Small Riga Ghetto

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I were put back in line. At first I was very unhappy about this. I believed that
because I was being taken to the Kaiserwald camp as a hostage it would be
very dangerous for me to stay there. I did everything possible to get into the
"potato Kommando" although it already had enough people, but I did not succeed.
Later, however, it turned out that the "potato Kommando" had been
taken to Jumpravmuiža and forced to work at the notorious Rumbula Stűtzpunkt,
where 32,000 men, women and children of the Riga ghetto had been
killed. They worked in chains and their work consisted of cremating corpses
and removing all traces of the murders. The whole Kommando itself was killed
there. – Thus I was saved only through a marvelous coincidence.
Kworim weinen
(Graves Weep)
The old Jewish cemetery had already seen many generations. A few years before
World War II it was closed and a new one came in its stead.
The broad branches of centuries-old trees protected its kworim (graves) with
their rich and splendid gravestones.
Tall, completely wild grass grew over earlier graves. The only person who
remained faithful to the old cemetery was the ancient kworesman (gravedigger)
R. Chaim. On holidays the old cemetery still sometimes had visitors. Then the
Jews who lived nearby would gather there to pray in the small temple or visit
their relatives' graves on the anniversaries of their deaths. Otherwise the old
Bet Hakworois was farjosemt (abandoned).
Only when the Germans arrived did it come to life again.
It was the Germans who dragged Jews into the prayer house, not to pray but to
be burned alive.
Thus the prayer house disappeared, as did the old kworesman R. Chaim.
A new tkufa (era) had begun.
The old Jewish gravediggers of Riga were "lucky", because the old Jewish
cemetery was integrated into the ghetto. Thus it became part of the ghetto and
was awakened to new life.
Initially it had to accommodate only individuals. This phase lasted until the
"ten bloody days".
But then the number of the dead rose not merely into the hundreds but into
the thousands. It became crowded for all the victims, whose number increased
every day.