Meler Meyer Zelikovich (1929)

Meler Meyer (Meer) Zelikovich (12 June 1929, Riga) — official of the Price Committee under the State Planning Committee of the Latvian SSR, the Price Inspectorate under the Ministry of Finance, and a local historian.

Meyer Meler was born into a working-class family: his father was a shoemaker-cutter at the Jacobson Brothers factory, and his mother a milliner at the Berkovich Brothers factory. He studied at Riga Jewish Primary School No. 10. During the Second World War he was evacuated to Kazan.

From 1945 to 1949 he studied at the Riga Maritime Fisheries Technical College, graduating with honours. In 1954 he graduated from the Latvian Agricultural Academy with a degree in food industry engineering and technology. Between 1954 and 1964 he worked in Belarus as a process engineer at the Ruzhany butter and dried milk plant, on a fish-freezing vessel, and at the Riga Dairy Combine. From 1964 to 1966 he served as a food industry specialist at the USSR State Planning Committee for the Baltic republics and the Kaliningrad region. From 1966 to 1991 he worked at the Price Committee under the State Planning Committee of the Latvian SSR, rising from state inspector to deputy head of the inspectorate.

Between 1991 and 1999 he was employed by the Price Inspectorate of the Ministry of Finance of Latvia (later the State Revenue Service), where he was involved in drafting regulatory acts concerning the introduction of cash registers. He initiated the establishment of the Association of Cash Register Traders and Service Technicians. During the period of perestroika he lectured on pricing issues at the Institute for Advanced Training. From 2000 he worked as a freelance contributor to the museum Jews in Latvia. He has participated in conferences devoted to the Holocaust and the history of Latvian Jewry.

Selected works:

“Mass Graves and Jewish Cemeteries in Latvia (Массовые могилы и еврейские кладбища в Латвии )” in Jews in a Changing World (Riga: University of Latvia, 2005);

Jewish Cemeteries in Latvia (Еврейские кладбища в Латвии) (Riga: Shamir, 2006), pp. 210–234;“Borovka in Latvia (Боровка в Латвии),” Lechaim, 2001, no. 10 (with G. Smirin);

“In Memory of the Jews of Danker (Памяти евреев Данкер),” Lechaim, 2002, no. 10 (with G. Smirin); Latvijas ebreju masu kapi un kapsētas Latvijas vēsturnieku komisijas raksti. Holokausta izpēte Latvijā. Rīga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgads, 2004. Lpp. 196—208; Ebreju bojāejas traģēdija holokausta laikā Latvijas provincē 1941. gada vasarā (Silene, Gostiņi, Malta) Latvijas vēsturnieku komisijas raksti. Holokausta izpēte Latvijā. Rīga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgads, 2004. (with G. Smirin).