“..Here is ..silence of ..grave. ..Rumbula ..Riga ..Bikerniki ..Salaspils ..Klooga ..Ponary ..Babi Yar ..Majdanek ..Treblinka ..Auschwitz. Thousands and thousands of cities and towns stained with blood. I rise from among you ..my silent martyrs ..old men ..babies ..fathers ..mothers ..husbands ..wives ..brothers ..sisters ..brides ..grooms ..children ..youths. ..slaughtered by ..1,000,000’s ..you ordered me to tell ..living of what happened. I hear your cries ..screams ..thousands strong thunder of your feet running to ..grave ..your last word ..Remember. I swear by ..memory of you ..by your blood which slaked cruel spaces ..by your ashes scattered over ..world ..by ..smoke of your bodies rising from ..crematoriums ..I swear to you ..I will tell them ..living ..everything that I saw ..who killed you ..who betrayed you. I will not permit anyone to slander you or say it was someone else. I was with you at ..executioner’s block till ..last minute. Your blood flows in my veins ..your ashes throb in my heart. I swear to tell ..Truth ..nothing but ..Truth.” Frida Michelson.
The Jewish People were in existence within Riga since the 1600’s but please recognise, that while every effort is made to ensure this is but a limited look at that persistence. As to the fuller atrocity that was enacted against the Jews of both Latvia and its Capitol of Riga, I am aiming to detail, we cannot know the true detail of the overall catastrophe. However, the assessment made here, while not as definitive or as comprehensive as it should be, I am hopeful it expands the understanding of the place of Riga Jews who were integrated into most aspects of life in the City and even sat on the city council. In the depths of The Holocaust, none of this counted for anything other than what had been planned for them, annihilation.
Any eventual assessment, however, will show that somewhat in the region of 100,000 Latvian Jews, many of them Slaughtered in the Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s, were systematically sought out for their execution and removal from all existence. This total assessment will include practically all of those Jews who had been resident within Riga itself prior to Hitler’s eventual resolve to solve the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Added to this overall atrocity, the entirety of those destroyed of Latvian Jewry, these would have been complimented by the arrival and presence of Reich proper Jews, as many as all of the 25,000 to 30,000 who were transported there to be resettled there also.
“..Such is ..power of wishful thinking ..we continued to perceive ..ongoing brutality perpetrated against ..Jewish community as a murderous initiative ..of ..Latvian fascists.” Max Michelson.
By 1935 more than 43,500 Jews, of a population of nearly 400,000 people lived in Riga and this was nearing half the Latvian Jewish population at the time. Riga itself was both the political and cultural centre of Latvian Jewry, with Jewish schools that taught in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and even German. There were hospitals that treated all the ill, there were training courses for kindergarten teachers, there were theatres, and a number of welfare organizations. Also, there was a Yeshivah, and there were three daily Yiddish newspapers and in August 1940, Russia annexed Latvia, and Riga then became the capital of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. In October 1940 the Jewish People created a new Yiddish Theatre as culture kept Jewish hope high on the living agenda. On June 14th. 1941 there were 1,000’s of Riga’s Jews who were deported to Siberia by the Russian authorities, these Jews not realising their fortunate escape.
On June 22nd. 1941 and with at least 5,000 Jewish Troops leaving Riga, after Hitler sent his forces East in Operation Barbarossa, the depleted reserves of a Jewish Resistance was further eroded. After Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Riga then became the capital of the Reich Commissariat ‘Ostland’. On July 1st. 1941 Hitler’s Wehrmacht forces entered Riga, and as the Nazi’s occupied the City, there were still more than 43,000 Jews living in the City, unaware of what was to come. Following on from this there were decrees, in line with Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, and these were weighted most heavily against Latvian Jews, and these implementations came thick and fast between July 1941 and October 1941.
“..On July 2nd. 1941 an auxiliary Latvian SS troop was formed. They wore green armbands on their sleeves with a skull on. ..first thing this auxiliary troop did was to stop Jews in ..street ..to humiliate them ..to throw Jewish Women and Children out of their apartments and to force them to work. Work was done clearing up ..where ..aim was not so much that work was done ..but much more to tyrannise ..Jews. Beards were pulled out ..Women had their hair cut off ..beaten and kicked ..stayed lying on ..floor.” Isaac Berner.
