Small Riga Ghetto

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the weak ones were sent to Buchenwald to be gassed. * Buchenwald then sent
back new prisoners, who were Jews from Hungary. Among the Latvian Jews
one saw the lawyer Wittenberg, Kaem, the Kölmann brothers, Dr. Goldring,
Dr. Rogalin, Dr. Weinreich and others. The doctors survived, but all the others
died. The doctors practically sacrificed themselves in order to ease their
coreligionists' fate. Dr. Gitelsohn also died there.
As the Americans were approaching this area, the camp was liquidated. Every
one was awakened in the night, forced into cattle cars and transported further
to Theresienstadt. The sick people, who came in special freight cars, were
to be transported to Buchenwald. Their later fate is unknown, but in any case
they did not survive. They included Moses Scherman, J. Sener and others.
The train that traveled to Theresienstadt was literally a funeral procession.
Of the 3,500 persons in it, only 750 arrived alive; all the others died on the
way. Typhus was raging in Theresienstadt during this period, so the small
number of survivors was reduced further.
Theresienstadt was a large ghetto containing mainly ** Austrian, and Czech
Jews. If I am not mistaken, at that time it was the only remaining ghetto, for
the Germans had made an exception and not liquidated it in order to give the
world the impression that ghettos still existed. It was a transit ghetto, and so its
inhabitants changed frequently.
In 1941 Jews were sent from there to Riga and later on to Auschwitz and
Maidanek to be exterminated. Theresienstadt even had its own money. A large
percentage of the inmates succumbed to the typhus epidemic at that time, but
the authorities had no interest whatsoever in taking any measures against it.
On 8 May 1945 the prisoners were liberated by the Russians. Among the
liberated Latvian Jews was Alexander Westermann (who was prominent in the
textile industry).
***
The Jews who had been sent to Bochum (about 500 people *** ) had to work in a
munitions factory. Their living conditions were very bad. On 4 November
1944 this factory was bombed by the English. Among those who died in this
bombardment were two Latvian Jews (one of them was the dental technician
Jessil from Liepāja).
* [Ed.: As already noted, there was no gas chamber in Buchenwald.]
** [Ed.: German, Austrian, and Czech Jews]
*** [Ed.: 1600 Jewish men, of whom 1250 returned to Buchenwald in March, 1945. No more
than 45 survived the subsequent death marches described below.]