Celmraugs Georg & Celmrauga Anna (Emmerich)

Celmraugs, Georg Celmrauga, Anna Shirokova, Evdokia On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Georg Celmraugs, of native Latvian origin, and his wife, Anna (neé Emmerich), of Estonian descent, lived in a private home on the outskirts of Riga. Anna came from the town of Fellin (today Viljandi), in Estonia, where she grew up together with her Jewish friend Jacob Hoff. Years later, they both moved to Riga and had families of their own, all the while remaining friends. Shortly after the city’s conquest on July 1, 1941, the Germans and their Latvian collaborators murdered most of the members of the extensive Hoff family, including Jacob. His wife, Eva (neé Pulvermacher), and their two small children, Marina, 5, and Leonard, 2, were incarcerated in the Riga ghetto. In December 1941, Eva escaped from the ghetto with her children. They were constantly on the move, never staying in one place for long. In the spring of 1942, their wanderings brought them to the home of their prewar friends, the Celmraugs family. Georg and Anna received them warmly, saying, “In bad times we must help one other.” Eva Hoff and her children stayed in the Celmraugs’ home until the end of 1942, when Georg and Anna moved them to the home of their friend, Margaret Wagner, an elderly woman of German origin, who housed them until the end of 1943. At her advanced age, she apparently preferred to have someone live with her. However, the Hoffs’ lengthy stay with Mrs. Wagner, which seemed a good solution at the time, ended badly: they were arrested after someone informed on them. Mrs. Wagner was questioned and allowed to return home. Eva and her children were taken to the central prison of Riga and then incarcerated in the Salaspils concentration camp near the city. In August 1944, as the front drew closer, most of the adult prisoners were moved from the camp westward, among them Eva Hoff, who eventually reached Stuthoff concentration camp. A few weeks later, Marina and her littlebrother, who had remained in Salaspils, were taken out of the camp by their mother’s friend, Tatiana Shalfeeva. Before Eva was moved from the camp, Shalfeeva, who had herself been a prisoner there, had promised her that she would rescue the children. The two were placed in the care of a Russian woman, Evdokia Shirokova, whose Jewish husband was also incarcerated in the camp. The two children remained with Shirokova until the liberation on October 13, 1944. Marina was then brought to the Celmraugs family, while her brother, Leonard, remained with Shirokova. The families adopted the children in 1944. After the war, Eva, who had survived and had reached Sweden, learned that her children were still alive in Riga. However, all her efforts to remove them from Communist Latvia were unavailing. We do not know why Eva chose to live in Sweden, but she visited her children as a tourist once a year at their rescuers homes until they were permitted to immigrate to Israel in 1974, thus enabling the family to be reunited. On February 2, 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Georg and Anna Celmraugs and Evdokia Shirokova as Righteous Among the Nations.