Small Riga Ghetto

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resentative, Kassel, refused to permit a German to be the director in places
where Latvian Jews worked. I declined the position, for under no circumstances
did I want to have a leading position in the ghetto. Fortunately Hofschowitsch
was released from prison a few weeks later, and I could then begin
setting up my section of the blackout-curtain workshops in the Reich Jewish
ghetto.
XXX.
Weapons in the Ghetto
The spark of October 1942 had become a huge fire. The twisted threads of the
"weapons incident" began to disentangle themselves in June 1943.
The suspicion I had had earlier concerning my son, who had since then been
murdered, was now confirmed. A casual remark he had made during that period
– "We won't let ourselves be slaughtered like sheep any longer" – his
constant secret meetings with his comrades, and his immediate disappearances
after coming home from work – I thought of all this once again and filled the
gaps in my suspicions.
I will now try to relate briefly to the reader everything I then knew about the
"weapons incident".
***
In 1942 the lawyer Jewelsohn was working in the city at the Billeting Department,
which was located in the public school behind Gunpowder Tower. Because
he, like all of us, had our terrible destruction before his eyes daily, one
day he started a conversation with his comrades about whether it would not be
possible to create a resistance movement – because, he said, people couldn't
just let themselves be slaughtered like animals any longer.
A circumstance that seemed to favor this plan tremendously was that just at
that time Jews were working in Gunpowder Tower collecting the Germans'
war spoils (weapons). None of the weapons in Gunpowder Tower were being
registered.
No sooner said than done!
Fanatics turned up, and so did organizers. We could certainly count on the
support and direct cooperation of our Jewish police. The senior policeman,
Itzchok Bag (Wischkin), even took on the leadership of the whole movement.
Small secret groups using passwords started to form, and they knew nothing
about one another. Each group had a leader. I would like to expressly mention
that not all of the policemen were in the movement or knew about it.