II.

Daugavpils (1918)

Daugavpils-Dvinsk was part of Latvia and was the country's second-largest city. The face of old Dvinsk had changed completely, and now only between 15,000 and 18,000 Jews lived there, most of whom had been born in the countryside. The following Jews served on the city council: the Kopilowski brothers, Hurwitz, Meiksin, Lewin and others. In order to give Daugavpils a Latvian character, on Dr. Ulmanis' orders a huge building called the House of the People was built in the market square, and a gigantic bridge over the Daugava called the Freedom Bridge, was built in the center of the city.

Both gaonim died shortly before the outbreak of World War II; they were buried in Daugavpils. Their graves stood as symbols in the old Jewish cemetery, and every Jew who wanted to pour out his heart to someone visited them. Today the old Jewish Dvinsk exists no more, nor do the holy graves of the gaonim, for in the last terrible war they were leveled to the ground.
 

III.

Fascist Germany's declaration of war caused a great panic among the Jews, not only in Daugavpils, Latgale's capital, but throughout Latgale. Events developed so rapidly that no time remained to make any decisions. The city of Kovno, only 170 kilometers distant from Daugavpils, was already occupied by the enemy. A short time later Daugavpils itself was bombarded by the enemy, and on 28 June 1941 the Fascist German army occupied it. There were battles only in the suburbs of Stropa and the well-known spa Pogulianka. Now the enemy pressed forward, on the one side toward Rezekne (Rositten), and on the other toward Krustpils and Riga. In the meantime, the fairly small number of Latvians in occupied Daugavpils did not yet know what to do with the Jews. They waited for directives from Riga. Riga fell to the Germans on 1 July. Immediately afterward, Daugavpils received from the murder headquarters of Latvia. the Aizsargu house, its guidelines on how to deal with the Jews. In the meantime, all was quiet in Daugavpils until 2 July, when the general large-scale action against Latvian Jewry began.

On 2 July 1941 came the first order: "All men must report to the marketplace!" At once a large crowd assembled. Sick men were dragged from their beds. People saw the prominent Daugavpils citizen Magaram, who was half-paralyzed, carried there on a stretcher. They had been sure that only the healthy men would be recruited for labor and that the sick ones would be exempted. Until the arrival of the Latvian Aizsargi and the Germans, the Jews stood all day in the marketplace. Later the first shots were fired there. The first victim was a certain Leiser Goldberg, because he was not standing in his row properly. The second was a Mr. Maier Maierowitsch, who had tried to speak to his wife. Now all the Jews were taken to prison under heavy guard. On the way, they were subjected to harassment and beatings.

The prison was surrounded with machine guns. A very few Jews were separated from the others and transported to the woods at Stropa to be executed. The others stood for a long time in the prison courtyard. The Latvians demanded that two Jews volunteer to be sacrificed for the whole community; if this did not happen, all of them would be killed. The prominent Daugavpils rabbi Fuchs and the equally prominent Daugavpils magid (quasi-rabbi) volunteered. This made a deep impression on all the assembled people. The Latvians now took the two of them out of the crowd, made them stand aside, and took all the others into the prison. There the circumstances were terrible, because before the Germans took it over, complete control lay in the hands of the Latvians, who exercised it with especial sadism. To everyone's surprise. Rabbi Fuchs and the magid were released. They received permission to bring food to the prisoners.

The collection point for all the food that was contributed was the Planow house of prayer. The prisoners' relatives had to bring the food there to be handed on. Every day from that time on, one could see Rabbi Fuchs, the magid, and a fourteen-year-old boy whom they had taken on as a helper pulling with their own hands a wagon full of provisions down Daugavpils Street to the prison. As they did so, they were only too often jeered at and beaten by the local people. Gradually this abuse became so violent that they had to be admitted to the prison infirmary. They stayed there for a long time. After they recovered, they too were taken to the Daugavpils ghetto.
 

IV.

