In the old part of the Baltezers Cemetery, a brethren cemetery with the informal name \u201cWhite Crosses\u201d in a\u00a0 15\u00d745 m sized area. According to various information, 113-130 victims of the brutal Soviet NKVD service, also known as the Cheka, killed in June and July 1941 are buried there, reburied in the autumn of 1941\u00a0 from the place where they were initially buried in a mass grave near Baltezers Lake. It is believed that the victims were buried in rows of 10, thus forming 11-13 rows. Almost none of them have survived to this day. Although some sources claim that the victims were shot on the lake shore or in a nearby summer house, the more plausible \u200bscenario is that they were executed in Riga Central Prison and then taken to Baltezers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Originally (1942-1944) there was a common cross and an individual memorial for each burial (a wooden cross and a wooden plaque with the name and personal details on it). When the second Soviet occupation started in 1944, the wooden crosses gradually perished and many weren’t restored. To mark the graves, the victims\u2019 relatives installed crosses of various types and materials from the old part of Baltezers Cemetery. In the 1980s, a memorial marker in permanent material (granite, concrete, wood) was installed. Reconstruction works and the last reconstruction of the memorial to the victims of communist terror took place in 1994-1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2006, the \u0100da\u017ei Municipality Council announced a tender for the creation of a monument at the Baltezers Cemetery and a memorial to the victims of communist terror in Soviet-occupied Latvia 1940-1941. The winner of the competition was the project \u201cGate\u201d by sculptor Vija Dzintare and architect Ir\u0113na Rubauskas. To complete the construction of the monument and the landscaping of the memorial, the project \u201cThe Gate of Sorrow\u201d was implemented under the \u201cEurope for Citizens\u201d programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the old part of the Baltezers Cemetery, a brethren cemetery with the informal name \u201cWhite Crosses\u201d in a\u00a0 15\u00d745 m sized area. According to various information, 113-130 victims of the brutal Soviet NKVD service, also known as the Cheka, killed in June and July 1941 are buried there, reburied in the autumn of 1941\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[443,440,26],"tags":[297,336],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-history","category-to-experience","category-uncategorized","tag-baltezers-en","tag-memorial"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n