In January 1942, the six-year-old Jewish girl Hanna Stern, her mother Sophie, and her brother Philip were deported from Berlin to the ghetto in Riga (Latvia). Philip Stern died, presumably in November 1943. After the ghetto was closed down, mother and daughter were taken to Kaiserwald concentration camp outside Riga, where they had to perform forced labor in an external work detail. With the aid of the harbor worker Žanis Lipke, they managed to escape. During the German occupation of Latvia, Lipke worked in the German Luftwaffe’s depot. Along with around 25 others, he helped Jews escape the ghetto and labor camps and hid them in Riga and the surrounding area. After Hanna and Sophie Stern’s escape, Lipke found a hiding place for them in the home of one of his network’s helpers.
Lecture: Lolita Tomsone, (director, Žanis Lipke Memorial): Žanis Lipke and his help for persecuted Jews Followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Karoline Georg (head of the Silent Heroes Memorial Center), Dr. Raivis Sīmansons (project manager, Žanis Lipke Memorial), and Lolita Tomsone
Please register by September 23, 2025 by email: veranstaltung@gdw-berlin.de