On July 2nd. 1941 during the first full day of the occupation, units of Latvian volunteers began to detain and attack and then imprison Jewish Men. For days these Jews were abused and tortured and eventually, as they found their way to the nearby Bikerniki Forest, they were Murdered there. 1,000’s of them. For many Doctors, and other professionals, and even some of the City’s Jewish craftsmen, these were initially spared and returned to Riga to service the needs of Hitler’s Reich. Many more seizures of these working Jews were conducted for the Forced Labour Units created so as to implement ever further the demands of Hitler’s Final Solution. Close on 11,000 Jewish Men from Riga had either fled the City or were subsequently murdered during those first weeks of July 1941.
“..in Latvia ..persecution of ..Jews was approved ..accepted by ..majority of ..local population.” Max Michelson.
On July 3rd. 1941, and during these first days of Nazi occupation, the Latvian civilian population, ultra nationalists and debauched individuals all took it upon themselves to deliver savage attacks upon Riga’s Jews. Along with arresting, beating, torturing, and raping Jews, they began the burning of the City’s synagogues, and with the Jewish People inside. 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of the City’s Jews were forced toward the local beaches and Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s to be shot in as brutal a fashion as could be arranged. The Nazis then began the process of forcing what remained of the remaining 32,000 Riga Jews into an area that was overcrowded, ramshackle and would eventually constitute the Ghetto. All the while the local non-Jewish Latvian population, assisting the Nazi’s, began the process of looting from the vacated Jewish homes, houses, apartments and apartments. All, and any Jewish money, goods, possessions, valuables and anything of worth were looted from the Jews and were seized and stolen as will would have it.
“..many Rabbis ..Cantors ..Temple assistants ..Families that lived in ..neighbourhood of ..synagogues were forced into ..burning synagogues and suffocated and burnt alive. Shortly afterwards ..mass arrests began amongst ..Jewish population.” Isaac Berner.
On July 4th. 1941 units of the Perkonkrusts Latvian Fascist Organization set alight to 5 of the 6 Riga Synagogues, and with many of their congregations locked inside. Riga’s Central Synagogue, the Chor-Shul, the Great Choral Synagogue, on Gogol Street was where some of Riga’s Jews were first rounded up, and these were forced inside and the building was set alight. Only the Nly Peitavas Street Synagogue managed to survive and this was only thanks to the close proximity of it to non-Jewish Latvian homes. All told there were some 500 of Riga’s Jews are murdered during this escapade, and while instructions had been delivered to keep the population away from the atrocities, it was evidenced by all too many who sought to see for themselves how their former Jewish neighbours were to be excluded from life. On July 16th. 1941, we recognise that as many as 4,000 Riga Jews have been Murdered, all of this in preparation for the overall atrocity that was to befall them.
“..All citizens of ..Jewish faith must vacate their homes ..we are informed. We all live in apartments…they placed us in what we called a ghetto ..where nothing new existed and all of us lost our civil rights. They erected an electric fence ..a huge fence. I was only a child but ..adults lost their jobs and were taken on commandos on highways. That wasn’t too bad yet ..we still had ..resemblance of family life. Even before they put us into concentration camps ..we couldn’t walk on ..sidewalk. I still remember those sights. Young Women would push their strollers of their little Babies and Latvians or Germans would come and just do anything they wanted to do to us ..they could just do it. We were not protected by anybody. We felt like rebelling ..and all we would do is just get killed. Looking back now ..I was so weak ..skinny ..small ..how can you fight anybody. You suffer ..but inside you ..you have a friend saying ..You will survive. ..will to live. But in life no matter how rough things are ..adrenaline takes over. ..My goal was someday to survive. ..I thought I’ll make it and I made it. But I get tears thinking about it.” Michael Kor.
On August 15th 1941 the Riga Ghetto is established in the Letgaler District and along Moscow Street 3, and there were to be some 43,000 to 60,000 Jews Enclosed during the period of its existence, with Riga as One of the Nine Major Ghettos to be established in the Greater Reich. On Monday August 18th. 1941 SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Dr. Rudolf Lange, Commander of Einsatzkommando 2, took personal interest in the Ghetto, which measured some 50 by 180 metres.
