Other events in Baltic States

The Latvian Occupation Museum has received a 250,000 Australian dollar (LVL 130,000) donation from a Juris Graudins in Australia, who left the money to the museum in his last will and testament, LETA was informed by the Occupation Museum's public relations head Janis Erno.

Exiled Latvian Juris Graudins (born 1926) passed away in Australia in 2010.

The Occupation Museum has received similar donations before, however, this is the largest the museum has received from a person's will, Erno told LETA.

The museum has not yet decided on what the money will be spent on, however, it will improve the museum's financial situation and will help the museum to exist and not lay off its employees.

There is not much information about Graudins himself. He was born in 1926 in Tukums Region. In 1944, he fled from Latvia to Germany, and later emigrated to Australia. After the death of his wife in 2004, Graudins was cared for by the Sydney Latvian Association's care organization ''Laima''.

The mission of the Latvian Occupation Museum is to explain and study the brutal and bloody occupations of Latvia by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1991, and to remind the world of the crimes committed against the Latvian people during these occupations.