I was born in Riga, Latvia, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. The forest behind the apartment complex where I lived with my parents was called Bikernieki forest. From a very young age, perhaps as early as 4, I knew that Nazis had shot Jews in that forest.
In a different part of Riga, my grandparents lived in a house also inhabited by a Latvian couple of their generation. During the Nazi occupation, the husband had served in the auxiliary police and killed Jews. When my grandparents and this man passed one another coming and going, they exchanged greetings.