In September 1941 Hitler gave orders for the resettlement of all the Jews from Germany and though the removal from the Greater Reich had always been an intention for Hitler, there was no clear plan at this moment on how this effort should and could be achieved. Adolf Eichmann created the organizational prerequisites for the deportations and his Department drew up the plans and their functioning guidelines to act in accord with Hitler’s demands for the Jews. Here Eichmann came into his own and the registration and deportation ran like clock work as monies were paid to the Reichsbahn for these resettlement exercises and then in dealing with the confiscation of anything of monetary worth that the Jews were to be deprived of.
“..I did not grieve ..I was numb. I had seen people killed. ..buried some of those killed in ..Large Ghetto ..obvious what lay in store for us all. My parents had disappeared. ..no burial ..no closure. ..overwhelming evidence of ..wholesale killings convinced me ..they were dead.” Max Michelson.
The bill for these transports were to be met by the Jews themselves and were allowed barely 50 Reichsmarks to with take along with them. At this time, the German Reich Association of Jews had to stand surety for those Jews who could not afford the demands made upon them and paid the costs attributed by Hitler’s Reich. The Jews were also allowed to bring along 50 kilograms of other possessions in a single suitcase, be that clothing or other items of material gain that could so distract the Jews from what this all meant. The ruse presented the Jews with a hope that eventual employment was to be found for them. The Jewish People were to be wholly divested of every piece of value right up till their very worthy lives that were forfeited.
The Jews of all and any transport destined for the ‘East’ would never return to any semblance of former existence, and those who would not see their Families, their goods, their wealth, in any description returned. Even their citizenship was forfeited, on some legal pretence, knowing full well these Jewish lives were expendable. The demands of these resettlement transports did not include the certainty of an arrival at any destination, including here at Riga for all of the Jews. The extensive length of the journey, without adequate heat, food, water ensured so many arrivals were either Dead or that infirmed by the conditions, they were the first to be Murdered. While the destination of the first transports of Reich Jews was to be Lodz, in Poland, these were to be resettled within the Chelmno Death Camp.
Also, and this was not to be the destination for the majority of the 60,000 Jews that had been initially proposed and envisaged for resettlement there. Lodz though could not manage such numbers as these and as a consequence, about 40,000 of them Jews were to be redirected to both the holding Ghetto of Minsk and Riga. Both Himmler, Heydrich, and then Eichmann made every effort to ensure Hitler’s demands were carefully massaged and Eichmann fully moved his offices to deliver on those demands.
“..At ..beginning of September 1941 ..Prefect Stieglitz a ..German who had come back to Latvia gathered ..leading Jewish men ..told them to form a Jewish committee. ..members were ..lawyer Dr. Eljachow ..Dr. Minz ..Kaugert ..Winzker ..Dr. Blumfeld. ..task was ..arranging for ..relocation of ..Jews in Riga to ..working class suburb of Letgaler ..an area where originally 3,000 – 4,000 had lived. In this cramped area ..in ..small ..low rooms ..30,000 – 40,000 people had to find accommodation. We had to give our apartments to ..people moving out of ..working ..class area without any compensation ..and were only allowed to take essentials with us that we could carry ..special permission was needed if you wanted to take ..for example ..a cupboard with you. If it was a good piece of furniture ..then ..permission wasn’t granted. ..relocation had to be carried out by October 15th. Ghetto was then fenced in ..surrounded by Latvian SS ..Jews were segregated and ..tragedy of ..Ghetto began.” Isaac Berner.
On September 7th. 1941 the Riga Ghetto barely has 30,000 Jews still enclosed, most of who had succumbed to the rigours of forced labour, starvation or out and out annihilation. Also, there was a daily workforce of 1,000 Jews who were forced into the debilitating efforts of the Labour Battalions. Then, by October 1941, with more anti-Jewish decrees being declared, life had gotten so exceedingly more impossible to survive, life expectancy for All Jews decreased exponentially. On October 25th. 1941, with some 30,000 Jews who were still confined in the Ghetto, the commandant of the Ghetto Kurt Krause established a Jewish self-administration. This Jewish Council of Elders, the Judenrate or Aeltestenrat was being chaired by the Lawyer Michael Elyashov, the lesser Ghetto, the Little Ghetto ‘Kasernierungslager’ was eventually headed by Max Leiser.