Jewish Dvinsk was burning! First the large Choral Synagogue was set aflame by the Latvians. A young man named Elka Lakus died in the conflagration. Soon the remaining small Jewish houses of prayer were also burned down. Only the large and prominent Beth-Midrosch and the Planow house of prayer of the gaonim were spared. The Beth-Midrosch, in which the gaon R Maier Simcha used to pray, was used by the Germans as a warehouse for provisions. The Rogazow gaon’s Planow house of prayer, where in my youth a minche (afternoon prayer) could be said at any time, was converted into an old-age home for Aryans.

Individual Jews who had in the meantime managed to make their way to Daugavpils from the countryside told terrible tales about the atrocities committed against them by Latvian young men and members of student fraternities. Some of the Jews had been killed in horrible ways.

At the end of July a new regulation was announced: "Every Jew must wear a yellow star." Non-compliance was punishable by death. The Daugavpils Jews differed from the others in that they had to wear three stars: one on the left knee, the second on the chest, and the third on the back. Nobody knew why the Daugavpils Jews were more "privileged" than the Jews of Riga.

The fate of the men in the prison was terrible. The authorities promised to send them to work, but what then happened was that they were sent away and never returned. They were executed near the prison in the well-known Eisenbahngarten (railroad park). Of course all this did not take place on a single day, and in order to conceal this from the outside world, individual prisoners were even released from prison.

In the meantime, the Germans had settled down in Daugavpils. They established the notorious Gestapo and an area command headquarters. Now they took over the civil administration including the Latvian prison. There the number of Jews had already shrunk considerably. From that time on, the Jews worked in all the German units, even Gestapo headquarters, which set up workshops and shoemakers' and tailors' shops. Jews also worked in the field command headquarters and later in the city command headquarters as cleaners, boilermen and so on. Women, men and teenagers worked. The rations in the city were very bad, for none were provided regularly. People had to scavenge something edible for themselves through the units they worked for. Some units set up barracks camps so as to exploit the prisoners twenty -four hours a day. These Jews lived under heavy guard in special buildings that they were not allowed to leave. All contact with the outside world was forbidden on pain of death. The sani, punishment was decreed for reading newspapers or speaking to Aryans.
 

V.

The few Daugavpils Jews were now moved into a ghetto. Among them was the well-known physician Dr. Kretzer, who immediately committed suicide.

The ghetto was set up outside the city, across from the huge, ancient Daugavpils fortress on the other (Kurzeme) side of the Daugava River. Cavalry barracks with large stalls for horses were still standing there from the time of the Russian czar Peter the Great. Besides the Daugavpils Jews, the Jews from the countryside were also taken to this ghetto on foot. Because there was not enough room for everyone, the Fascist German murderers hit upon the following solution: they asked the "surplus" new arrivals to volunteer so that they could receive better housing. A large number of women, children, and men as well volunteered. Thereupon they were taken to the Pogulianka spa on the opposite bank of the Daugava. All of them were killed on the shooting range there next to the forest, which in my time was called Peski (Sand). The executions were carried out in the same way everywhere. The unfortunate people were forced to take off all their clothes, they were pushed into the already-dug graves, and then they were shot with machine guns.

At this time Rabbi Fuchs was also taken to the ghetto. The magid had died in the prison infirmary. The Rogazow gaon’s wife and old Rabbi Leib Platinski from the small town of Viski, who was at that time the rabbi in the Daugavpils suburbs, were also in the ghetto.

A Jewish Committee was created. Mosche Galpern was appointed chairman, and the other members were Mischa Mowschensohn, Dr. Dannemann, Mrs. Landau. Mrs. Edelstein and Mrs. Mowschensohn Sr. Mr. Pasternak was elected Police Prefect (Chief).

