Riga Ghetto

1942 photo showing Jews in Riga required to wear the yellow star and forbidden to use the sidewalk

Oskars Dankers at the Nuremberg Trials

At the beginning of July, the Nazi occupation regime had organized the burning of the synagogues in Riga, and attempted, with varying degrees of success, to incite the Latvian population into taking murderous action against the Latvian Jewish population. At the end of July, the city administration switched from the German military to German civil administration. The head of the civil administration was a German named Heinz Nachtigall. Other Germans involved with the civil administration included Hinrich Lohse and Otto Drechsler.[2] The Germans issued new decrees at this time to govern the Jews. Under "Regulation One", Jews were banned from public places, including city facilities, parks, and swimming pools. A second regulation required Jews to wear a yellow six-pointed star on their clothing,[3] with violation punishable by death. A Jew was also to be allotted only one-half the food ration of a non-Jew.[4] By August, a German named Altmayer was in charge of Riga. The Nazis then registered all the Jews of Riga. Further decrees mandated that all Jews wear a second yellow star, this one in the middle of their backs, and that they not use the sidewalks.[4] The reason for the second star was so Jews could be readily distinguished in a crowd. Later, when Lithuanian Jews were transported to the ghetto, they were subject to the same two-star rule.[5] Jews could be randomly assaulted with impunity by any non-Jew.[6]

Officially the Gestapo took over the prisons in Riga on July 11, 1941. By this time, however, the Latvian gangs had killed a number of the Jewish inmates.[2] The Gestapo initially set up its headquarters in the building of the former Latvian Ministry of Agriculture on Raiņa Boulevard. A special Jewish administration was set up. Gestapo torture and interrogation were carried out in the basement of this building. After this treatment the arrested persons were sent to prison, where the inmates were starved to death. Later the Gestapo relocated to the former museum at the corner of Kalpaka and Brīvības boulevards.[2] The Nazis also set up a Latvia puppet government, under a Latvian General Oskars Dankers, who was himself half-German. A "Bureau of Jewish Affairs" was set up at the Latvian police prefecture. Nuremberg-style laws were introduced, which tried to force people in marriages between Jews and non-Jews to divorce. If the couple refused to divorce, the woman, if a Jew, would be forced to undergo sterilization.[2] Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and non-Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat Jews.[7]

On July 21, the Riga occupation command decided to concentrate the Jewish workers in a ghetto. All Jews were registered and a Jewish Council (Judenrat) was set up. Prominent Riga Jews, including Eljaschow, Blumenthal, and Minsker, were chosen for the council.[2] All of them had been involved with the Jewish Latvian Freedom Fighters Association and hopes were this would give them leverage in dealing with the occupation authorities. Council members were given large white armbands with a blue Star of David on them, which gave them the right to use the sidewalks and the street cars.[2] On October 23, 1941, the Nazi occupation authorities issued an order that by October 25, 1941, all Jews were to relocate to the Maskavas Forštate (Moscow Forshtat) suburb of Riga.[2][8] As a result, about 30,000 Jews were concentrated in the small 16-block area[9][10] The Nazis fenced them in with barbed wire.[11] Anyone who went too close to the barbed wire was shot by the Latvian guards stationed around the ghetto perimeter. German police (Wachtmeister) from Danzig commanded the guards. The guards engaged in random firing during the night.[12]

While the Jews were relocating to the ghetto, the Nazis stole their property. The Jews were allowed to take very little into the ghetto, and what was left was handled by an occupation authority known as the Trusteeship Office (Treuhandverwaltung). Entire trainloads of goods were sent back to Germany. The Germans overlooked the theft of large amounts of other, generally less valuable, property by Latvian police, regarding it as a form of compensation for engaging in the killings. Individual appropriations and self-interested appropriations by Germans were also common. Author Ezergailis believes that the SD was more interested in murdering the Jews than in stealing their property, whereas the reverse was true among the men of Lohse's "civilian" administration.[13]

Riga ghetto in 1942

In September 1941, Adolf Hitler, at the urging of Reinhard Heydrich and Joseph Goebbels, had decreed the deportation of German Jews to the east. Since the originally planned destination, the Minsk ghetto, was already overcrowded, further deportation trains were rerouted to Riga, which itself was overcrowded.