Others involved in determining the way forward for the Jews here were Dr. Vladimir Mintz also headed the Linat Zedek Hospital, there was Simon Dubnow and Rabbi Zeck and Winzker, Kaugert and the Jewish Police was led by Michael Rosenthal. With newer attempts being made to improve the lot of the Jews of the Riga Ghetto, living conditions in the Ghetto could never improve as these would wish. However, as they operated care facility’s and a hospital there was also a clinic with a pharmacy and a home for the elderly. This effort managed to provide 1,000’s of Jewish Men and Women with employment, there was a source of newer income and a form of hope that these still surviving Jews could hold onto.
“..Our community leaders ..decent ..honourable men ..believed ..dealing with ..authority ..could alleviate our misery ..negotiate improved conditions for ..Jewish population. ..these leaders fatally misjudged ..nazi intentions of ..Final Solution.” Max Michelson.
On October 15th. 1941 there was already the preparations in hand for the complete resettlement of the Czech, German and Austrian Jews East to the Riga Ghetto. On October 16th. 1941 the remainder of the Protectorate Jews were being ‘resettled’ in Riga with an Einsatz ‘aktionen’ awaiting most of them. At the Skirotava train station the arriving Jews were inspected and some of them selected by the rank and file murderers eager to brutalise further a totally dejected human cargo. Many of these Jews, practically frozen, certainly hungry, definitely dying of thirst, and many dead already, the violence meted out to them, as always, was out of proportion to what the Jews might have expected. The selection process afforded those forming queues for the ‘blue buses’ assumed they were being better treated.
Perhaps shocked, certainly feeling the effects of the bitter cold, both columns, those headed for the Ghetto and those for Rumbula, could not appreciate what lay ahead of them. The march to the Ghetto might have appeared the lesser of two evils, but the finality of those Elderly Jews, frail and weakened Jews and the Jewish Children, were taken directly toward the execution pits. Without ever realising it this was the last chance for these selected Jews to ever see Family, Friends, Community, Life ever again. For those Jews, brutally force marched through drifts of snow, freezing cold and getting weaker by each step, they held onto the prospect of both seeing the separated relatives, friends or Family members and settling into a newer existence.
The Ghetto itself presented them with an image from hell, the debris of the forced evacuations of the former Jewish residents, bloodied buildings and Streets were evidence enough. The Marie-Celeste presented itself to these Jews at every turn and still, they would soon be joined by those who had been waved off from Skirovka Station. It soon became apparent too that their loved ones, left at the Station had retreated into oblivion, ably informed by any of those Jews still seeking to hide from the selection process.
“..Already in ..first days ..many Jews who only got ..close to ..fence were shot attempting to escape. Shots were fired into windows ..where supposedly ..black out was not good enough ..many ..died as a result. ..Groceries and essentials were supplied by 14 shops ..but allocation got less and less every week. Security was provided by ..Jewish Police.” Isaac Berner.
On October 23rd. 1941 with the Riga Ghetto now sealed, there are still close on 30,000 Jews pressed inside. In November 1941, the order was given by Heinrich Himmler to SS ??Friedrich Jeckeln, SS and Police Leader ‘Ostland’, to liquidate the Ghetto and murder all that was left of Latvian Jewry. What this amounted to was the fully intentioned move to settle the majority of the Ghetto Jews further to the East. From the first 4 resettlement transports, arriving between November 30th. 1941 and December 6th. 1941 a total of 4,075 Jews from Berlin, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Vienna were entrained for the new Concentration Camp in Riga, Jungfernhof and even Salaspils. The deportees had to make do with whatever accommodation was still available sheds, outhouses, and barns.
In the first weeks alone, 100’s of Jews in the Jungfernhof Camp fell victim to the vagaries of a commandant, Rudolf Seck whose arbitrary nature ensured Jewish destruction accompanied the effects of the cold, starvation and diseases. The more aware the Jews became of the precarious nature of their situation, the less resilient they had become and they succumbed more rapidly. All of this threatening and abuse spread more rapidly as these Jews fell more foul of the deprivation they had never been accustomed to.
On November 18th. 1941 ..arranged that ..Ghetto would be evacuated and everyone would be transferred to a work camp. When Dr Eljachow asked what would happen to ..old and ..sick ..SA man named Schulze answered bluntly that anyone who was unable to march would be shot. We were allowed to take 20 kg of luggage with us. We believed that were really going to be taken to a work camp.” Isaac Berner.
