Small Riga Ghetto

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Some of the Jews were also killed; but Eljaschow, who was badly wounded,
came back to the ghetto, where he soon died.
Thus 150 people had been shot in reprisal for the death of the three SD men,
fifty for each of them. The arrests spoken of by the command headquarters had
never taken place. They had served merely as a means of intimidation.
It was said that our boys in the truck had been betrayed by the Latvian driver.
XXVI.
The distance between the Latvian Jews and the German Jews continued to
grow. In the ghetto, people started to clearly feel the German Jews' power.
Some of us claimed that the visits, close relationships and confidential conversations
that had been cultivated between our ghetto and that of the Reich Jews
were the cause of our misery during that period.
The release of our police chief Wand remained a continuing mystery to us,
whereas the release of Kassel and Maisel, who were in charge of the work
crews, seemed justified. The stupid conversations Wand had had with the
Kommandant during the last police roll call had greatly shaken our trust in
him.
All of these things created a hostile attitude toward the German Jews, and
we often thought, "So this is the thanks we get for trying as soon as they arrived
to help them cope with all their difficulties." But others were of the opinion
that our many relatives and our Large Ghetto itself had been destroyed because
they had come and consequently more space was needed. *
The German police implemented strict measures against us. Our custodians
had to report to them every day whether any inhabitant of their respective
houses was missing. Every individual was responsible for the presence of his
neighbor.
An intense search was mounted for the two policemen who had gone missing
from Blech Square. As we learned later, these two men had first hidden in the
Reich Jewish ghetto and then returned to our ghetto through the fence that
evening.
After a short time the policeman Israelowitsch went, in disguise, to the city
with a work crew. Damski was hidden by us in the ghetto for a fairly long
time. Both of them had been involved in the "weapons incident".
* [Ed. This belief was wholly unfounded. Jews from the Reich were killed even before the
Latvian Jews' massacre. When there was a lack of workers in Riga's numerous military installations,
the Germans decided to let the newly arrived Jews from the Reich live for the time
being.]