On November 30 and December 8 and 9, the Nazis shot about 27,500 Latvian Jews from the ghetto at pre-dug pits in the nearby forest of Rumbula.[14] The large ghetto had been in existence for only 37 days.[12] Only about 4,500 skilled male workers from the work commands, which were held in "the small ghetto", and about 500 women, who had been classified as seamstresses, survived the Rumbula massacres.[15]

The first transport with 1,053 of Berlin Jews reached the Šķirotava Railway Station in Riga on November 30, 1941. All persons were murdered on the same day in the Rumbula Forest.[16] The next four arriving transports with approximately 4,000 persons were accommodated on instruction of the SS-Brigadeführers and commander of Einsatzgruppen A, Walter Stahlecker, on an empty yard, the so-called provisional concentration camp Jungfernhof.

There has been a historical dispute about whether the Latvian Jews were killed at Rumbula to make room for the Reich Jews, and it has long caused bitter feelings between Latvian and German survivors. The evidence is not clear on this, but certainly deportations of Reich Jews followed closely in time after the Rumbula shootings.[17]

After the mass killings at Rumbula, the survivors were formed into the small ghetto.[18] Large posters were placed around Riga, stating "Anyone reporting to the authorities a suspicious person or a hidden Jew will receive a large sum of money and many other gratuities and privileges".[19] Jews could sometimes be identified by whether they would eat pork.[20] Internal passports were used to control the population, being necessary, for example, to obtain a medical prescription.[21] The Nazi commandant of the small ghetto was named Stanke, who had also participated in the liquidation of the large ghetto. He was assisted by a Latvian named Dralle, who earned a reputation for brutality among the Jews. As with the large ghetto, the perimeter was also guarded by Latvians. Within the ghetto, on Ludzas Street, the Nazis maintained a special company of guards, consisting of policemen from Danzig, commanded by Hesfer.[18]

A work detail of Jews from the small ghetto was formed to gather up the property in the large ghetto of the Jews killed in the Rumbula shootings. The detail was headed by Aismann, a Jew from Daugavpils, who stood in favor with the Nazis and was distrusted by the other Jews. Many Jews tried to get back into the large ghetto to claim their property, including the valuables they had hidden. The guards were quick to execute any Jew from the small ghetto whom they found in the large one without authorization. Some of the effects from the large ghetto were redistributed to the Latvians by the occupation authorities. In other cases the German military authorities sent in trucks to load up furniture and other items. One general, Dr. Bamberg, picked out some items for himself and had them shipped back to Germany.[18]

Hinrich Lohse

Following the first train on November 29, whose occupants were killed at Rumbula, Jews from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia (the so-called "Reich Jews") began arriving in Riga on December 3, 1941. The Reich Jews were not immediately housed in the ghetto, but rather they were left at a provisional concentration camp established at Jumpravmuiza, also known as Jungfrauhof.[22] Rudolf Lange supervised the arrival of the transports in Riga, aided by Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Maywald, whom Schneider describes as Lange's "sidekick".[22] Lange personally shot a young man, Werner Koppel, who he felt was not opening a rail car door fast enough.[22]

A local Nazi occupation official, Territorial Commissioner (Gebietskommissar) Otto Drechsler, who was a subordinate of Lohse, wrote a memo to Lange protesting at the relocation of Jews into the Ghetto. Drechsler's real concern, however, was that Drechsler's men were still busy searching the buildings recently vacated by the murdered Latvian Jews for money, jewelry and furs. Consistent with this purpose, buildings were declared off-limits to the arriving Jews from Germany until they could be combed through by Drechsler's squads.[22]

The first transport to go directly to the ghetto arrived on December 13, 1941, carrying Jews from Cologne.[22] Their luggage had come with them on the train but it was all confiscated by the Gestapo using a ruse.[22] Each piece of luggage had the owner's name on it. For men, the name "Isaac" had been added, and for women "Sarah". Schneider reports that a gas van was used in Riga to kill some of the arrivals from the last transport from Germany.[23]