On November 20th. 1941 the Latvian militias threw a cordon around a section of the Ghetto and began to confine further the Jews into a more contained and smaller section. On November 23rd. 1941 a detachment of the strongest Jewish Men were then assembled and forced into the blocked off section of the Ghetto. On November 27th. 1941 more than 12,000 Riga Jews are shipped out in the infamous blue buses and are murdered in the Rumbula Forest. These Jews, and many more of their People are to make way for the first consignment of 25 transports of Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany now being transported North. The first consignment of 1,053 Berlin Jews were all Murdered in the Rumbula Forest, as they were redirected there instead of being settled in the Riga Ghetto for any stay of their execution. On November 28th. 1941 there is the continuance of what will be recognised as the ‘Grosse Aktionen’ major action within the Riga Ghetto.
“..At 6:00 pm ..Children ..Women and old people with or without luggage were driven out of their apartments. Blows ..kicks ..shooting ..murder ..were ..tactics ..to prompt ..terrified people. People stayed on ..streets for ..whole night ..until 6:00 am ..in ..frost ..hungry ..many poorly dressed. A group of 1,000 were marched on foot along ..Moskauer Strasse 3 under ..strict supervision of the SS. Nobody was allowed to watch ..even Aryans weren’t allowed to look out of ..window as shots were immediately fired.” Isaac Berner.
On November 30th. 1941 as the Riga Ghetto is being liquidated, the large or 2nd. ‘Grosse Aktionen’ sees a further 13,000 more of Riga’s Jews are removed and are shot, murdered by Einsatz, SS, German Police Units and Latvian auxiliaries in the Rumbula Forest. Amongst these Jews of the ‘large aktionen’ are those 1,053 German Jews who had just arrived from Berlin. On December 1st. 1941 1,013 Stuttgart Jews are resettled to Riga and are detained within the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp and they too will find their way to the Killing Site in the Rumbula Forest. On December 2nd. 1941 the arrival of 1,008 Jews from Nuremberg is followed 2 days later with the arrival of the Stuttgart Jews, deported 3 days previously On December 3rd. 1941 the representative of Wehrmacht Command Ostland, General Bremer requested:
“..because of ..liquidations ..military is losing skilled Jewish workers employed in armament factories and repair shops.” General Bremer.
The 1,001 Vienna Jews deported arrived on December 6th. 1941 and they too are detained within the Jungfernhof Camp until Rumbula was prepared for them. On December 7th. 1941 the Second ‘Grosse Aktionen’, of those remaining Riga Ghetto Jews realises the near end for the Jews of Riga, as they too are murdered in the Rumbula Forest. This is the same day the Chelmno Death Camp’s Extermination operations begin.
“..when ..people got there they were told to undress ..put shoes in one pile ..clothing in another ..driven to ..edges of these mass graves ..and machine gunned. It was going on all night and ..next day. 15,000 of our People were massacred on that particular day.” Steven Springfield.
There are still some 4,000 to 5,000 Jewish Men and as many as 400 Jewish Women, acting as seamstresses, who were still alive in the small, Latvian Riga Ghetto as the Nazi’s continually brought the transports of German, Austrian and Czech, Bohemian and Moravian Jewry to supplement the empty spaces left in the now termed Large German Ghetto. The German Ghetto, ‘Reichsjudenghetto’, as it also became known, saw the German Jews establish the Cologne Shul, and this proved somewhat divisive as many within Latvian Jewry saw the other arrivals as the requirement for them to be resettled. On December 8th. 1941 the final liquidation of the Riga Ghetto is underway. Some 13,000 Jews were led from the Riga Ghetto to the Rumbula Forest and were murdered there and among them were 1,000 recently deported German Jews.
Some 964 of Hamburg’s Jews arrive at the Skirotava station on December 9th. 1941 and these are to be detained within the Jungfernhof Camp prior to their removal to the Rumbula Forest Killing Site. By now, and having Murdered practically the entire Riga Jewish Ghetto population, the Nazi’s were delivering a further 16,000 Jews from the Reich. These too added to the ranks of the Murdered Jews of Riga and all told, some 24,000 to 25,000 Reich Jews were deported toward Riga. These Jews, were contained within either the Riga Ghetto, Jungfernhof and Salaspils Camps, these staging posts to the murder pits in the Bikerniki and Rumbula Forest’s. There are some 30,000 Riga and Reich Jews who are shot during this period, the vast majority of whom are consigned within the Rumbula Forest.