From 7 to 9 November 1941, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, large-scale "actions" were carried out in the ghetto. On 7 November the entire ghetto was surrounded by thousands of Latvian policemen. A tremendous panic broke out, for the Gestapo people ordered the workers who had red passes to line up in rows. These workers said their farewells to their wives and children and went to work. At the gate stood the leader of the whole action, the notorious Latvian Schover, who frisked every individual. In the process a young man named Kozba and a young woman named Galpern were pulled out of the row. These two were beaten to death on the spot by the murderers. When the rows of workers came back in the evening, the ghetto was a ghastly sight! There was a deathly calm, and no living being could be seen. Blood, more blood, and still more blood! Some people had hidden in a chimney, and ten women who had been knifed to death were found on the floor. Three men who had hidden in the latrine pit were saved. It was found out later that the whole ghetto had been transported in green trucks to the other bank of the Daugava and bestially' murdered there. The procedure was always the same, beginning with the victims being forced to strip naked.

The only people who managed to escape before the ghetto was liquidated were Rabbi Fuchs and the wife of the Rogazow gaon. They were taken by a Russian to a small town (Braslava) on the Polish border, but were later killed there. Nor did the rest of the ghetto exist much longer. It was liquidated on 1 May 1942. The Jewish Committee was killed together with the Jewish police force. The only person who accidentally survived was Mrs. Landau, who happened to be working in the city at the time. During the ghetto's existence two women were "officially" hanged there and one was shot. The first was Miss Mascha Schneider, who had been selected together with her grandmother for an "action" in Pogulianka. She was already lying completely naked in a ditch and waiting to be murdered. Suddenly she began to scream. "It's a mistake, I'm not a Jew!" The people genuinely believed that it was a mistake and released her. Then she lived for quite a while in Daugavpils using identification papers that made her seem Aryan. When the Jews went to work, they always encountered "pretty Mascha", sometimes even in the company of German soldiers. The Gestapo got wind of this, and she was arrested and quickly brought to the ghetto to be hanged. Then all the ghetto inmates, even the children, were herded together to watch Mascha's execution. Her body remained hanging in the ghetto for a long time, because the murderers wanted the Jews who were in barracks camps in the city and seldom came to the ghetto to see her hanging there.

The second woman, who was shot, was the wife of the tailor Mejerow. She was in the ghetto with five small children and was suspected of trading. The Jews had to give up their last possessions for a piece of bread, and it often happened that the Latvians took the gold and didn't give anything in return. There was no higher authority to which one could complain or apply for redress. Mrs. Mejerow too was executed in the presence of her five children and the rest of the ghetto.

The third woman was Mina Gitelson. It was said that she had resisted the business manager of the Hotel Kontinent, where she worked, when he tried to molest her. He then lodged a complaint with the Gestapo, in which he claimed that she had traded. She was taken directly from the hotel to the ghetto and hanged. Everyone was forced to witness the death of this woman too. Her body hung from the gallows for three days.
 

VI.

After the liquidation of this ghetto a smaller one was set up in the city. All the Jews of Daugavpils, as well as the rest of the Jews who had been herded in from Latgale, were crowded into a single house (which had belonged to the Klingmans) in the city center on Riga Street across from the Catholic church. Seven children who had happened to survive were also taken there.

Once again the Jews worked in the workshops of the area command headquarters and also in those of the Gestapo. A short time later a transport to Riga was decreed. Nobody believed this would take place, so many committed suicide on the way. Later another small transport was sent, and then finally the last transport, consisting of the sixty workers of the Gestapo workshops. All of the transports arrived "safely", the first two in the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Riga and the last one in the notorious Lenta barracks camp of the Riga Gestapo. This final transport included the remains of the "youth of Daugavpils", the aforementioned seven small children. The few Daugavpils Jews who are still alive today come from these three transports.

"Daugavpils is free of Jews!" was the inscription on the signs one saw when entering the city .

Gone is the great and beautiful Jewish Dvinsk, gone forever! The great Beth-Midrosch has been transformed into a dance hall, and the Planow house of prayer is still an old-age home for Aryans.

This was the end of the Jewish community of Daugavpils, once famous and known throughout the world.

b) Rezekne (Rositten) and Its Surroundings (Zilupe, Ludza, Kraslava, Preili etc.)