At least in the case of the December 11, 1941 transport from Düsseldorf, the train was composed of third-class passenger cars for the Jews and a second-class passenger car for the guards. Apparently efforts were made to keep the train heated.[24] A rail car on another transport to Riga from Vienna was reported not to have been heated, which resulted in at least one person having frostbit feet, which later turned gangrenous and had to be amputated.[25]

In cold weather the people were taken to the ghetto on the same day they arrived, without any property of any kind other than what they were wearing or carrying, under the guard of SS Death's Head troops. They were given no food of any kind, and had to live from whatever they could find in the vacated sector of the large ghetto to which they'd been assigned.[18] In the next month, trains arrived from Vienna, Hanover, Bielefeld, Hamburg, Bavaria, Saxony, and from Theresienstadt concentration camp, Czech Jews who originally came from Prague. About 15,000 to 18,000 people arrived on the German transports. Some German women who arrived in the ghetto were not Jews but were married to Jewish men and had refused to leave them. In contrast to the Latvian Jews, the German Jews wore only one star, on their chests, and the word Jude (Jew) was written on the star.[18]

[27]

The German Jews organized themselves by their cities of origin. Each group had a representative on the Jewish Council. The head of the Jewish Council was a man from Cologne named Max Leiser.[22] Unable to pronounce the Latvian street names, the German Jews renamed most of the streets in the German ghetto after the cities in Germany whence they had come.[28] Unlike the Latvian Jews, the German Jews were directly under the authority of the Gestapo, which set up an office in the German ghetto on Ludzas street. A Jewish Ghetto Police force was also established. In general the Latvian and the German ghettos were subject to separate administration, although the occupation Labor Authority drew personnel from both ghettos.

Testimony against Max Gymnich

In December 1941, Kurt Krause, whom Kauffman describes as the "man-eater", became the German commandant. Krause was a former Berlin police detective. His assistant was Max Gymnich, a Gestapo man from Cologne.[18][29] (Ghetto survivor Jeanette Wolff mistakenly identifies this commandant as Karl Wilhelm Krause, who was in fact Hitler's valet and is not known to have had any association with the Riga ghetto.[30])

Krause and Gymnich used a large and dangerous dog to help enforce their commands. A Latvian Jewish survivor Joseph Berman, is recorded as stating the following about described Gymnich:

He charges him with innumerable murders and being partly responsible for the inhuman treatment of the prisoners. * * * Gymnich personally selected the victims for deportation which meant certain death. Hence the name "Himmelsfahrtskommando -- Ascension Commando." He knew that they would never reach their alleged destination of Dünamünde or the fish tinning factory at Bolderaa. Gymnich was the driver of Obersturmführer Krause and later of Untersturmführer Roschmann.[31]

In February 1942 about 500 Lithuanian Jews were deported to the Latvian ghetto from the Kaunas Ghetto. They told the Latvian Jews of the mass killings that had taken place in the old forts around Kaunas (see Ninth Fort). There were many skilled craftsmen among the Lithuanian Jews, who gradually merged into the Lithuania Jewish population of the ghetto. Very few of them were to survive.[32]

By December 22, 1941 there were about 4,000 German and 3,000 Latvian Jews housed in the entire ghetto.[33] As of February 10, 1942, the approximate ghetto and concentration camp populations of German Jews in Riga and the vicinity were: Jungfrauhof: 2,500, German ghetto: 11,000, Salaspils: 1,300. Of the Latvian Jews, there were about 3,500 men and 300 women in the Latvian ghetto.[34] Altogether 20,057 Jews from the Reich were deported to Riga by February 10, 1942. Only 15,000 remained alive on that date. According to German ghetto survivor Schneider, the inhabitants of the German ghetto did not realize how many German Jews had been killed following deportation, and remained under the impression that deportation and forced labor were the worst that were going to happen:

Even from a historical perspective, the odds for the survivors did not seem too bad. As for the inmates of the German ghetto, they did not know that one-fourth of their number had already been exterminated. To them it was clear that they had been "resettled" as forced laborers, and they were able to live with that idea. Accordingly, they hoped that their strength would last until the war was over; they settled down in the ghetto and began to regard it as their home.[34]

Access to and from the ghetto could only be made through the police yard. People exiting or entering the ghetto were searched here and often beaten.