Also, and in these first six months of the Nazi occupation of Latvia, the Nazi’s, the local Latvian Militia and other collaborators Slaughtered almost 90,000 of the country’s Jews. It is important to recognise too that 100’s of Riga’s Jews formed a resistance movement to combat what they were well aware of from Bikerniki and certainly Rumbula and arms found their way into the Ghetto. Of the 43,500 Jews who had been living in Riga, barely 4,800 of them were still left alive. On December 10th. 1941 1,011 of Cologne’s Jews arrived for their detaining within the Riga Ghetto.
On December 12th. 1,014 Jews from Kassel arrive at Skirotava station for the Riga Ghetto. On December 13th. 1,007 Jews from Dusseldorf are detained within the Riga Ghetto. On December 16th. 1941 there are 1,031 Jews from Munster, Osnabrueck and Bielefeld to make their way toward their incarceration within the Riga Ghetto. On December 18th. 1941 1,001 Jews from Hannover arrive at the Skirotava station and are marched to the Riga Ghetto. On January 12th. 1942 1,005 Jews arrive from the ‘model camp’ at Theresienstadt and 3 days later, on January 15th. 1942 1,000 Jews of Vienna also arrive.
On January 16th. 1942 1,034 Jews from Berlin arrive at the Riga Ghetto after being transported North and following them, 3 days afterwards on January 19th. 1942 are 997 Jews from the Czech Ghetto at Theresienstadt, By now the evidence of the Slaughter has gained wider acknowledgement and for the situation of the Jews of Latvia, being declared ‘Judenrein’, Free of Jews, was communicated and detailed in evidence to The Wannsee Conference on January 20th. 1942. This Nazi conference was convened in order to bring into line all agencies of the Reich in the implementation of The Final Solution of the Jewish Question. By now, it must be remembered this resolve for Hitler had already see the Slaughter of more than 1,000,000 Jews, shot, hanged, brutally murdered, gassed and killed. Then, on January 23rd. 1942 some 1,002 Jews of Berlin too made the perilous journey to Riga and destruction in the pits at Bikerniki or Rumbula.
On January 24th. 1942 with 773 Jews from Leipzig and Dresden arriving at Riga, the Reich itself was fast depleting its own community concentrations of German Jewry. On January 30th. 1942 1,044 more of Berlin’s Jews faced the same transportation route toward Riga and a day later, on January 31st. 1942 1,201 Viennese Jews also made the journey. On February 1st. 1942 938 Jews from both Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund were resettled to the Riga Ghetto.
“..Transports from Berlin arrive ..Kovno ..doubtful ..anybody ..alive. No ..news ..Minsk ..Riga. Many ..shot. ..intention ..to exterminate ..Jews entirely.” Bishop Hermann Wilhelm Berning.
In February 1942, the Bishop knew full well what was happening to the Jewish People, and still ethical morality was subservient to Hitler’s will. On February 5th. 1942 Gerhard Mayfeld, Lange’s deputy led an aktionen against 1,500 German Jews and these were murdered in Rumbula. On February 8th. 1942 380 Jews arrived from Kovno. On February 10th. 1942 a further 1,003 of Viennese Jews too made their way toward the extermination processes awaiting them in Riga. On March 15th. 1942 some 2,500 Jews from the Ghetto, many of them Children, the Sick, the Infirm, the Elderly Jews were taken to Rumbula and Murdered there. On March 26th. 1942 some 1,272 of the remnants of Riga Jewry, a now mixed grouping of Latvian, Austrian, German and Czech Jews, are Murdered. On June 9th. 1942 a mobile gassing van, already used to murder Serbian Jews at Zemun, was sent to Riga to exterminate what then remained of the Jews of Latvia.
Along with these Latvian Jews would be 10’s of 1,000’s of surviving German Jews who had since been deported there just six months previously. These were brought from the Camps of Jungfernhof and Salaspils and on June 15th. 1942 the killing operation for the Riga Ghetto recognised the requirement for a second gassing van.
“..My Survival was ..improbable chance occurrence ..but I did not Survive at ..expense of anyone else ..I do not feel any guilt about it.” Max Michelson.
