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Born: 2 February, 1895. Fredrich Jeckeln served as an artillery officer in World War I. When the war ended he was discharged and working as an engineer. He joined the NSDAP (German Nazi Party) in 1929 and the Allgemeine-SS in 1931, quickly rising through the ranks so that by 1936 he was an Obergruppenfuhrer (Major General) and the "SS and Police Leader" for the western part of Germany. When World War II began Fredrich Jeckeln was called to active duty in the Waffen-SS, but in 1941 Reichsfuhrer Himmler transfered him back to the Allgmeine-SS and appointed him the "Higher SS and Police Leader in occupied eastern territories". This put him charge of " security" in these areas which he carried with personal emphasis on " solving the Jewish question". During most of the war he had his headquarters in Riga and as such had to work with Hinrich Lohse. While the two apparently did not get along all that well as Lohse was not quite so enthusiastic about Jeckeln's priorities, Lohse had him over at the house. As the German area of occupation in the East collapsed, Fredrich Jeckeln retreated to Germany where he was given command of one of the "paper" units (units whose real combat strength had been destroyed, but still existed as symbols on Hitler's maps) until the end of the war. At the war's end he was captured by the Red Army and transported back to Riga. While it is generally considered that Jeckeln was directly and personally involved in the mass killings of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs, the primary charge leveled at him at his war crimes trial was that he ordered the destruction of facilities in Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian cities and harbors. The trial was held from 26 January to 3 February 1946 where he was duly found guilty as charged and, along with six other German generals, hanged in the first public hanging to be held in Riga for 200 hundred years. (the day was declared a work holiday by the Soviets and among others, children were trucked from the schools to watch.)

Born: 12 May, 1904, as Janis Vilhelms Lacis, in Rinuzi, his father, Tenis Lacis, was a stevedore and his mother, Karlina Lacis, a fisherman's daughter. He legally changed his name to Vilis Lacis, in 1954. During WW I his family evacuated to Siberia and in 1920-1921 he did his first writing: for the Latvian Communist newspaper: "Sibirijas Cina" (Siberian Struggle) When he returned to Latvia in 1921, it is possible he had already been recruited by the Soviet Secret Services. In the 1920s and early 30s he workedas a manual laborer. He liked to go dancing and would always arrive at dances in a second-hand suit, as a result of which he earned the nickname: the "Vecmilgravja Dandy". He liked girls from "the higher social circles". In 1927 he married a school classmate of his, Marija Boota (Buta). Then they had a separate room in her parent's house, which made it easier for him to write. Soon after the marriage he participated in a strike and lost his job. In 1928 Vilis and Marija had their first child, Zigurts and in 1932, their second, Ojars. Soon after the birth of his second son, his novel "Zveijnieku dels" (The Fisherman's Son) was published by Emilija Benjamin's publishing house and that launched V. Lacis to fame and financial security. Elegant, secretive as the sphinx (a contemporary description of him) he now lived a quiet, bourgeois existence and of course, continued to write intensively. And very few knew of his continued connection with the Reds. In 1938, V. Lacis was hired directly by Emilja Benjamin's publishing house, Jaunakas Zinas. In his writing for the newspaper V. Lacis praised Latvian President Karlis Ulmanis, the 15 May 1934 Putsch and Emiljas husband, Anton Benjamin. But in his post-war novel "Vetra" (Storm), V. Lacis described his former benefactor with foul language. In the summer of 1940, under the Soviet Occupation regime, V. Lacis the author finally showed his true colors when he became the Minister of the Interior (and therefore the Police Minister) in the Kirchenstein government – which was the (still nominally) independent Latvian government set up in June 1940, with Stalin's approval, as a transition between the old Latvian Government and the new Communist Latvian Administration. When the new Communist Government/Administration formally petitioned Stalin to incorporate the "Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic" in the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR), V. Lacis remained the local "Interior Minister". He instantly turned his back on the person who started him on his success, Emilja Benjamin. In June 1941 he signed the order to have her shipped to Siberia to die like the rest. Soon however, the Lacis family received their own tragedy. On the 3 October, 1940, V. Lacis youngest son was killed when he fell down an elevator shaft. Some say it was an accident, others, revenge and still others that the faulty lift was waiting for Vilis Lacis, himself. While V. Lacis spent the World War II years in Moscow heading the non-existent "Latvian Soviet Socialist government", but his wife Marija and remaining son were sent to live elsewhere. When V. Lacis returned to Riga on 19 October, 1944, he did so with a different woman: Velta Kalpina. On the 10th of November, 1944, in a secret session the High Court granted them a divorce. On the 18th of November, 1944, V. Lacis remarried, to the daughter of a family of revolutionaries (the announcements made a point of saying that), V. Kalpina. In 1945, the new family had a son, Leonid and in 1946 a second son, Juris. His wife Velta became a journalist and for many years worked for the Soviet magazine "Zvaigzne" (Star). It also appears that immediately after the war, V. Lacis angled to get permission to live in the Benjamin House himself. But this the Soviet authorities did not give him, assigning him a much smaller house down the street instead. Apparently he was not satisfied with that house and later permanently maintained a room in a hotel at the other end of the same street (Juras Str.) From 1940 until 1962 V. Lacis was a member of the USSR State Council (the Soviet "parliament") From 1940 until his death he was member of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party. From 1952 until 1961 he was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party. From 1946 until 1959 he was the Premier of the Cabinet of the "Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic". From 1954 until 1958 he was the Chairman of the Nationalities Committee, USSR State Council. V. Lacis seemed to have truly made it; he had a family, glory, money, the illusion of power and all the privileges that came with being in the "Soviet elite". But, his health failed. Medical problems came in relentless waves: eye problems, rheumatism, diabetes, two strokes, gangrene and alcoholism. The "Chairman" regularly got drunk at work. Vilis Lacis died of a heart attack on 6 February, 1966. Before that, he had lost a good part of his body to gangrene. It has been said, that when Emilija Benjamin realized that she would indeed be deported to the Soviet camps, she cursed Vilis and said that he should rot alive – which in a sense, he did. He is buried in the Mezakapi (Forest Cemetery) in Riga. During his lifetime, V. Lacis wrote twenty novels, fifty-eight short stories and six plays as well as numerous newspaper articles. After the war, V. Lacis re-wrote his prewar works to conform to "proper socialist realism" as well as continued to write actively. His works were favorites of the Soviet regime and were translated into all the languages of the USSR. Three of his novels were made into films, and one short story into an animated (cartoon) film. One was reworked as an opera (by M. Zarins) and another as a ballet (by R. Grinblats).

