Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 18.sējums "Holokausts Latvijā

Grigorijs Smirins. Rīgas ebreji nacistiskās okupācijas laikā
On July 4, some Riga Jewish cult buildings were burnt together with Jews driven in
them by the “Arājs Commando” and the auxiliary police. The first massacre in Riga took
place about July 3 in the Biķernieki wood. About 4000 Jews and 1000 men and women
of other nationalities were murdered. October, in Riga and its vicinities 6378 Jews were
murdered including 6000 in Riga. In total, in the Biķernieki wood about 8000 Latvia Jews
were murdered.
The physical destruction of the Riga Jews conducted by the Nazi occupation regime,
was combined with their economic exploitation as slaves – various working teams were
created. “Ghettoisation” continued the policy of economic exploitation, which was a preparatory
stage to complete the liquidation of the Riga Jewish population. The gate of the
Riga ghetto was finally shut on October 25, 1941. On November 20, the number of people
there reached 29,602. Creation of ghettos in large cities of Latvia (Riga, Daugavpils,
Liepāja) gave some chance for Jews to be rescued, since the destruction of Jews here at
first carried a selective character, while in small towns and the countryside it was finished
by September 1941 and was total. The so-called “large ghetto” had existed in Riga prior
to the beginning December 1941. In two actions in Rumbula (a small railway station in
12 km from Riga) on November 30 and December 8, 1941, about 25 thousand inhabitants
of the Riga ghetto were murdered. The Latvian SD and auxiliary police formations played
an auxiliary role in Rumbula actions. They were used as security guards and beaters.
More than 1000 prisoners were murdered in the streets of ghetto and buried in the Old
Jewish cemetery (within the ghetto area).
By November 29, about 4400 Jewish males were displaced in a special labour camp
in the northern part of the ghetto – the so-called “small ghetto”. In December 5, also about
500 women were displaced in two buildings behind the fence of the “small ghetto”. Thus,
the creation of a labor camp has allowed about 5000 Rīga Jews to shun death in Rumbula.
In the Riga ghetto there existed an underground movement of resistance, which
was routed in October 1942 by means of provocation arranged by the Nazi.
During the period from the end of June to November 2, 1943, the Riga ghetto population
was displaced in the concentration camp Riga-Kaiserwald (in Mežaparks, a district
of the Riga city). Basically this concentration camp did not differ from other Nazi camps
of mass destruction. In 1944, in places of mass destruction of people in the vicinities of
Riga (Biķernieki, Rumbula, and else where) special groups dug out the corpses of victims
and burnt them. Jews (not less than 300) and Soviet prisoners of war were forced to do
this job, and after that they were murdered and burnt. When the Red Army approached
Riga in the summer and autumn of 1944, the Jews were sent from Riga to concentration
camps of Germany. The last ones were transported on October 2–10 days before the
introduction of Red Army into the city. In Riga not more than 200 Jews remained alive
who had been saved by their fellow-citizens. In total, not more than a thousand Jews of
Riga had survived after the Nazi occupation.
117