Žanis Lipke Memorial

Beside the former home of Žanis Lipke on the island of Ķīpsala, this memorial museum marks the place where Lipke hid Jews from the Riga Ghetto during World War II. Signs give its Latvian name, Žaņa Lipkes memoriāls. It opened in 2012, and its collection numbers nearly 900 items.

Lipke first hid refugees in temporary hiding places around Riga. By the winter of 1941–42, sheltering people in the city and in his own house had become too dangerous. In January 1942 he dug a bunker under the woodshed next to his house, working alone at night. It held four people and collapsed in the spring thaw. The better-designed bunker he built to replace it sheltered eight to twelve Jews at a time until the summer of 1944.

After the war the bunker served as a car pit until it caved in, and the shed burned down in the 1980s. A new shed, built for the Lipke family, now stands where the old one with the secret bunker once stood.