The Riga-Beberbeki collective cemetery for German war dead from the Second World War is located around five kilometers west of the Latvian capital Riga in the municipality of Babîte. The war cemetery was dedicated on September 22, 2007.
Cemetery description
With Riga-Beberbeki, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. has established a second large collective cemetery for the war dead of the Second World War in Latvia in addition to the Saldus war cemetery (22,929 dead). All soldiers buried in the Riga region and in the central and eastern parts of Latvia will be reburied there. The first twelve dead were buried at the cemetery dedication on June 9, 2001. The entrance building, completed in July 2004, includes an information room, a utility room and sanitary facilities. The memorial square surrounds a semi-circular stone with an inscription referring to the Latvian districts of Vidzeme (Livonia), Semgale and Latgale, from which the dead were recovered. The central monument of the cemetery is a four-meter high granite cross. The lawns surrounding the memorial square are divided into 14 embedding blocks. Inscription plaques and steles preserve the names of those buried here, including those of more than 1,200 people who lost their lives as prisoners of war in Riga.
History
From 1941 to 1944, more than 6,000 German soldiers were buried at the Riga East Cemetery of Honor - as it was known at the time. After the end of the war and the dissolution of the military cemetery, civilian deaths were buried on the site, now known as the 2nd Forest Cemetery. In 1999, the Volksbund therefore decided to build its cemetery on an approximately two-hectare plot of land near Babîte, which became the property of the city of Riga in 2000, which approved the construction of the war cemetery. At the forest cemetery, the Volksbund set up a memorial site in memory of the dead of both world wars, which was opened to the public on June 9, 2001. On the square stands a seven-meter-high obelisk with a cross, created by the Latvian sculptor Girts Burvis. The wall surrounding the square contains a compartment for a book documenting the names of the war dead formerly buried here. At the new collective cemetery in Riga-Beberbeki, these names are immortalized on written steles.
Special feature
A further memorial site, which the Volksbund erected in the forest cemetery based on a design by the sculptor Burvis, commemorates the dead of the Baltic national army. Two granite inscription stones bear the names of those who died. This memorial site was also dedicated on June 9, 2001.
