Shmuel Joffe and Bricha in Paris

On 9 March, Ilya Lensky, Director of the Jews in Latvia Museum, gave a lecture in Paris titled Baltic “Bricha”: Illegal Jewish Emigration from Latvia, 1945–1946: Figures, Routes, Fates. The lecture took place as part of the seminar Sorties de la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans les confins de l’Union soviétique (1944–1991), organised by CERCEC — the Centre for Russian, Caucasian, East European and Central Asian Studies.

The lecture focused on illegal Jewish emigration from Latvia in 1945–1946 — the people involved, the routes they took, and the fates that followed. Among the stories discussed by Ilya was that of Mulka Joffe, along with other materials that emerged from our joint research project.

It is especially important that these documents, biographies, and personal stories were presented in an academic context. They help us see postwar Jewish emigration from the Baltics not as an abstract historical process, but as a chain of concrete human decisions, hopes, and personal dramas.