Small Riga Ghetto

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There was even a soap-making crew (in which the engineer Wulfowitz
worked) and a photo studio.
Dr. B. Rudow provided medical services.
The necessary work in a warehouse for replacement parts was done by the
Meller brothers, Leo Birkhahn and others. The engineer Rappoport worked as
a draftsman.
Also living in the Park barracks camp was the entire Kriwitzki family (husband,
wife and two daughters) and Schapiro with his daughter.
In general, the work was not hard. The Jews got an extraordinary amount of
work done and the Germans were very satisfied. Most satisfied of all was
Eggers, for he received money for every small favor. He was assisted in this
by Rubinstein, who had returned from Kaiserwald, and later on by the Czech
Jew Steuer.
When I arrived at the Park camp I was struck by the fact that here, in contrast
to all the other satellite camps and the former ghetto, there were many
people who had enough to eat and many who were going hungry. (The latter
group mostly consisted of German Jews.) With Schmehmann's help this difference
was soon eliminated. We set up a kitchen for everyone and later on we
even sacrificed a large part of the food we received regularly as our rations,
for the benefit of the HKP and Balasta Dam barracks camps.
During the first days after my arrival I made a speech to the Park work crew
to the effect that this unjust situation was intolerable. I also explained that I
had come there only because I was forced to do so, because the situation had
required it, and that after losing my entire family my only concern there was
for my coreligionists, as it had been in Kaiserwald. I ended with the words:
"The greatest reward for me will be if one day I can open the gates of freedom
for you." So later on my comrades often asked me: "When will you open the
gates for us at last?"
The Park's administrators - high-ranking officers - summoned me to tell me
that I was responsible for all the Jews who were working there, and that I
would lose my head if anything went wrong. At that time I gave them a very
brief and cold-blooded answer: that I was a person who Tschuzhoj knew what
responsibility meant, and that I would assume total responsibility for my coreligionists.
Life went on fairly normally. Every day we went to work at six in the morning
and came back at the same hour in the evening. Then we gathered together,
engaged in a great variety of pastimes, and sometimes held religious
services, for which comrade Pill made the preparations. On Sundays we al-