Finances and property

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Directions concerning treatment of Jewish property 13 October 1941

The Nazis, under an October 13, 1941 edict issued by Lohse, entitled "Directions concerning treatment of Jewish property" officially decreed the forfeiture of almost every item of value possessed by the Jews.[38] As a result, the Jews concealed as much property and valuables as they could in hiding places within the ghetto.[12]

Children were not supposed to be born in the ghetto. After the Rumbula massacres, very few women survived in the Latvian ghetto, and they were housed separately from the men. In the German ghetto, there was no segregation of the sexes. Even so, the Germans forbade sexual relations. This proved impossible to enforce. However, the consequences were that abortions were the most common sort of medical operation performed by the Jewish doctors. A few children were born alive in the ghetto in the first year; they were killed by an injection of poison. Krause, the German commandant, hated the idea of young Jewish women becoming pregnant, and often watched abortions at the clinic. He would threaten to have both the father and the mother sterilized.[43] For a woman to have a second abortion meant mandatory sterilization, consequently the Jewish doctors attempted to perform such abortions in secret.

During the early days of the occupation, Latvian Jews came to rely on work permits (German: Ausweis[6]) issued by the German occupation authorities as protection against daily brutalities by Latvians.[44] Some Germans were protective and even kind towards the Jews who were working for them.[45] Another survivor, Frida Michelson, sent to work on sugar beet fields near Jelgava for six weeks in the summer of 1941, told her fellow forced laborers:

This work is our salvation. As long as we can keep on working we'll stay alive. I am all for staying alive.[3]

On the other hand, the occupation authorities, including both the Gestapo and the Wehrmacht confiscated both housing and furniture at will from Jews. Anyone standing in the way was simply murdered.[44] A Jewish work detail was formed to remove belongings from Jewish homes and shops.[2]

The first tasks assigned to the German Jews were to shovel snow, clean up the apartments of the Latvian Jews who had been "evacuated", or unload cargo in the harbor.[33] Later, the German and the Latvian Jews were formed into combined work details.[18] Commandant Krause appointed Herbert Schultz as "Work Detail Administrator", and he dealt with the German and Latvians outside the ghetto.[43] Skilled craftsmen worked for the German war effort in various positions. They had a better chance to survive hence these positions were highly sought after. Many of the German Jews had been professionals or merchants, and lacked the ability to perform a craft, and without this, their rate of survival would be greatly reduced.[46]

At the end of 1942 approximately 12,000 Jews of the Riga ghetto were in work assignments. Of these, about 2,000 were housed outside the ghetto at their workplaces, 2,000 worked in workshops within the ghetto, and more than 7,300 were led from the ghetto in columns to their workplaces. An account from the year 1943 lists 13.200 Jews in the ghetto.[31][47]

There were many instances of work-related killings during the history of the Riga ghetto.

• Shortly after the German Jews arrived, the guard Danskop accused 18 young German women of stealing during the course of the work they were doing cleaning of the apartments of the murdered Latvian Jews, and had them shot.[18]

December 22, 1941: Forced labor used to construct Salaspils concentration camp.

• In January 1942, the Nazi authorities picked 900 of the youngest and strongest Jews and sent them southeast to a town 18 km from Riga to build a concentration camp, which became known as the Salaspils concentration camp. There these Jews were worked to death, so that in June 1942, only 60 to 70 "living skeletons" returned to Riga. In addition to the many who died during the course of the camp construction, Rudolf Lange and the Schutzstaffel Nazi SS man Richard Nickel executed a number of people for even the slightest infraction.[32]

In March, 1942, the Nazi authorities in Riga decided the German ghetto was getting too crowded, and organized two massacres of the German Jews. These massacres became known as the "Dünamünde Action" in which they killed about 3,800 people, mostly children, the elderly and the sick, using a ruse to trick the victims into believing they would be going to an easier work assignment. Instead they were all shot.[25][32][48]

