Small Riga Ghetto

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SS people soon found out what the texts of the songs meant and forbade us to
sing them. The townspeople, and the displaced Russian civilians even more so,
watched us in astonishment. The Hungarian Jews, who marched in even better
military formation than we did, also sang their Hungarian songs. Later on,
many women also came to work in the town; they had to carry bricks and dig
trenches. For us the work was a great relief, not only because we got better
food but especially because we could now form a rough picture of Germany's
situation - after seeing all the ruins, being flown over by thousands of airplanes
every day, and hearing the reports of the OKW or Oberkommando der
Wehrmacht (German army headquarters). We knew that the destruction of
Magdeburg had lasted only 55 minutes. Initially we were accompanied only by
the SS guards. Their leader was Oberscharführer Hochwarg. Later they were
replaced by the Volkssturm (teenage boys recruited during the last days of the
war). Among the latter there were also many who beat us.
VII.
During the final week before our "temporary liberation" we received one more
new transport of Polish Jews. They were sent to do special clearing-up work
and were not part of the factory's work crews. They lived in a separate barrack
under very bad conditions and were already totally exhausted because of
the long time they had been prisoners (since 1939). They were assigned to do a
very good kind of work, where one could organize a great deal. At their work
station they found a large maline (hiding place) full of barrels of stinking old
herring salad, which they sold to us like hot cakes. They also got their hands
on mocha chocolate beans. The trade flourished, and in order to get some herring
salad we parted from our last pieces of bread. These Jews too had to line
up at the usual roll calls. It was very lucky for them that our camp elder was
not in charge of them. Before they were assigned to their work, they were subjected
to the usual delousing process in our washrooms under very harsh conditions.
Although some things eased up for us because we were in the town work
crew, our ranks continued to thin out. Many people went to the infirmary and
died there. The number of people with edemas due to starvation (swollen
faces, legs, etc.) kept increasing, and so it was decided to set up a recovery
block. I was there too. Initially I wasn't accepted, because the recovery block
was overfilled. The recovery consisted of receiving a small amount of medical
treatment and not having to go to work. While I was in the recovery block I
became certain that something would happen - that is, that the end was com-