Latvian Quits Over Holocaust Restitution Plan
Latvian Justice Minister Gaidis Berzins has resigned in protest of plans to offer restitution for Jewish property seized after the Holocaust.
Berzins, chair of the rightist All For Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom Party, announced his resignation on Wednesday, the country’s news agency Leta reported.
In 2006, the Latvian parliament blocked a bill proposing $55 million in restitution for property that once belonged to institutions of Latvia’s Jewish community.
Berzins’ party believes that offering restitution would place the interests of one minority group over others.
Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis’ of the center-right Unity Party has “ignored” the justice minister’s opposition to restitution, Leta quoted the minister’s press secretary as saying. Earlier this week, President Andris Berzins in a television interview for the LTV network said he supported restitution. His post is largely ceremonial.
Ilja Lenskis, director of the Jews in Latvia Museum, said restitution was a “painful and harsh issue” in the public discourse in Latvia. The Jewish community broached the subject again in 2011 and this year, he said.
Latvia had a Jewish population of some 95,000 before the Holocaust. Nazi troops and local volunteers decimated the community.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
