Small Riga Ghetto

74
still stationed there in order to protect the large amount of Jewish property that
remained. The Latvian Danskop, one of these guards, was known far and wide
for his acts of murder and his unparalleled sadism.
A special commando was assembled for the work of clearing out the Large
Ghetto. No Jew was allowed to take even the smallest thing there for himself.
The head of this commando was Aismann, a Jew from Daugavpils, whom the
murderers especially trusted. He kept excellent watch over his workers and
appealed to them for God's sake not to take anything for themselves.
Of course we tried repeatedly to get back into the empty large ghetto from
our small ghetto, so as to get back some of our belongings or things we had
hidden. These efforts claimed victims every day. Danskop, Hesfer and Tuchel
had an especially large number of human beings on their conscience; for them,
a Jewish life was worthless.
In order to curry favor with the authorities, Aismann did not hesitate to do
any evil deed. He even went so far as to betray Jewish hiding places. He also
engaged in various other evil actions. We regarded him as a traitor and were
very afraid of him. Thank God that his fate overtook him soon. Tuchel ordered
him to come to the Old Jewish Cemetery to discuss a matter involving gold,
and shot him there. His death brought us only joy; if this murder had not taken
place we would certainly have killed him ourselves.
All of the things taken from the Jewish houses were sorted and prepared for
sale to the Latvian population. Even German units went to the ghetto to get
what they needed. Our field headquarters also sent trucks several times to fetch
furniture and other useful items. I know that even the general in charge of the
field headquarters, Dr. Bamberg, took some of these things for himself and
sent them to Germany.
I do not doubt for a second that many Jewish valuables still lie buried today
in the earth of the former Large Ghetto. But nobody knows about them.
Only too often, when someone tried to dig up the things he had hidden he
found things that had been buried by someone else. Looking for malines (hiding
places) became a virtual mania.
IV.
In the early morning of Saturday, 13 * December 1941, the first transports of
German Jews to the ghetto arrived at the Šķirotava station. Jews had already
arrived on 3 December, ** but they had been sent on to Jumpravmuiža (see the
* [Ed.: December 10, 1941.]
** [Ed.: 12/3; 12/4; 12/7; 12/8.]