Dr Raivis Sīmansons

Dr Raivis Sīmansons is curator and project manager and the Žanis Lipke Memorial in Riga, Latvia. As part-time academic and full-time museum practitioner, Raivis is experimenting with developing and implementing various XR formats (VR, AR, MR) in Memorial’s educational programming. His approach is in-house and for-the-house based.

Dr Raivis Sīmansons will be speaking at the Digital Exhibitions Summit 2026 :

Žanis. A multi-plot documentary made for virtual reality

Žanis Lipke was a Latvian dockworker who rescued over 50 people from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “Hanna’s Story” is the first chapter of the project. It tells the story of Hanna Stern, who was six years old when she was deported from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia with her mother and older brother Philip. After Philip was killed during the Ghetto’s Liquidation, Hanna and her mother were transferred to the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp. Hanna’s mother made contact with Žanis, who staged a complex escape operation, hiding them in a countryside bunker until the end of the Holocaust.