Tēvs Nakts

Žanis Lipke was a completely ordinary Latvian blue-collar worker who worked at the German military aviation warehouses and supplemented his income by smuggling at night. Yet as soon as the German occupation regime began its bloody repressions against Riga’s Jews, he made the hardly simple but humane decision that could prove lethal not only to himself but also to his family. In the same lorry that was used to transport bootleg, dozens of people were plucked out of the Riga Ghetto and forced labour sites. As soon as their temporary hiding place came under threat of being discovered, Žanis began sheltering Jews at his own home, in a specially dug underground bunker under his shed. This is the story of the secret of Žanis Lipke’s courage, attempting to understand whether the key is Žanis’s adventurous and daring spirit, stubbornness, or a sense of responsibility with regard to one’s neighbour.

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