Scandinavia and the Baltics - Part 12 - the final leg, from Riga to Tallinn

We arrived in Riga on Sunday evening and stayed at our first hotel of the trip, every other night was at an AirBnb. 

On Monday morning, we travelled a short distance out of town to the Rumbula Forest, the site of another mass massacre of Jews in the Shoah. 

It is a horrible place. Here, about 12 kilometres from Riga, 25,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in just two days, lined up, shot and pushed into an open pit which became their mass grave. Except for Babi Yar in Kiev, Ukraine, this was the biggest 2 day Holocaust atrocity until the opening of the death camps. The same “architect” of Babi Yar was brought in to Riga to quickly liquidate Latvian Jews and clear out the Riga Ghetto, as Himmler needed the Riga Ghetto to house Jews deported from Germany and Hungary. 

After being in the two forests of Rumbula and Ponar, we are not sure that we can ever visit a forest again without thinking about what occurred here in Latvia and Lithuania. 

While we visited, there was a bus load of tourists from a cruise ship docked in Riga for the day. We assumed that this was a Jewish Group, but when speaking to some of the people, discovered to our surprise that the majority were Americans and non Jewish. 

From here we went back to Riga and stopped at the “burnt shul”. This was the site of the Great Synagogue of Riga built in the 1870’s. On July 4, 1941, three days after the Nazis entered Latvia, they set fire to the shul, after locking the doors from the outside, trapping inside all those who had come to pray.

Next to the remains of the shul is a massive monument to the memory of Janis Lipke, who was a dock worker in Riga and who witnessed the actions that were being perpetrated against innocent Jews. He applied for a position as a contractor for the Luftwaffe, and used his position to smuggle Jews out of the Riga Ghetto. Together with his wife, Johanna, they concealed over 40 Jews in their home until the end of the war. Singlehandedly, they saved 25% of the just 200 Jews to survive the war in Latvia. 

We drove a short distance to the site of the Riga Ghetto. This is a very formal exhibition of the ghetto, the history of Riga’s Jewish community, a display of the miniature famous synagogues of Latvia, built to scale, etc.; this memorial on the very site of the Riga Ghetto is very well done and is packed with information. It also appears to be on the route of tour buses visiting Riga, as while we were there, a number of tours stopped by to visit. 

There was also a very interesting display of old pre WWII pictures with matching paintings, as well as a reproduced Ghetto house with huge wooden Hebrew letters surrounding the house. 

The next stop was the only currently operating Synagogue in Riga to have survived the Holocaust. Like others that we have seen on our travels, it survived because it is in a densely populated area of the city centre and had the Nazis tried to burn this synagogue, neighbouring buildings and close by churches would have been at risk.

Built in the early 1900’s, it is one of the most beautiful synagogues that we have ever visited.

In the bookcase of the synagogue were some old Jewish texts, including what might be first editions of the Chafetz Chaim from 1884. In the front cover on the left side is the word “mugah” which means checked. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, known as the Chafetz Chaim, being committed to ethics and honesty to the greatest degree possible, would recheck editions after printing to ensure that there were no missing or blank pages and that the purchaser was receiving full value. 

The main sanctuary is only used on the High Holidays and on special occasions; the daily minyan and Shabbat services meet in the small sanctuary in the basement. The Synagogue has a Rabbi; Rav Kalev Krelin; he has also recently been appointed as the Chief Rabbi of Lithuania and is also the mashgiach for the EEK Kashrut Agency in the Baltic States. 

There is also a Chabad in Riga. they hold their own services separate from the local community. 

There is a kosher restaurant next door to the Jewish Community Centre, a short drive from the shul. It is a meat restaurant and is called Cafe 7:40. Not sure of the significance of the name, but the food was good, service was crisp and centrally located. 

By this time in the afternoon, it was time to head to the airport for our very short 40 minute flight to Tallinn, Estonia, where we will spend the final two days of this trip. 

Tallinn was unlike any of the cities that we had thus far visited in the three Baltic Countries. It was busy and bustling, with many areas of the city under renovation; there were cranes everywhere. Tons of tourists packing the streets of the walled old city, souvenir stores everywhere, with most of the tourists here for a day either on a side trip from Helsinki, a short two hours by ferry, or in port on one of the Baltic Cruise Ships. 

