nov. 30 and Dec. 8 of 1941 were led out of the Riga Ghetto and forced to march to the forest in the outskirts of the city only to be executed by the Nazis and their local henchmen.

"This is an event of silence. How are you supposed to speak about these things?" Ilja Lenskis, director of the Jews in Latvia Museum, told Latvian public television at the commemorative event.

"All my people is lying here," said Margers Vestermanis, a survivor of the Rumbula massacre whose whole family was murdered there.

Lolita Tomsone, director of a museum dedicated to Zanis Lipke, a Latvian who saved Jews during World War II, said that only by taking an honest look at this evil one can hope to overcome lack of empathy because compassion for the suffering of other people is what makes us human.

In the evening, people flocked to downtown Riga to lay candles and remember the victims of the Rumbula massacre by the Freedom Monument. Enditem