The city of Osnabrück is one of 13 member cities that officially founded the German Riga Committee on Tuesday, 23rd May 2000, in the presence of Federal President Johannes Rau in Berlin.

Contact

of the city of Osnabrück for the Riga Committee is

Ms Christine Grewe
Department of Culture
Office for Peace Culture
Marienstr. 5-6
49074 Osnabrück
Tel.: +49 (0)541 / 323-2287
Fax: +49 (0)541 / 323-152287
Email: grewe.c@osnabrueck.de

 

On 11th and 12th December 1941, approximately 500 Jews from the Osnabrück Gestapo district were gathered in the gymnasium of an Osnabrück school near the train station. In mid-November 1941, the people received the message to be ready for "evacuation" to Riga in Latvia on 13th December. On the morning of 13th December, the people were crammed into wagons and deported to the Riga ghetto and concentration camp. There were already about 400 Jews from the Münster Gestapo district on the train, and another 420 were to be added in Bielefeld.

Among the 500 Jews from the Osnabrück Gestapo district were 34 Osnabrückers. Irmgard Ohl, née Heimbach, and Ewald Aul were among the few survivors who related what the deportees had to endure and suffer and how they met their deaths.

The city of Osnabrück accompanies and supports the work of the Riga Committee as far as possible. On the 10th anniversary of the German Riga Committee, the city was represented by its own delegation at the
commemoration ceremony in Riga-Bikernieki on 9th July 2010.

Representatives of the city participated in the First Symposium of the German Riga Committee in Magdeburg from 2nd-4th November 2012.

In addition, it sends representatives of the City Council to the symposia and, under the title "History - Memory - Education", together with the War Graves Commission, hosted the 3rd Symposium of the German Riga Committee on 21st/22nd September 2016.