Small Riga Ghetto

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thread or something I had managed to get from the clothing depot, where I had
already made connections, and so on.
The poor people always got diarrhea from the food and had no possibility of
changing their dirty clothes. Now I dragged these things around in order to
trade them, if possible, for another shirt or another pair of trousers. I was a
great help to the German Jews too, because I made no distinction whatsoever
between all these unfortunate people. If I was turned down at one place, I went
undiscouraged to the next one until I had gathered together what I needed for
the others. And many were willing to meet me halfway, because they saw my
msiras nefesch (self-sacrifice) for a good cause. But my financial reserves were
not great, so they were soon at an end. How could I go on helping now? – I
organized a collection in one corner of the barrack, and I invited to it all the
wealthy people from the outside work crews, the dental clinic and so on. Thus
I managed once again to get some money to buy bread for the hungry ones.
The people who worked in the outside work crew at the slaughterhouse also
gave me support. They would get brains for me, which we added to the meals
for the sick and the weak to make them a bit more substantial.
XVIII.
The block elder Vilsinger (an Aryan) tormented us constantly, and my talking
to him didn't make any difference. He beat us murderously, and on top of that
he claimed he was taking good care of us. One day old Resnik (a timber
dealer) was punished with a beating after a foot inspection, and the same thing
happened to many others. It was heartbreaking to see all this happening without
being able to help!
Once there was an alarm during dinner and everyone had to vacate the barracks.
The zebras were standing at the doors with large truncheons and they
used these to beat us about the head. Screams! The whole barrack was vandalized.
By the time a person had gotten out, he had tripped over beaten, bloody,
fallen human beings. The children wailed, and those who were able jumped
out the windows to save themselves. We were ordered to gather in the square,
and there a moral sermon was delivered to us, to the effect that we had to improve
our behavior and so on. The comrades told us that this event had been
nothing compared to what had happened the previous month. That night,
which the prisoners called the slichot night (a sleepless night spent praying),
had cost many human lives.
In other barracks the conditions were no better than in ours. There I met
many acquaintances again, for example Landau, the director of the Schere-