Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

Om

Hurtige fakta: The story it spans covers 51 years of foreign rule, from 1940 to 1991, and the first mass deportation alone packed some 15,000 Latvians into cattle wagons heading for Siberia. Roughly 150,000 people pass through each year to study the confiscated letters, Soviet documents, and personal effects that slipped past the censors.

Højdepunkter: Upstairs in the archive section sits a genuine Soviet-era deportation wagon, and standing inside its splintered wooden walls, chilled far more by the silence than the temperature, you start to grasp what those staggering numbers meant per family. A memorial hall lined with hundreds of flickering candles lists the names of the deported, and the faint scent of warm wax lingers as you read each one aloud to yourself.

Insidertips

• Rent the audio guide, the recorded survivor interviews in it make the exhibition far more affecting.
• Ride the elevator to the rooftop Sky Hall for a bird's-eye view of the Freedom Monument and the Old Town skyline.
• Leave your camera pocketed inside the candlelit memorial hall, photography there is off-limits out of respect.
• Budget time to linger by the letter-display cases on the lower level, some of the most intimate moments hide there.

Praktisk info

Vejbeskrivelse

Officiel hjemmeside

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