Small Riga Ghetto

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Both gaonim died shortly before the outbreak of World War II; they were
buried in Daugavpils. Their graves stood as symbols in the old Jewish cemetery,
and every Jew who wanted to pour out his heart to someone visited them.
Today the old Jewish Dvinsk exists no more, nor do the holy graves of the
gaonim, for in the last terrible war they were leveled to the ground.
III.
Fascist Germany's declaration of war caused a great panic among the Jews,
not only in Daugavpils, Latgale's capital, but throughout Latgale. Events developed
so rapidly that no time remained to make any decisions. The city of
Kovno, only 170 kilometers distant from Daugavpils, was already occupied by
the enemy. A short time later Daugavpils itself was bombarded by the enemy,
and on 28 June 1941 the Fascist German army occupied it. There were battles
only in the suburbs of Stropi and the well-known spa Poguļanka. Now the enemy
pressed forward, on the one side toward Rēzekne (Rositten), and on the
other toward Krustpils and Riga. In the meantime, the fairly small number of
Latvians in occupied Daugavpils did not yet know what to do with the Jews.
They waited for directives from Riga. Riga fell to the Germans on 1 July. Immediately
afterward, Daugavpils received from the murder headquarters of
Latvia, the Aizsargu house, its guidelines on how to deal with the Jews. In the
meantime, all was quiet in Daugavpils until 2 July, when the general largescale
Aktion against Latvian Jewry began.
On 2 July 1941 came the first order: "All men must report to the marketplace!"
At once a large crowd assembled. Sick men were dragged from their
beds. People saw the prominent Daugavpils citizen Magaram, who was halfparalyzed,
carried there on a stretcher. They had been sure that only the
healthy men would be recruited for labor and that the sick ones would be exempted.
Until the arrival of the Latvian Aizsargi and the Germans, the Jews
stood all day in the marketplace. Later the first shots were fired there. The
first victim was a certain Leiser Goldberg, because he was not standing in his
row properly. The second was a Mr. Meier Meierowitsch who had tried to
speak to his wife. Now all the Jews were taken to prison under heavy guard.
On the way, they were subjected to harassment and beatings.
The prison was surrounded with machine guns. A very few Jews were separated
from the others and transported to the woods at Stropi to be executed.
The others stood for a long time in the prison courtyard. The Latvians demanded
that two Jews volunteer to be sacrificed for the whole community; if
this did not happen, all of them would be killed. The prominent Daugavpils