Small Riga Ghetto

120
later the others also arrived; they had cameras and took pictures of everything.
Soon after that, Roschmann walked around with a picture of the bunker and
the weapons. Roschman said this photograph, documenting the "great discovery",
would be sent to Berlin. There our fate would be decided.
Another blockade was imposed on the ghetto's entrances, and a new series
of arrests followed. In the next few days Asia Raizin and his neighbor Botwinkin
were arrested at their work station. At the same time police arrested the
teacher Lat and the blacksmith Sagalow at the Technical Authority and two
shoemakers who worked elsewhere. They were taken by car to the prison with
their hands chained behind their backs. Before these people were arrested at
their work stations a thorough search was carried out.
In the mornings, when the work crews were going to work, the police simply
pulled people out of the marching rows according to a list. Later these
people were taken to the prison as a group. The apartments of the arrested
people were sealed by Police Chief Frankenberg. When he entered Botwinkin's
apartment at 55 Ludzas Street, he found there Eljaschewitsch, Botwinkin's
comrade from the Technical Authority, trying to destroy telltale
traces. Frankenberg arrested him immediately, for ever. We did not forget this
behavior of our police chief and of people similar to him. When he arrived at
the Buchenwald concentration camp, people made very sure that he was the
first one to go through the ovens.
Besides the searches in the city, people were also arrested in the peatcutting'
satellite camps. One victim was even specially brought in from Estonia,
where he was working at the time.
The weapons incident cost us several hundred people; they were the remainder
of our best young people. Nobody came back from the prisons (see the
chapter on the Central and Terminal Prisons).
We heard from the prison that Israelowitsch and his girlfriend were separated
from the other Jews there. They were forced to stand behind a grille and
identify each individual as he was being led to be interrogated.
Only after the end of the entire weapons incident were Israelowitsch and his
girlfriend killed.
It is said that Tscharle Kohn (a cardboard manufacturer) was also very actively
involved in this incident. He managed to save himself, but died later in
Kaiserwald.
Among the Jews who were arrested and later executed, I would like to mention
the three Pommeranz brothers, one of whom died in the police Aktion and
the other two in the weapons incident.