Unlike the cities that we had visited in Lithuania and Latvia whose streets are still lined with buildings held over from the Communist occupation, Tallinn looks like they have taken those buildings and either replaced them with modern new builds or refaced them with a new fresh look. 

From a Jewish standpoint, Estonia never had many Jews. Before the war, there were 4300 Estonian Jews. More than 75% of them escaped before the war to the Soviet Union. The close to 1000 who remained were all killed by the Nazis and local collaborators by 1941.

Very early in the war, the Nazis proudly proclaimed that Estonia was Judenfrei (cleansed of Jews). 

Here is a picture of the Great Synagogue in Tallinn before the war and just after its destruction.

Today, there is a small Jewish community of about 2000 Jews and while almost extinct at the end of WWII, the community has experienced a rebirth in numbers and in Jewish organization and practice. 

We visited the beautiful modern synagogue in Tallinn that also serves as the Chabad house and the JCC. The building has received architectural awards and also houses a mikvah, kosher kitchen and neighbours the Jewish day school, which also accepts non Jews as part of its enrolment. We had a tour of the building by one of the locals and he told us that there was a daily minyan.  

The Rabbi, Rav Shmuel Kot, also gives hashgacha to a local kosher meat restaurant Ruby’s, located in a downtown area undergoing gentrification. 

We ended up eating there twice and the meals were great, delicious, plentiful and inexpensive. 

It is a bit difficult to find; it is located in the Rotermanni section of the city on a narrow pedestrian lane between the TOA (Taste of Asia) restaurant and the Brew Dog Brewery, with its huge Red Bulldog Symbol. 

We spent our time in Tallinn relaxing and browsing through the many quaint boutiques that line the sides of the narrow alleyways in the old city. 

Very early on Thursday, we boarded our flight to Copenhagen from where we connected to our Air Canada flight home.

Reflections of this trip are as follows:

Most of our travel is spent reciting the blessing that Jews say when they witness the beauty of God’s creations; this trip (at least the last half of it) was filled with Kaddish and the Memorial Prayer of Yizkor. The Baltic States bring back horrible memories for Jews. 

And while we appreciate the contributions of so many Righteous Among the Nations from these states, we cannot and should not wipe from our collective memory, the vicious atrocities in which the local communities participated in, and in some cases instigated. 

At the same time, there is a talmundic rule “ayn domeh shmiyah l’reiah”; one cannot equate hearing about something to actually seeing it. And in this case, we believe that despite its difficult and depressing effect on experiencing these places, it is still worth coming here because it simply reinforces the feeling that we must always be on guard, vigilant and determined to ensure that it can never happen again.

It was inspiring to visit the kever of my great grandfather. He was known as a very pious man and he motivated his students to continue the chain of tradition as Torah observant Jews. There are stories of him defending the honour and the sanctity of the synagogue and the Torah Study Hall when more modern elements wished to introduce less religious practices into its sanctuary. To stand and recite the Kayl Maleh Rachamim Memorial prayer at his tombstone, reinforced the family bond that we hold together, even though we never had the chance to personally know him.

It is sad to witness what happened to the Jews of Europe. It is sad to visit empty Shuls, empty shells of buildings that were once bustling with song and prayer and once so full of life. It is sad to realize that whatever is left of the Jewish communities where we visited, in all likelihood they will totally disappear in the next generation.

And why cities and towns are celebrating Jewish Culture Week or renovating synagogues when there are no Jews left is nothing more than a cruel joke. It is almost as though they are celebrating a culture that they tried to make extinct. It has been suggested that this is being done either to capitalize on the Jewish tourist trade or to atone for the atrocities that many local civilians supported. A more fitting atonement in our humble opinion, would be to donate the euros spent on these events to social service agencies in Israel. 

It was inspiring to participate in the transient medical student community of the Kovno Jewish Student Centre and to see that when push comes to shove Jewish students want to be with other Jewish students even if they are both secular. And Kol Hakavod to Rabbi Moshe and Rebbetzin Ruchie Sheinfeld for dedicating their young lives to ensuring that this place continues. We wish them much success and are honoured that we had the chance to participate with them over the few days that we were in Kovno. 

Once again, we have been privileged to travel and see more of Hashem’s creations and to learn more about our history. Am Yisrael Chai!