Plan your Visit to Yad Vashem
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Yad Vashem is open to the general public, free of charge. All visits to Yad Vashem must be reserved in advance.

December 31, 1940, A costume party marking the new year of 1941 in Riga, Latvia

By December 1940, Riga had been occupied for some six months by the Soviet Union.  Some of the wealthier Jews had lost their property, which was nationalized by the regime, but others benefited from the equal opportunity and anti-discrimination policies adopted by the Communist regime, including its approach to higher education. 

In June 1941, on the eve of the German invasion, the Soviet authorities arrested thousands of Riga's Jews and sent them to Siberia.  Some 40,000 Jews remained in Riga, most of whom were murdered in the Holocaust.