Emīlija Benjamiņa

Emīlija Benjamiņa (sometimes transcribed Emilija Benjamina) (10 September 1881 – 27 September 1941) was a Latvian businesswoman. Acknowledged as the "Press Queen" in her home country, she became one of the wealthiest women in Europe at the time, and the richest person in interwar Latvia.

Early life Emīlija Simsone was the middle daughter of Andris Simsons, a railway employee, and Ede Usinš, who worked on the expedition line of a German newspaper, leading Emīlija to grow up in a press printing environment. and still later, when the war was over, the German firm in question was bankrupt and no longer existed. Later, the Bolsheviks "expropriated" the printing plant and used it to print their propaganda leaflets; when they were driven out, they abandoned tons of paper. This supplied the newly restarted Jaunākās Ziņas for free for over a year, a not insignificant commercial advantage at a moment in time when the paper was a very precious and expensive commodity in short supply.

Benjamiņš Publishing Anton Benjamiņš was finally able to get his divorce in 1922. And within a few months, Emīlija and Benjamiņš were finally legally married.

With peace, the Benjamiņšes set about building their publishing empire with vigor. In 1924, they started a new magazine Atpūta (Leisure) which quickly became the showpiece as well as a prime mover of the Latvian culture, which has developed after Czarist rule and Baltic-German cultural domination. In 1928 the Benjamiņšes bought the grandest private home in Riga, the so-called "Pfab Palace". Emīlija also owned a summer home on the beach in the town of Jūrmala (the beach resort of Latvia), and other buildings in Riga and bought a country estate called "Waldeck" near Kandava.

In 1927, the journal Aizkulises announced she was the richest woman in Latvia.

The Emilija Benjamina House was finished in the fall of 1939.

She was awarded Order of the Three Stars and the Swedish Order of Vasa’s gold medal.

Soviet era and death On 17 June 1940 the Red Army occupied Latvia and shortly thereafter the formerly independent country was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Everything that Emīlija owned was nationalized. Right at the beginning of the Soviet occupation, the Nazi government of Germany created a safe passage for people to escape, and Juris Benjamiņš used that to successfully evacuate the valuables from the Kr. Barona 12 house. Among them was one of the finest Sèvres porcelain collections in Europe and Tsar Nicholas II's gold cutlery collection that Emīlija had bought in Paris in the 1920s from Prince Felix Yusupov. The items were taken to Vienna but were stolen there and never recovered.

Jaunākās Ziņas was published for the last time on 9 August 1940. The newspaper had strongly advocated the advantages of parliamentary systems like those of the United Kingdom and Sweden.

Emīlija apparently thought she herself would be spared. The Swedish ambassador to Latvia offered to marry her, thereby making her a Swedish citizen with diplomatic protection. But he could not offer protection for her adopted son, so she refused his offer. Rudolph Aicher (her younger sister's husband) through his contacts with Joachim von Ribbentrop, managed to arrange an interview with Heinrich Himmler in the hopes of getting the German Government's intervention on her behalf. However, after having her and her newspaper's politics investigated, Himmler concluded that she was "Reichswidrig" ("an enemy of the Reich") and would not help. But above all, her former employee, her regular party guest, and her friend: Vilis Lācis, the new Communist Interior Minister for the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic was the one who decided such things. And so, indeed he did.

Initially, Emīlija had been "moved" from her city residence at Kr. Barona Str. 12 to a small flat at Kr. Barona 19. On 14 June 1941 Soviet police came to the door with a list of names, told her to pack her things, and took her away. Juris was also on the list, but they could not find him.

Emīlija Benjamiņa was subject to the 1941 Soviet deportations from Latvia and died in the Usollag Gulag forced labor camp on 23 September 1941, a little over a week after her 60th birthday.

Filmography In 2021, the six-part film Emīlija. The Queen of the Latvian Press (Emīlija. Latvijas preses karaliene) premiered, starring Guna Zariņa as Benjamiņa.