Small Riga Ghetto

99
Before Easter, matzos were baked in an oven built specially for that purpose
at 57 Ludzas Street, in a house just across the street from the command headquarters,
and these were distributed to everybody. We had our ghetto administration
to thank for that. Of course they were baked in secret, and our Jewish
policemen made sure that nothing was discovered.
There was a "secret school" for those children who still remained. One of
the few teachers was Miss Fiks. It was very difficult to acquire books, but the
children were at least quite well taken care of as far as food and other necessities
were concerned.
XX.
In the ghetto for the Jews from the Reich, religious life was expressly permitted.
Through a friend, Mr. Bloch from Cologne, I received an invitation to a
religious service, the kabolas Sabbat (Saturday evening prayer) in the synagogue
of the Cologne group.
I was absolutely astonished to find myself in a real synagogue. It was in a
large hall on Kölnerstrasse, across from the old Jewish cemetery, and was
richly equipped. A beautiful oroin-koidesch (holy ark) with an ornamented
poroiches (curtain) was in it. Various inscriptions in Yiddish and German hung
on the walls; some were in the Cologne dialect, which I could not understand
at all. The walls were also decorated with embroidery done by the women.
The whole room was extremely clean and quiet.
Bloch introduced me to the prominent members of the German Jewish community.
He started with Leiser and went on to all kinds of other public figures,
nearly all of whom had titles.
There were also many women, even young women, in the synagogue. The
Cologne cantor was determined to display his artistry. I was very impressed by
the prayer "Lecho dodi", which was sung by everyone, men and women together.
Finally Bloch the gaabe (head of the community) proposed that the
cantor sing a German Jewish folk song in honor of the guest. The text of the
song included exceptionally beautiful words that were appropriate to the time,
but unfortunately his rendition of it was very poor. The performance was more
jeckish * than Jewish.
Shortly thereafter I was once again invited to the synagogue to participate in
the Kol Nidrei on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
* [Ed.: nickname for German Jews.]