RIGA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Latvia observed the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Genocide Against the Jews on Thursday, the date on which the Riga Choral Synagogue with people inside was burned down in 1941, the start of the Holocaust in the Baltic country.
Around 70,000 people, almost the entire Jewish community of Latvia, were killed by the Nazis and their henchmen during the World War II, according to historians' estimates.
On Thursday, hundreds of people flocked to the memorial in Riga where the Great Choral Synagogue once stood to take part in the commemorative event, which was attended by Latvia's state officials, foreign diplomats and representatives of Latvia's Jewish community.
Inara Murniece, speaker of the Latvian parliament, called on everyone to always remember the victims of the Holocaust and to do everything to prevent people's lives being wiped out on ethnic or religious grounds.
"It is our moral and political commitment to remember and research the Holocaust. Like elsewhere in Europe, the Holocaust organized by the Nazis in Latvia did not take place without local accomplices. There were also people who did not participate in the Holocaust themselves, but seeing inhuman crimes being committed, just turned away," Murniece said.
"We have forgotten that each one of the victims had their killer," said Holocaust survivor Margers Vestermanis.