First President of the restored, independent Republic of Latvia Born: September 13, 1939 in Riga, Latvia. From 1941 until 1946 (age 2 through 7) he was imprisoned along with his family in the Krasnoyarsk District, in Siberia. He graduated from the School of Economics at the University of Latvia in 1963. From 1963 until 1965 he served as a draftee in the Soviet Army. As this was a prerequisite for anything other than a menial job, G. Ulmanis formally joined Communist Party in 1965 and resigned from the Party in 1989. He was never a Party official. In the first Latvian Parliamentary elections after the restoration of independence which were held in June 1993, he was chosen as a candidate for a seat by the "Farmers Union" party. According to the Latvian Constitution once a new Parliament is seated, it then elects the President of the Country and on 7 July, 1993, it elected Guntis Ulmanis as the first President the restored Republic of Latvia (the fifth overall, in the history of the Latvian Republic). There is no question that Guntis Ulmanis achieved this sudden prominence as a result of his name. He is the grandson of the brother of Karlis Ulmanis, who is generally considered to be the founder of the Latvian Republic and was it's forth (and last during the period of the 1st Republic) President, before being deposed and "disappeared" by the USSR when it invaded Latvia in 1940. Guntis Ulmanis also bears a distinct resemblance to his relative and predecessor. Whatever the original reasons for his election, Guntis Ulmanis became a respected and popular President in his own right and won reelection to a second term without any serious opposition, retiring after the legally mandated maximum of two terms in 1999. Guntis Ulmanis was at the house early in his term when it was still an official guesthouse of the Latvian Government. As Emilija Benjamin and President Karlis Ulmanis were friends, it is possible that the first President Ulmanis may also have visited the house in 1939-40, but no records or eyewitnesses of that have survived.

Born, 12 May, 1920 in Riga. Gunars Meierovics was the son of Zigfrid Meierovics, the first Foreign Minister of the newly proclaimed Republic of Latvia. His father was killed in an automobile accident while he was still an infant. In 1939 he graduated from the French Lyceum in Riga and went on to the University of Latvia studying economics and engineering.  After the Second World War he was a refugee in the western occupation zone of Germany and ultimately immigrated to the USA. There, until retirement, he worked for the US Department of Defense. At the same time from the very beginning in the US he was active in the Latvian and other Baltic people's attempts to preserve their national identity and work to ultimately end the Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries. After returning to Latvia immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union he gained a seat in the first elected Latvian parliament since the Soviet Russian Occupation began in the 1940, as a representative of the "Latvian Way" party and was put forward as a serious contender for the renewed presidency. (Guntis Ulmanis won that position however). Gunars Meierovics continued to be active in Latvian politics almost until his death which occurred after a lingering illness on the night of 10-11 February, 2007 in Riga.

Born 17 February, 1937 in Wuppertal, Germany. Rita Suessmuth received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Munster in 1964 and taught at he University of Dortmund until becoming active in politics in the German CDU Party, From 1985 to 1988 she was the Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. She was a Deputy of the Bundestag from 1987 to 2002, became its President in 1988 and lost the post in 1998 when the SPD Party gained a majority in the Bundestag. Rita Suessmuth visited Latvia at the head of a Bundestag delegation and stayed at the house: 17-19 May, 1993

Born: 11 December, 1936 in Paris, France, but is of Dutch nationality. Hans van den Broek received a degree from Utrecht University and started his career as a lawyer, but in got involved in local Dutch politics in 1970 as a member of the Katholieke Volkspartij (Catholic People's Party). From there he went to the Dutch Parliament. From 1982 to the beginning of 1993 he was the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands and from 1993 until 1999 he was the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, (under the old system - the de facto "foreign minister" of the EU with very limited authority). In this capacity he visited Latvia at the head of an EU delegation and had dinner at the house on 9 February, 1995. Hans van den Broek retired from European politics in March 1999.