The small town of Rezekne, in which about 7,000 Jews lived, suffered great destruction because of the enemy's attacks. In the very first days after it was occupied, a Gestapo presence was established. But the local population did not even wait for the commands of the "conquerors"; it began its "work" immediately on its own initiative. All the Jews were locked up in the town prison and they had to go to work from there. A short time later a small group was taken from the prison to the Jewish cemetery of Rezekne. The local rabbi, R. Chaim Lubotzki, also received an "invitation" from the Gestapo. Instead of reporting to the Gestapo, he went directly to the cemetery. People said that he first went into the mikwe (bathhouse), and then put on his coat and talith. At the cemetery he met his children, among others. He comforted all those who were present and read a chapter of the Psalms. Then he turned to the German and Latvian murderers and assured them that there was no help for it, they would lose this war, whatever happened. Moreover, because of the destruction of Jewry, God's vengeance: would come down on them. Just as he turned toward his children to bid them farewell, a shot was fired. He ended his life with the words, "Schma..." from the prayer "Hear, 0 Israel". All of the others who had been taken to the cemetery were also killed.

It was said that a certain Simka Bersin defended himself with an axe when the Latvians tried to arrest him. He was very strong and with his axe he killed three men. After being overpowered, he was beheaded with his own axe.

Many of the Rezekne Jews were taken from the prison to the Viping forest. There, on Mount Zemena, they died a terrible death. They were thrown into the graves still half-alive, and the local Russian people said that the earth above the graves had continued to move for three more days.

In mid-1944 a commando of thirty men was taken from the Central Prison of Ri^ga to the Rezekne prison. It was bound for the 1005 commando, or base commando. They worked in chains and had to burn the corpses and then clear away all the traces. After they had finished their "work", they themselves were murdered. People told me that my schoolmate lcchok Misroch was among those who died there.

The following incident shows the local people's attitude toward the Jews. A butcher whose shop was in the central market across from the prison grabbed a small Jewish child and literally tore it to pieces, in order to show the peasants who had gathered in the marketplace how to deal with the Jews.

Of all the Jews who were in Rezekne during the German occupation, only two men survived (Israelit). These two men had been hidden by a local Pole.

The roughly 350 Jews of Zilupe were assembled and led by the Latvians to the bridge about two kilometers outside the city. There all of them were killed without exception. Among those killed were the rabbi and the prominent Dreyer, Feinstein, and Aron families. The only person who resisted was David Deutsch, and for this reason the murderers beat him savagely and buried him half-alive. The prominent Lazer family was killed on the road to Tukums. They were burned alive in a synagogue. The children died in various other actions.

The small nearby towns (Pasinie, Polizk, Alt-Sloboda, Kupres, Vilda and Rundan) were not spared by the Latvian expeditions. Only a few of the Jews living there had the opportunity to flee to Ludza and find shelter in its ghetto.

In Ludza the Latvians set up a small ghetto for about 300 persons in the synagogue, after killing many Jews. However, the inhabitants of this ghetto were transported to the Daugavpils ghetto. Only a very small fraction of them arrived; the others were killed on the way there. Some of the Jews in the towns of Karsava, Varaklani and Vilani were killed by the Latvians on the spot: the others were taken to the Daugavpils ghetto. This remainder was joined on the way by the remaining Jews from Preili and Viski.

During a rest stop in Aglona, next to the world-famous Aglona cloister, they were met with blows by the local population, and many of them died a martyrs death next to this Catholic holy place.

Nor were the few Jews in Malta (Weinstock and others) forgotten.

Kraslava, the city that had become known because of the famous sculptor N. Aronsohn, of whom the Kraslava Jews were very proud, was also not spared in the general destruction.

In the first few days after the occupation the local people, supported b^y a Latvian expedition from Riga, treated the Jews with extreme cruelty. All the Jews, young and old, were assembled in the large firemen's square (Pozarne). The wealthy Jewish citizen Zalman Rabinowitsch was arrested separately and also taken there. In front of the assembled community he was hanged at the door of the fire station. Most of the remaining Jews were shot with machine guns and burned on a pyre. Isroel Elzofon's wife, a dentist, was picked out of the crowd and taken separately to the Augustover forest. There she was han^ged on a hill across from the Latvian heroes' memorial.

