Small Riga Ghetto

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caped from this camp. Because they too were suspected of plotting to escape,
Abe Lif and Gramm were taken to Kaiserwald and from there to Stützpunkt.
On 7 August 1944 the whole camp was transported to the Kaiserwald concentration
camp. All of these people were put for several days into what was
called the "barrack of the dead". Because large-scale extermination actions
were being carried out in Kaiserwald at that time, the entire barracks camp
was to be either gassed or shot. Thanks to an Aryan inmate twenty-two teenagers
were selected for work, including the three Kor brothers, the Beljak
brothers and others. Two teenagers, Jachnin and a twelve-year-old boy, both
of them from Dvinsk, had hidden in the latrine pit. They were pulled out,
completely covered with filth, and sent to be liquidated.
That was the sad end of this small satellite camp.
l) Dünawerke (Daugava Factories)
In Dinawerke arum tajch un Wald
Zajnen do idn * fun gor der Welt
Arbeiten alle schwer und in Kelt...
(At the Dünawerke, surrounded by water and forest,
There are Jews from all over the world
They do hard labor in the cold...)
(A hymn)
A satellite camp called the Dünawerke was set up in the former building of the
large Prowodnik rubber factory, which was known throughout the world.
About 800 men and women, mostly women, were sent to work there.
Among them were a great many women from Vilno (the sisters Henia and
Fania Durmaschkina, Esia Raichel, Ester Lipow and others) and from Germany.
Among the men from Latvia were Sascha Kaufmann from Auce,
Salzmann, Lewenstein from Jelgava and others. The camp elder was the Jew
Josef Kussmann. The overseer was Unterscharführer Becker, who, thanks to
the German Jewish woman Liesel, did not pay too much attention to the barracks
camp. This clever woman administered the affairs of the Jews in the
camp very skillfully. All the inmates were housed in quite decent rooms, and
in addition to the starvation rations they received it was possible for them to
acquire food elsewhere. They had to do both heavy labor and easier kinds of
* [Ed.: Idn]