On August 18th. 1942 938 of Berlin’s Jews arrived for resettlement measures in Riga and on August 23rd. 1942 a further 1,000 Jews from the Theresienstadt Ghetto arrive. On September 3rd. 1942 there 797 Jews from Berlin Insterburg who were Murdered without being delivered to the Riga Ghetto. On October 22nd. 1942 959 of Berlin’s Jews were Murdered after their arrival, exempted from any stay at the Riga Ghetto. On October 24th. 1942 a further 300 Jews from Kovno arrived. On October 28th. 1942, the Nazi’s discovered the underground activities that had been taking place in the Ghetto. 10 Jews from the Riga were making their way toward the Partisans when they were intercepted by a Nazi squad and in the exchange, 8 of them were killed. The 2 survivors were taken prisoner and were amongst those acted against back in the Ghetto. Some 108 in total, all were shot, and this was regardless of their resistance activities.
“..as part of ..systematic degradation ..we ..lost our names ..in Kaiserwald. I became ..10021.” Max Michelson.
The aktion against these activities saw the murders of these 108 Jewish sick, the disabled and elderly Jews also, along with all of the Jewish police. This reprisal was because of the Jewish resistance activity, and social activities which had been setting up a grocery store and a bakery, and even establishing a school and a kitchen for those few Jewish Children that were still living. On October 29th. 1942 a further 798 Jews from Berlin were transported North and were Murdered upon arrival. In January 1943, the two ghettos were consolidated and on March 15th. 1943 Himmler decided to have built the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp to the North of the City. This led to the phased dissolution of the entire ghetto and after those who had survived the first years of internment, had to leave the Ghetto. In November 1943 many of these Jews who had been interned in the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp were amongst the some 2,000 Riga Ghetto Jews then transported to Birkenau.
“..they told us right away to line up and to get undressed. Naked. ..you are only a person as long as you have your clothes on. You can be a professor. ..a doctor. ..a scientist. ..a shoemaker. But as soon as your clothes come off and you stand naked ..you are lost.” Lily Mazur Margules.
On November 2nd. 1943 the Riga Ghetto was finally being liquidated and by December 1943 the Riga Ghetto had been emptied of its Jews and virtually all of Latvian Jews had either been Murdered or had been delivered to the ‘Gassing Vans’. As 1944 approached, and with the Russian Army moving relentlessly forward, the SK 1005 Operation descended upon the region. Here, teams of Jewish Men were sent to open up the mass graves, burn the corpses, and obliterate all traces of the Jewish Slaughter. SS Standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel’s ‘Himmelfahrtskommandos’ did not act here as swiftly as it was necessary to conceal the truth of the mass murder but still managed to further add to the terrible atrocity by Murdering the SK 1005 Kommando.
On April 28th. 1944, all the Jewish Children who had managed thus far to survive the attention of those like Eduard Krebsbach, the ??, were executed. With the steady approach of the Russian Front throughout 1944 that summer saw the Nazi’s murdering 1,000’s of those Jews still being held in Kaiserwald and the many of its subcamps. Those remaining alive were later deported to the Stutthof Concentration Camp in Germany. The selections of the Jewish People was intensified.
“..In Stutthof ..became ..96211 ..unlike ..Auschwitz ..our numbers were not tattooed.” Max Michelson.
In July 1944, as the Russian Army reached the borders of Latvia and prior to their liberation by Russian forces, some 200 to 300 Jewish Men were taken from the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp and were led to the Rumbula Forest and executed there. The Nazi’s then began force marching and sending many other Jew’s to other Concentration Camps outside Latvia, in the main to the Camp Stutthof, near Danzig. For the remaining Jewish survivors still clinging to hope and expectation, life in the Baltic region became ever more treacherous. None of these Jews would be allowed to fall into the hands of the approaching Russians and many of these were returned to Germany and the Camps at Dachau and Neuengamme. On October 13th. 1944 the Russian Army arrived and liberated the Riga area and just after its liberation, some 150 Latvian Jews, including Children, emerged from their hiding places.
“..It is said that some Survivors feel guilty ..being ..only ones in their families to have lived through The Holocaust. I have not found that to be ..case among my fellow Survivors.” Max Michelson.
Some of those Murdered.
Amalia Meyer Bagriansky
Burl Braun
Maishe Braun
The Family Braun
though were Murdered in 1941.
Both Joshua Dicker
and Sara Selma Golda (nee Shpindel) were Murdered during 1942 in Riga.
The Family Greengut
Bluma Mendelson a Latvian Jew was Murdered in the Riga Ghetto.
Her Sister’s Freida Mendelson
and Hana Mendelson were also Murdered though we are unsure as to when or where they were Murdered. All 3