The rest of the Jews were forced to walk to Daugavpils. Among them were the three old people Lee Federmann, Zlate Lin and Jankel Laufer. Because of their old age they could no longer keep up, so they were taken to the Daugavpils prison. On the way, this column met the surviving Jews from Dagda. The two groups were joined, and all of them were killed in the well-known spa Pogulanka near Daugavpils. People said that the Latvian mayor of Kraslava, Briedis, and an unskilled laborer in the militia, Petersohn, were especially active in this operation. In addition to the "work" they accomplished in Kraslava, they went along to Daugavpils just to see with their own eyes the destruction of the Jewish community of Kraslava.

The only ones who managed to hide in a peasant's home was Mrs. Scheine Dinermann and her daughter, her daughter's child, and her son-in-law Barkan.

Neighbors betrayed this hiding place to the Gestapo, and the whole house was surrounded. In panic, Mrs. Dinermann lost her head and started to scream uncontrollably. Her daughter, seeing the onset of the catastrophe that awaited them all, tied her mother's mouth shut and thus inadvertently suffocated her. The refugees were not found: they sought refuge with a Polish priest and so were saved. People told me that a small child of the Zislin family was taken in by a Pole and thus survived.

On the road between Daugavpils and Rezekne lay the small Rusoni railroad station and, 17 kilometers further on, the small town of Preili, where about 1,800 Jews lived. This prosperous and fruitful region had seen the formation of a large merchant community (including Potasch, Kaufmann, Lechowitzki, Kop and others). In this little town the Jews had established a small religious center.

When the Germans occupied Preili on 28 June 1941, all the Jews were herded together into the marketplace and divided into groups according to the streets where they lived. The inhabitants of Daugavpils Street and Rusonu Street were shot the same day, the others in two actions on 4 and 8 August 1941. It was Latvians who committed these murders! Before the murders they picked forty Jews out of one group, forced them to put on clown-like masks, and led them through the streets singing. Later they were taken to Baltus-Znutenu and murdered there.

The Jew Skutelski, helped by Schachtner, set fire to his house, which had been entered by the Gestapo. But both of them also died in the flames, because people grabbed them and threw them into the burning house. Some of the Jewish inhabitants – Schaffer, Simon Chagi with his wife and child, Samuel and Montik Ostband, and Hacker with a child - had hidden in a ditch in the woods with the help of an Aryan. Hacker and the child died in this ditch. All of the others were able to stay there for a long time, but later on they too were betrayed by Latvians.

Zalman Glavin and Grischa Starobin also hid in the woods until 1943, but then they were discovered by Latvians and shot. Of the entire Jewish population of Preili, only nineteen people survived: seven of them now live in Riga. Of those who fled at that time to Soviet Russia, the ones who returned were Minna and Schloime Silbermann with their three children Moische and Jechiel Zemel (both of them were invalids), and Schaje Skutelski (Dr. Skutelski's brother), who had survived first the Riga concentration camp and then a German concentration camp.
 

Zemgale, Kurzeme and Vidzeme

a) Liepaja (Libau)
 

"A window toward Europe!" This was the idea of the Russian Czar Peter the Great. In order to create this window, Czar Alexander III built Liepaja, the largest harbor on the Baltic Sea, and provided it with strong fortifications.

