Small Riga Ghetto

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The graves were dug deep, very deep. Each body was placed directly above
the last one.
In addition, there were also completely new guests, guests from abroad –
that is, the German Jews.
The number of the living was still large, but only a few of them were to survive,
and thus it became necessary to make room.
A solution was found: the graves of the old Jewish Riga were destroyed so
that new kworim could be dug in their place.
On a dark night in 1942 a loud and unfamiliar sound startled me out of my
sleep.
Had something new happened? Did the murderers now want to kill all of us
at once?
I listened hard, went to the window, and heard that the noise was coming
from the direction of the cemetery. Then it quieted down again. I lay down
and tried to go to sleep once more. But I couldn't, and I shifted from one side
to the other.
Suddenly a new detonation and a bright flash came from the cemetery!
What had happened? The enemy had blown up the graves with dynamite and
thus destroyed our "old Hereafter".
I wept to myself quietly so as not to wake my child, who was sleeping next
to me and had worked hard the day before.
I saw my mother's face before me. Weeping, she turned to me and said:
"Oh, my only child who is still alive, pity me! Our enemies give me no rest
even in the grave! Bet rachmim, cry out to the Lord! Habet min haschomain
urej...! (Look down from Heaven and see!)"
The cemetery was blown up on three successive nights, and each time I felt
as though a piece of my heart was being torn out.
Kworim weinen...kworim weinen...
The old, overgrown cemetery wall had lost its function, for it had stopped
separating this life from the one beyond. How many tales this silent witness of
our great tragedy could tell! It is spattered everywhere with the blood of our
martyrs. Our best people were shot against it.
It had heard the whistle of the fatal bullets and the singing of our "Hatikva".
Our brothers and sisters died with this hymn on their lips!