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History.
The First Jewish School. 141 Lachplesha (Romanov) Street. The building still stands. 
In the 1830s the leaders of the Riga Jewish community decided to found a school directed by Jews themselves, which at the same time would be under the the supervision of local authorities. That would make it possible to issue school certificates regarded and recognized as official diplomas. The study of literary German, which would facilitate the access to West European culture and emancipation, was considered to be of special importance. The City Council did not support these plans and the authorities of the Jewish community had to act behind the back of the "city fathers". In 1838 they succeeded in getting the Livland governor's support for a Jewish public school. The initiative of the Riga inhabitants was favorably approved in the highest governmental circles of St. Petersburg. On April 22nd, 1839 Tsar Nicolas I himself January 15th, 1840 the school was opened. It was a two-year school for boys with classes being given in German. The program provided for the study of several languages, arithmetic, geography, science and history.
Originally the new school rented premises. Only in 1887 did it move to 141 Lachplesha Street, a building bought by Jewish philanthropists and completely reconstructed for school needs in Renaissance style were made, each on one side, as you can see even now. In 1893 about 500 pupils attended this school. Its exclusively "German" features gradually disappeared. Instead of the German language pupils began learning Russian, at the time of Latvian Republic - Latvian, the languages of education being Yiddish and Hebrew. Finally, in 1940 it became a six-year Riga Jewish primary school No.II. This school of such particular importance in the history of Riga Jews got an entirely different function: during the German occupation the "Judenrat" (a Jewish Council), appointed by the Germans, sat there. In the course of establishing the ghetto it was necessary to provide thousands of dehoused Jews with shelter, food, medical service and to organize labour brigades demanded by German institutions. Perplexed people who suddenly had become homeless crowded in the old school building and the yard. Others would come to the "Judenrat" in the hope of getting some information about their fathers, brothers, sisters, whom the Fascists had put into prison, the prefecture, or taken away to "work". These last numbered over a thousand but, in spite of bitter experience, no one wanted to believe that those they were looking for were in mass graves in the Bikernieki Forest. "Judenrat" members - doctor R. Blumenfeld, lawyers O. Eliashev, M. Mintz, J. Jevelssohn and helped to establish proved to be a trap with the only escape - death. Almost all the "Judenrat" and its workers perished together with the ghetto prisioners. back |
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