Liepaja played a significant role for Russia as a harbor for imports and exports, especially for the export of grain from Ukraine. Through the construction of the Liepaja-Romner railroad with a branch line to Moscow-Rybinsk a direct connection was created with Ukraine. Before World War I the largest Jewish export firms, such as Dreyfuß (France) and Brodski (Ukraine), had branch offices in Liepaja. The export of lumber to England, which lay almost exclusive!) in Jewish hands, was partly routed through Liepaja and Ventspils (Windau). Thus the Jews played a significant role in the development of this great Russian harbor, and in the natural course of things a very wealthy Jewish center developed, which later gradually declined under Latvian rule. The huge Liepaja fortress, which bore the name of Alexander III, was also built by Jews. Until the beginning of World War II about 14,000 Jews lived in Liepaja. Today Jewish Liepaja exists no longer, and the once-prosperous institutions and great synagogues have likewise disappeared.

Right at the beginning of the war, the Jews of Liepaja were the first to have the "luck" of being occupied by the enemy (on 29 June 1941). Because the fighting took place in the city itself, a large part of it was destroyed. As early as the third day after the German occupation, the Latvian population began to "visit" the Jews. After receiving their first directives from the "murder staff' in Riga, they began the arrests, which claimed many victims. Civil administration was quickly taken over by the victors, and a Gestapo was set up. Dr. Zitkus became the police chief, later succeeded by Dietrich. The SD leader was the notorious murderer Kigler, assisted by Hanke, Kraf and others. With their help the first action began on 23 July, and it cost about 4,000 Jews, mostly men, their lives. Dr. Schwab, who was very prominent in Liepaja, died an especially gruesome death. They gouged out one of his eyes and tortured him until he himself begged to be killed.

The Jews were arrested and gathered together in the Women's Prison of Liepaja. There the Latvians carried out strict body searches and took away all valuables. Every evening small transports of Jews were sent to Skeden behind the military harbor, where they were bestially murdered. In August 1941 the Jewish population was forced to wear the yellow Star of David and was allowed out on the streets only from 10 a.m. until noon and from 3 to 5 p.m. They were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks. The synagogues and all other Jewish institutions - such as the moschav-zkejnim (old-age home), the Talmud thora (religious school) and the Jewish club - were destroyed by rampaging crowds. Some of the Jews in the small towns of Aizpute (Hasenpoth), Pavilosta and Grobini were killed on the spot, and the very few who remained were taken to Liepaja.

On 16 December 1941 the second large action took place, which cost 350 Jews their lives.

Before this action a decree was announced which forbade people to leave their apartments. The Jews were taken out of their apartments by Latvians wearing green armbands and driven in trucks to the prison. From there they were taken at night in sledges to the shooting range at Skeden and shot there. At one point some of the Jews ran away from the sledge during this journey. Thereupon a new order was issued to the effect that the Jews had to remove their shoes and outer clothing; when they arrived at their destination they had to take off the rest of their clothes and were shot entirely naked.

There were a few small actions later on, in which mainly women and children, as well as men who were unable to work, were killed.

Like the Jews everywhere else, the Liepaja Jews also had to work in various units. The SD set up workshops where the Jews worked under the direction of David Zivsohn. Although Zivsohn managed to make contact with the partisans, he paid for this with his life, whereas his friend Josef Mandelstamm escaped. Of course the Liepaja Jews were also subjected to much harassment by the local people. Their number declined fairly rapidly, and on 1 July 1942 only a very small group (850 persons) was taken to the ghetto in the old city center of' Liepaja.

There too, many of them (Chawersohn, Neu and others) lost their lives. The Council of Elders, in the ghetto was headed by the Liepaja wholesale merchant lzrail Israelit and the lawyer Kaganski (both of whom were killed). Dr. Weinreich managed the out-patient clinic. Dr. Barar and Dr. Isaaksolm the dental ward. The ghetto commandant was Patrolman Kerscher.

On the day before Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, 8 October 1943) the ghetto was dissolved and the remaining inmates were taken in cattle cars to Riga, guarded by eighty Latvian volunteers.

In the Riga ghetto a certain Zinn hanged himself. The prominent mill owner Moritz Zinn from Liepaja, his wife, son and daughter were killed in Riga.

The doctors Plotkin and Baron were also taken from the Kaiserwald concentration camp to the base (place of execution).

My other accounts of ghettos and concentration camps include the fate of the Liepaja Jews.
 

