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LATVIA Appropriately housed in a dark, tarnished building that once gleamed in copper and served as a center for spreading Communist propaganda, The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia is a testament to the fortitude of this tiny Baltic nation. Like each of the 40,000 visitors who pass through the museum doors each year, I was taken back to perhaps the darkest time in the 20th century. A time when Hitler's armies were gaining on all fronts, when the Soviet Union began gobbling up the countries of Eastern Europe, when Communism prospered, fascism flourished, and the fate of the world became uncertain.
Inside the somber, dimly lit museum, photographs, historical documents and artifacts tell the story of 51 long years of occupation. From 1940 to 1941 the Soviet Union occupied Latvia. Next came Nazi Germany (1941-1945), and from 1945 to 1991 the Soviets occupied for a second time. During the half-century of occupation 550,000 Latvians (more than one-third of the population) were either murdered, killed on the battlefield, deported, forced to flee as refugees, or simply disappeared without a trace. Graphic black & white photographs show the bodies of Latvian partisans who were killed by their Soviet oppressors. The bodies were put on public display as a deterrent to those who might support the resistance. Nevertheless, between 1944 and 1956 – during the second Soviet occupation – the national partisan movement included nearly 10,000 people in 900 different partisan groups. Some 20,000 Latvians, mostly rural folk, provided food, shelter and protection for the partisans.
Even before the destroyer battalions were unleashed, I learned that Latvians were often forced to fight against each other. When the Nazi's first arrived in 1941, many saw them as liberators from the first Soviet occupation. Two years later, Hitler created an army division called the Latvian SS-Volunteer Legion and forced Latvian men to "volunteer". (The museum displays an induction notice sent to Laimonis Ezergailis, proving that Latvians were compelled to join the German army. This fact was not discovered by Allied forces until after the war.)
Ironically, Latvia had declared neutrality during the war. During the 51-year occupation, Latvians lived in a police state. From 1940 to 1941, the Soviet Secret Police (a.k.a. Cheka) was responsible for the arrest, confinement, torture and execution of thousands. On a single night in 1941, for example, more than 15,000 men, women and children were arrested and sent to labor and "settlement" camps throughout the USSR.
The museum is filled with many artifacts depicting Latvian life during the occupation. I saw tattered suitcases belonging to deportees, uniforms worn by Latvian Legionnaires, a modified Ross-Enfield rifle used by a fallen partisan, personal letters, and keys to a Cheka prison ward. The most interactive exhibit is a full-scale model of a Soviet prison barracks. Built from drawings and verbal descriptions from former prisoners, barracks like this once housed criminals and political prisoners. I walked into the replica barracks, past the sleeping quarters (twin rows of wooden planks, one row above the other) and felt the chill that most visitors probably feel. A bare, low-wattage light bulb illuminated a placard on the wall near the corner of the room. The placard describes some of the deplorable living conditions that prisoners had to endure: "They slept so tightly packed together that turning over had to be done by everyone simultaneously on a shouted command."
Two years later, on Aug. 21, 1991, Latvia declared full independence and banned the Communist party. click here for more images of Latvia IF
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