The Nazi authorities established a prison in the German ghetto, and both German and Latvian Jews were subject to being incarcerated on even a suspicion of infraction of the many ghetto rules. Many were never seen again after being taken to the ghetto prison. Among other things, bartering, and smuggling forbidden items, such as food, into the ghetto, which were necessary for survival, were punishable by death if one were apprehended. It was also punishable by death to possess a newspaper or other written material.[18] Hangings were frequent in the ghetto, almost a daily occurrence. Generally men were hanged, while women were taken to the cemetery and shot by Commandant Krause.[33] Krause in particular seemed to enjoy shooting women himself; for example, about 10 days after the Dünamünde operation he shot the teacher Mary Korwill, who had made the mistake of wearing her own gold watch, a "crime" in the ghetto. Krause was somewhat erratic in that he did not always execute an offender. Male violators could expect no mercy from Krause; they were always hanged, although in one case, of Johann Weiss, a lawyer and an Austrian veteran of World War I, he allowed a "commutation" to shooting.[42]

German ghetto survivor Ruth Foster's father was working outside the Riga Ghetto sawing wood for the SS. A German soldier from their home town passed him, and said "Wilhelm, what are you doing here?" The father only answered "Bring me some bread." The soldier did so, but it did not help the father. As the Jews were marched back into the ghetto that evening from their work assignments, they were searched, and those that were found with food, even potato peelings, were arrested. Later, the Nazis forced all the Jews of the Ghetto to assemble, and he shot the father and two others in the back of the head with his pistol, as the family watched along with the other Jews of the ghetto.[49]

On April 2 and May 4, 1942 two transports of Jewish men were taken from the ghetto to Salaspils concentration camp. Krause had wanted the men retained in the ghetto, while Lange wanted them transferred to Salaspils for work duties. Conditions at Salaspils were harsh. In August, 1942 about one third of the transportees to Salapils were returned to the ghetto. Many of those returned were in poor health and died shortly after their return.[50]

The German Jews in the ghetto began to rumor among themselves that the Germans had brought them to Riga to be exterminated. Outside of the ghetto there were housed a few Jews whose work duties gave them confirmation of the overall Nazi plan. Some Jews worked at the headquarters of Einsatzkommando 2c were given the task of sorting the clothing and jewelry that had come from the victims of the massacres in Latvia. Many of these came in suitcases, and from the names and addresses on the luggage, the Jews charged with sorting the items could tell where they'd come from. Other personal effects from the victims came into Riga from all over Latvia where murders were occurring. The local SS picked over the effects before they were sent back to Germany, and Jewish women who cleaned the apartments of officers found many valuable things, such drawers full of watches, closets full of furs (with the labels of their original owners still on them).[50]

The Nazi gave the task of digging graves to a work detail called "Kommando Krause 2." This group of 38 Jewish men, was housed at the Central Prison. They were instructed not to tell anyone about the mass killings. 16 of these men survived long enough to be returned to the German ghetto, violated their instructions, and told the people there about the mass killings that had been perpetrated in the forests around Riga.[50]

Lilli Henoch memorial, Askanischer Platz 6, in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Lilli Henoch, a German world record holder in the discus, shot put, and 4 × 100 meters relay events, and the holder of 10 German national championships, was deported to the ghetto on September 5, 1942, and killed by machine gun and buried in a mass grave shortly thereafter.

The lack of workers for important war enterprises, and the economic advantage which the WVHA drew by the hiring from Jewish forced laborers, did not, however, protect permanently against the destruction intentions of the Nazis. Heinrich Himmler arranged in June 1943 on to seize:

... all Jews existing in the area east country still in ghettos into concentration camps together… 2) I forbid starting from 8/1/1943 each bringing out Jews from the concentration camps to work. 3) in close proximity to Riga a concentration camp is to be established to move into that the whole clothing and equipment manufacturing, which the armed forces has today outside, is. All private companies are to be switched off. […] 5) the unnecessary members of the Jewish ghettos are to be evacuated to the east.[51]

In the summer of 1943, in the Riga suburb of Kaiserwald (Latvian: Mežaparks) the Nazis constructed Kaiserwald concentration camp, where eight barracks for prisoners were planned. The first 400 Jews were transferred there in July 1943 from the ghetto. For them, this meant separation from family. They were confronted also with prisoner clothing, shearing of their hair, and loss of privacy.