                                                                        b) Jelgava (Mitau)
 

Jelgava, once the capital of Duke Jacob and the province of Kurzeme, is about 50 kilometers distant from Riga. Here too, the Jews played a significant role in building up a large trading center (L. Hoff, Jaffet and others). It was thanks to them that after World War 1 the city once again flourished and large department stores were established (Desenick, the Hirschmann brothers). Jelgava was also famous for its old secondary school, which had educated many great Jewish personages coming from all parts of Latvia. The leaders of the Zionist movement in Latvia all came from Jelgava.

The splendid Jelgava Palace, built by the Italian architect Rastrelli, was destroyed in World War I and subsequently restored by the Latvians. Here the Gualeiter Freiherr von Medem established his residence. But after the final struggles of World War II nothing remained of this work of art, or indeed of Jelgava as a whole.

"Jelgava is judenrein (free of Jews)!" This was the sign one saw immediately when driving into the city. The Germans and the Latvians had made sure of this in the very first month after the German occupation, July 1941. The city's Jews were killed in gruesome ways. Many of them were forced into the synagogue and burned alive in it: others, such as Dr. Lewitas, were shot dead in the cemetery. The Disencik and Hirschmann families' end was especially tragic: they were forced to dig their own graves beforehand (Berner). The Latvians dragged the school director Bowschower and his child into the marketplace for a public execution. According to reports, the local Latvians Weiland, Petersilins, Kaulins, Dr. Sprogis and Leimand, as well as the returned Baltic Germans Colonel Schulz and Hollstein, took part in ail of these atrocities and murders.
 

c) Tukums, Auce (Autz), Ventspils (Windau), Sabile (Zabeln) etc.
 

In Tukums, the entire Jewish population, together with the small remainder of surviving Jews from Kandava and other small towns, was driven into the large synagogue. The synagogue was set afire and everyone in it died a horrible death, including Rabbi Lichtenstein together with his whole family. The gypsies of the city and its surroundings were killed in this action together with the Jews.

In Auce (Autz) as well, no Jew remained alive. Only a physician, the son-in-law of the industrialist Klein, tried to hide together with his child. But he too was discovered by the Latvian murderers. He begged them to at least spare his child, but all his pleading was in vain the Latvians shot both him and his child.

The murderers also rampaged in Ventspils (Windau), as they did everywhere, and killed all the Jews who lived there. They intended to spare the old city physician Feitelberg, but he declined and was killed in the same way as his co-religionists. The railroad doctor Dr. Friedmann and his family were allowed to live for about two months longer. Then they too were killed, together with the well-known "Tante Anna", whose status as a Jewish convert to Christianity did not help her at all.

Thus Ventspils became judenrein!

In Sabile (Zabeln) the entire Jewish population of about 500 people - men, women and children - were driven into a new house that had just been built by Perelmann. From this house they were then transported to a forest five kilometers away and gruesomely murdered. Rabbi Kahn of Sabile and his family were killed in this action. According to reports, the Latvians Mazais Berzins and Egon Goss participated in these atrocities. Only the two daughters of the Jew Wulfahrt, who were of mixed birth, survived in Sabile. They had to he baptized immediately. Their father was also murdered.

Two other families, those of Zalman Blumenau and Löwenthal, who had come from Russia, were saved. But they did not stay in Sabile.

 In Bauska, many Jews were castrated.

 About 2,500 Jews lived in the province of Vidzeme, mostly distributed among the towns of Cesis, Valmiera, Valka, Rujene, Gulbene and Sigulda. Some lived in even smaller towns and in the countryside. Only a very few of all these people were able to save themselves, because the Latvian "heroes" murdered them immediately, on the spot.

 Those Jews who had fled from Riga and had been arrested during their escape remained in the Valmiera prison for a long time. All of them were killed.

The Diner family from Cesis (wife, son and daughter) and a Mrs. Kaiser (née Barkan in Marienhausen) in the countryside were able to save themselves.