Site Map

2. About

This section begins with Karen Frostig’s public presentation about her family and her work as a memorial artist to the UN General Assembly at the 2023 Holocaust Remembrance Day programme. The posting includes a live video of the programme and two articles featured in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. The content then shifts to a description of the Locker of Memory project with plans for a permanent memorial at the Jungfernhof concentration camp. Background providing historic and geographic context follows. The survivor and descendants group is also listed, meeting monthly. The Heirloom Project features cherished family objects with accompanying stories about the object’s significance. A series of rare interviews with living survivors precedes a complete listing of four databases, identifying 3985 victims, DOB, and last addresses of deportees on the four transports destined for Jungfernhof. A form for corrections is also provided. Only 149 victims survived.

4. 3-D tour

This section features an interactive 3-D tour of the site, enabling visitors to walk around the site as well as seven additional Nazi killing sites in Latvia with related histories. A user guide helps visitors navigate the tour. Spearheaded by the director as an interactive, interdisciplinary project, the 3-D tour represents contributions by historians, scientists, technologists, videographers, and designers. Specific projects include a series of audio tapes and a video about the history of the camp, starting with deportations and concluding with an image of a mother and child, the next generation entering the frame. A contextual essay about the history of the site follows.

1. Homepage

Brief introduction to the site with interviews with survivors, descendants, and team members. This page also includes photos of the Jungfernhof concentration camp, referred to in Latvia as “Mazjumpravmuiža.” The area was recently converted into a public park. The website is committed to establishing a rigorous body of research concerning the neglected concentration camp lacking proper signage. The research supports the ultimate goal, to establish a permanent memorial at the site. The project serves families of victims and survivors, historians, educators, students, artists, city officials, and citizens of nations coming to terms with genocidal histories. The homepage also lists foundations and partnering organizations providing support.

5. Research

These pages represent a discussion of the project’s multi-faceted research agenda. Each discipline, history and technology, art, science, and education is addressed. Four specific initiatives are presented: memorial development, search for mass grave, and two educational projects. A permanent naming memorial, representing the primary objective of the Locker of Memory project, will be situated at the recovered grave site. The director, lead artist and descendant of murdered victims at the camp, will design a conceptual plan for a permanent memorial that will be used as a template for architectural development. Scientific research uses non-invasive technologies to search for a mass grave at the site. An international Holocaust educational survey, developed by gedenkdienst, Kilian Ottitsch, is presented. Findings will be uploaded to website in May 2023. A seminar for Austrian landscape architectural students at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna was developed in 2021. A number of historians and experts in the field of public art participated in the seminar.

6. Events

This section is organized by dates, tracking significant public events featuring the history of the Jungfernhof concentration camp. On July 4, 2024, Latvia’s national Holocaust Remembrance Day, a formal presentation will take place at the Jungfernhof concentration camp site to mark a public commitment to develop a permanent memorial at the camp site. A special ceremony featuring a large “Mourning Shroud for 800 Souls” will occur at the recovered grave site. The ceremony is designed to commemorate the land in preparation for memorial development. Four metallic stakes with engraved data detailing the four transports will be inserted into the ground, defining the parameter of the gravesite. The gathering will include German mayors from more than 20 municipalities in Germany, Ambassadors from Germany, Austria, the US, and Israel, local leaders, descendants, citizens, students, and other interested parties. A precursor to this event took place on Latvia’s 2022 Holocaust Remembrance Day, led by the Director of the Museum “Jews in Latvia,” .

On January 27, 2023, the annual Holocaust Remembrance program took place at the United Nations headquarter in New York City, Karen Frostig was invited to present her family’s Holocaust story of deportation and murder to the General Assembly. The presentation also touched upon her work as a public memory artist and activist, determined to bring memory to the abandoned Jungfernhof concentration camp. In synchrony with the UN presentation, an hour-long “1941 Deportations to Riga” video played throughout the day at the Corner House (former KGB headquarters) within Museum of Occupation complex in Riga, Latvia, The video was developed to memorialized the 80th anniversary of deportations to Jungfernhof.

7. Timeline

Memorials take time, especially in a country that was occupied by the Soviet Union for forty-five years, following Nazi occupation. Moving from silence and disinterest to engagement requires respectful dialogue. Building infrastructure, an advisory board, establishing a project team, documenting a new body of research, and raising money to fund project develop, also takes time. Developed as a generative project, we will conclude project research in 2023, with the understanding that research will continue as individually sponsored scholarship. Research embedded in projects such as video, audio tapes, interactive timelines and maps and the 3-D tour will be posted on the website as we transition to the next phase of development, that of creating a permanent memorial at the site.

8. People

The Locker of Memory project is focused on memory, Holocaust history, research, and memorial development at the Jungernhof concentration camp. This section identifies all the people contributing critical content to this large, creative enterprise. As founding director, producer, and lead artist, I provide the overarching vision and structure for project development. Working closely with a small and talented team of historians, scientists, artists and designers, technologists, and videographer, each person provides a thoughtful contribution to the larger project. Distinguished advisors are available for consultation, and partners and sponsors supply additional support. While I provide leadership, I rely on a complex network of individuals and institutions to achieve the goals put forth in this ambitious project.

9. Media

The project began as an idea, then it turned into a website. Over the course of three years, the initial plan emerged as a large-scale, International project involving hundreds of people and numerous institutions. In this section, you will find interviews, videos, publications, presentations, press releases, documentation of commemorative events, and newsletters.

10. Contact

We lead this section with our Donor page supporting overall project. The newsletter keeps followers connected to project development and upcoming events. Contact pages specify general inquiry, descendant portal, and volunteers.

3. Interactive site

This section of the website is devoted to historic research of the Jungfernhof concentration camp, fulfilling
the project’s core mission to restore the camp’s history to the public record. We introduce three distinct
timelines. The first timeline outlines nearly a month-by-month sequence of events taking place at the camp.
The second timeline delineates a sequence of events or actions occurring between the seven killing sites that
leads to the systematic murder and reduction of Jews at the camp. This timeline concludes with a complete
dismantling of the camp, Finally, the third timeline provides a long view of Latvian history that positions the
Nazi occupation within a series of occupations. The timeline brings Latvia’s history, starting in 1198, into
present-day events with plans for a permanent memorial at the camp. This section also provides a detailed
summary of Rudolf Seck’s trial, concluding with his conviction and life sentence in a German prison. Section
three uses technology to introduce an innovative presentation of an Interactive timeline and interactive map
that engages visitors in an active exporation of the history. The section also presents a detailed organizational
chart of the Nazi system of perpetration and murder, identifying four players: Nazi perpetrators, Latvian
collaborators, Jewish victims, and the Latvian civilian population. In this chart, we learn about the different
roles people played, reflecting a more nuanced understanding of what took place at the camp.