From this time on the gradual dissolution of the ghetto in Riga began. For the most part it was vacated in November 1943. Extensive plans to remove and second establish the concentration camp were scrapped. Several enterprises furnished camps, in which the forced laborers were housed. Older people, children, people who cared for the surviving children, and persons with illnesses were transferred by train in November 1943 to Auschwitz concentration camp.[52] The total on this transport is in dispute, but most observers believe that 2,000 people were included on the Auschwitz train.[52] By the end of November all the Jews who were not murdered in Biķernieki or elsewhere had been transferred out of the ghetto.

Riga Ghetto's List (Jewish ghetto in Riga, 1941—1943.). Tamara Zitcere (02.12.1947. - 25.07.2014.) has overlooked and studied 346 books of House registers at Latvian State Historical Archive, including more than 68 house registers of Riga ghetto preserved by nowadays. Total number of houses in Riga Ghetto was 81. Upon the research of information and the generalization of data, the list of more than 5764 Jewish victims of the ghetto was prepared.[53][54] The Riga Ghetto's List (1941—1943.), List of Riga ghetto imprisoners by Tamara Zitcere based on house registers of Riga ghetto is exhibited at the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum in Riga, Latvia[55] and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel.[56]

• 22 June 1941: German invasion.
• 1 July 1941: Riga falls to German forces.
• 13 Oct 1941: German occupation civil chief Hinrich Lohse issues forfeiture decree.
• 24 Oct 1941: Ghetto completely enclosed by barbed wire.[9]
• 25 Oct 1941: All Latvian Jews in Riga and vicinity required to live in the ghetto.
• 29 Nov 1941: The first trainload of about 1,000 German Jews arrives in Riga.
• 30 Nov 1941: First day of Rumbula massacre; approximately 12,000 Latvian Jews from the ghetto murdered; 1,000 German Jews from the first train also murdered.
• 1 Dec to 8 Dec 1941: Four trainloads of Jews deported from the Reich arrive in Riga and are housed initially at Jumpravuiža under atrocious conditions; many are shot by the Arājs Kommando in the Biķernieki forest, others are transferred to Salaspils to continue the construction of the concentration camp there.
• 8 Dec 1941: Second day of Rumbula; approximately 12,000 more Latvian Jews from the ghetto are murdered.
• 16 Mar 1942: First Dünamünde Action. 1,900 Reich Jews from the ghetto are murdered.
• 25 Mar 1942: Second Dünamünde Action. 1,840 Reich Jews from Jumpravmuiža are murdered.
• 31 Oct 1942: Execution of the Latvian ghetto police.
• July 1943: Transfer of ghetto occupants to Kaiserwald (Mežaparks) concentration camp begins.
• 8 Oct 1943: Transfer of Liepāja Ghetto survivors to Riga Ghetto
• 2 Nov 1943: About 2,000 people, including children, their caregivers, the old and the sick, are transported from the ghetto to Auschwitz concentration camp.
• End of Nov 1943: All Jews removed from the ghetto, either by transport to another camp or by murder.

Max Kaufmann

• (in German) Guttkuhn, Peter, Die Lübecker Geschwister Grünfeldt. Vom Leben, Leiden und Sterben "nichtarischer" Christinnen, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2001. ISBN 978-3-7950-0772-0
• (in German) Katz, Josef, Erinnerungen eines Überlebenden, Malik, Kiel 1988. ISBN 3-89029-038-8.
• (in German) Kugler, Anita, Scherwitz, Der jüdische SS-Offizier. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2004, ISBN 3-462-03314-X

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ghetto Riga.

• Rīga, Latvia at JewishGen
• (in German) Artikel „Religiöses Leben der Kölner Juden im Ghetto von Riga“ auf Shoa.de
• (in German) Die Geschichte des Ghetto Riga: Streit um einen Forschungsauftrag
• (in German) Dokumentarfilm über die Ghetto-Überlebenden Alexander Bergmann und Steven Springfield
• The Holocaust in Latvia and Latvia's Jews Yesterday and Today
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance in Latvia, 16 Sept 2003
• (in German) Berliner Zeitung, Das Lange Warten des Abram Kit, 29 October 1997 (interviews with Rumbula survivors)
• List of Riga Ghetto Imprisoners (source: House Registers of Riga ghetto; Author Tamāra Zitcere, Riga, Latvia)