Small Riga Ghetto

122
Klempmann Winnik, Ch.
Kramer, Bubi
and others.
XXXI.
The desperate situation in the ghetto did not last long. Shortly after all of those
arrested because of the resistance movement had been taken off to prison, including
those from the barracks camps, the blockade in the ghetto was lifted
and thus "normal" life resumed.
At this time a Jew who was arrested in Valdemāra Street in the city center
used a gun to resist arrest. For this, the arrested man's whole work crew of
eleven people was thrown into prison, together with their column leader Lippert
(from Liepāja).
Three women from Kovno who had traded in chickens and gold were also
shot in the ghetto.
A young fellow named Joelsohn from Daugavpils worked in the commando
at the SS field hospital. Because he had made contact with the partisans, he
was arrested. Before being seized, he too tried to shoot his attackers with a
gun and killed some of them.
In the meantime we had a small celebration in the ghetto. A brith (circumcision
ceremony) was held in secret at the Kovno rabbi's apartment. My acquaintance
Anja Gerber had also given birth to a child, but on the commander's
orders the baby was given a lethal injection.
There were arrests in the German ghetto too. In this case it was some
women who had had close relationships with Aryans and had also written letters
to their homeland. In the meantime the Hanover group's elder Fleischel, a
Jew of the Roman Catholic faith, had died. His funeral was quite impressive,
for he was the only Jew to receive a coffin. *
The Jews who had come from Kovno visited their relatives in the ghetto
every Sunday, coming in groups from their satellite camp at Spilve. Some of
the Kovno people were also sent to the barracks camp at Spilve from the
ghetto.
News came from the city that the Latvians had set up an SS legion commanded
by the Latvian general Bangerskis to support the Germans.
* [Ed.: Fleischel died in September 1943, at a time when the ghetto was already half empty.]