CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Burning of the Riga synagogues

1941 burning of synagogues by Nazi forces during the German occupation of Riga, Latvia

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 5, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The burning of the Riga synagogues occurred in 1941, during the first days of the Nazi German occupation of the city of Riga, the capital and largest city in the country of Latvia. Many Jews confined in the synagogues died in the fires. Many other antisemitic measures were launched at the same time, ultimately followed by the murder of the vast majority of the Jews of Latvia.

Editorial summary

“Burning of the Riga synagogues” enters the record as 1941 burning of synagogues by Nazi forces during the German occupation of Riga, Latvia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Burning, Riga and synagogues can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1941—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Burning, Riga and synagogues.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Burning of the Riga synagogues” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Burning, Riga and synagogues provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1941.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Burning of the Riga synagogues”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Burning of the Riga synagogues primary sources, Burning of the Riga synagogues archive and Burning research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Burning of the Riga synagogues”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Burning of the Riga synagogues” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.