History of the Jews in Latvia International Refugee Organization (IRO), and other relief organizations for Nazi victims, and some of them immigrated to the U.S. and other countries abroad. Nevertheless, there were also Latvians who risked their lives in order to save Jews. One such, Jānis Lipke, helped to save several dozen Jews of the Riga ghetto by providing them with hideouts. The Jewish population of Latvia declined from 28,300 in 1979 to 22,900 in 1989, when 18,800 of its Jews lived in the capital Riga. Part of this was due to a high rate of emigration to Israel; the Soviet Union allowed limited numbers of
Politics of Latvia have an opposite practice, requiring visas from both citizens and non-citizens of Latvia, but allowing non-citizens to travel to Russia with a cheaper visa. As a transitional clause, the Latvian law allows dual citizenship for those who were forced to leave Latvia during the Soviet or Nazi occupation and adopted another citizenship while away from Latvia. In order to be eligible for dual citizenship, they had to claim it by July 1, 1995. After that date the other citizenship must be renounced upon the acceptance of the Latvian citizenship. Latvian is the sole state language in Latvia; while the threatened