Small Riga Ghetto

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services were being held in every corner of the ship, and everywhere people lit
small candles. All at once it was quiet and peaceful everywhere.
"Kol nidrei we'esorei..." (All vows, oaths, bonds...)
Everyone was weeping, including the women on the top deck. I did not go
to prayers. I lay down on the steel floor, putting my prisoner's coat under me
and using as a pillow my only piece of baggage, a loaf of bread and my bowl.
Thus I lay sleepless for 24 hours until the Neile, or final prayer on the Day of
Atonement. I didn't want to speak to anyone and I didn't do so. During the
long, lonely hours I drew the balance sheet of my life (cheschboin hanefesch).
"Jaale tachnuneinu meerew, wjowoj schawoscheinu mibojker!" (O let our
prayer ascend from eventime, and may our cry come in to Thee from dawn!) I
still saw before me Cantor Joffe from the past years in the ghetto, wearing his
coat and Tallit. He had not only sung this prayer but also wept together with
all of us. Today we needed schawoscheinu (help) more than ever, but we had
given up all hope of its arrival. It was already Neile. People wept, people cried
out: perhaps there was help for us after all? But no t'kia (Shofar signal at the
end) was there. "Bschono hazios be'erez Isroel" (This year in the land of Israel).
We could no longer wait till next year, we had to be freed this year
(bschono hazois)!
That night we dropped anchor off Liepāja. It turned out that several evacuation
ships had been attacked by the Russians. Later, people said that two had
been sunk, but we didn't know whether this was true. In any case, we were
lucky. We sailed on, and we landed in Danzig on the third day. We left the
ship and spent the whole day in the harbor. That evening we were loaded onto
old fishing cutters; since there was not enough room for all of us, some of the
women were put onto completely open boats. Thus our newly created flotilla
sailed toward Stutthof. This trip, which would have taken ten to fifteen hours
in normal times, lasted four days. Some of the time we were sailing on the
open sea, and some of the time through various locks. The chains connecting
us to the tugboat kept breaking and it took hours to repair them. No food of
any kind, and above all no drinking water, had been provided for us. At night
there was still a light frost. The poor women sat on their benches starving and
shivering from the cold, and it was no wonder that some of them died of these
hardships.
As for me, I was lucky, for I was on the steam-driven tugboat that was carrying
all of the provisions. Of course we had enough to eat, only there was no
bread.
At last we saw a large sign: Stutthof!