Small Riga Ghetto

44
X.
Buoyed up by their victories on all fronts, the Germans decided to gradually
take over civilian rule entirely and thus organize everything according to their
own pattern.
Calm and composed in their typically German way, they began to do so in
August 1941. The Latvian language was recognized as the country's second
official language.
In order to cope with these extensive organizational tasks, they summoned
the Baltic Germans to help them. The latter had previously been called on by
Hitler to leave the Baltic countries. These anti-Semites were now the ringleaders
of every measure. The Baltic German Altmeyer took over the city government.
He signed every order to confiscate apartments and so on. In mid-
August all the Jews in Riga were registered. This took place at two locations in
the city center and one in the Moscow suburb. I had to register, together with
my family, in Cēsu Street. There, all the Jews were badly beaten by the Latvians.
This registration was carried out in order to determine how many Jews were
still living in Riga after the many murders in the city and the executions in the
prisons (see the chapter on the Central and Terminal Prisons).
In the meantime, further regulations were decreed:
1) The Jews had to wear a second yellow star (Mogen David) in the middle
of their backs.
2) They were forbidden to use the sidewalks.
One could now see the Jews walking to work, one behind the other and
marked with two yellow stars, in the gutters of the streets of Riga next to the
sidewalks. Of course there were all kinds of accidents due to cars and the like.
At first we were very downcast by this treatment, but we soon grew accustomed
to it, as well as to the jeers of the local people.
XI.
The Gestapo arrived during the first few days after the Germans' entry into
Riga.
Officially they took over all the prisons on 11 July 1941, but on this date the
prisons already contained a significantly reduced number of Jews. The Latvians
had made sure of that!
A Jewish work group was forced to remove the furniture from Jewish
homes. The first confiscation took place in the large house of the Nesterows in