The Holocaust in Riga. The Riga Ghetto

The Nazi invasion of Latvia at the end of June 1941 took place a year after the beginning of the Soviet occupation, and Soviet policy and repression during the period of occupation largely determined public sentiment. The Deportation of Latvians to camps in Northern Russia and Siberia on June 14, 1941 caused a particularly great shock. The Nazis would actively use this tragedy in their propaganda, declaring Jews the mainstay of the Soviet regime and perpetrators of terror.

Nazi troops entered Riga on July 1, 1941. Two days later, repression against the Jews began. Riga became the activity center of the Einsatzgruppe A, supported by the so-called “Latvian Auxiliary Police” under the leadership of Viktors Arājs created the very same day. One of its aims, to cause Jewish riots in the city, generally failed. The first repressive actions included the arrest and imprisonment of Jews in a police prefecture building where they were brutally beaten. Jews were forcibly sent into labor, to clean up ruins and more.

On July 4, several synagogues were set on fire, and the destruction of the Great Synagogue was filmed for German film chronicles. At the same time, the men of Special Unit A and the “Arājs Kommando” killed about 500 Jews. That day, the newspaper “Tēvija” (“Fatherland”) published an invitation to “all nationally-minded Latvians who want to participate in the cleansing of our land from harmful elements” to join the “Arājs Kommando” – the burning of synagogues served to illustrate who those “harmful elements” were. In total, from July to August 1941, between five and seven thousand Jews were murdered in Riga after being held at the headquarters of the “Arājs Kommando” (Valdemāra Street 19) or at the Central Prison.

Strict restrictions were imposed on Jews – beginning on  July 2, they were forbidden to stand in queues in shops. Later they were allowed to shop only during certain hours and in certain shops. It was forbidden for Jews to use public transport, or to be in parks or areas of greenery. They were ordered to hand over radios, sewing machines, typewriters, and bicycles. On July 25, all Jews were ordered to register at the nearest police stations and  from July 29, Jews had to wear a special badge – a 10 × 10 cm six-pointed star.

On August 23, the construction of the Riga ghetto was officially announced, and the Jews were ordered to move to the designated area within two months, taking care of their own accommodation. The ghetto was bounded by a two-meter-high barbed wire fence along Lāčplēša, Maskavas, Jersikas, Ebreju, Lauvas, Lielā Kalna, Krāslavas and Jēkabpils streets. As of October 25, 29,602 people were imprisoned in an area where previously 11,000 people had lived (of whom only about 2,000 were Jews). The ghetto was severely overcrowded, with no more than 4 square meters per person, and each family was allowed to occupy only one room.

After the ghetto gate closed on October 25, 1941, its prisoners were barred from any contact with people outside. They were sent into forced labor every day, and any institution or company in the city could apply for Jewish labor. Jewish work columns became a common sight on the streets of Riga. The food was now distributed centrally, by card, and was of the lowest quality. The press brutally shamed those who tried to support the Jews, for example by giving them  food. Those who helped  also received fines. Life in the rest of the city, on the other hand, continued as usual, with trams running right on the other side of the ghetto fence and cinemas and cafes doing their normal business.

In the ghetto, the so-called the “Council of Elders” or the “Jewish Committee” was created and chaired by Mihails Eļjaševs, a lawyer. Its de facto task was to broadcast the policies of the occupation institutions to the prisoners, to coordinate the flow of labor and to distribute ration cards. The Council  also tried to organize other aspects of life by setting up a ghetto hospital and pharmacy, as well as educational institutions and other structures. The so-called “Jewish Order Service” was also subject to the Council as well. The ghetto was guarded by a special Latvian auxiliary police unit, but only people from the German Security Service (SD) could actually enter. Ghetto residents were supervised every day when they were sent to work and when they returned, and were searched to ensure that nothing prohibited, including food, was brought back into the ghetto. Attempts to bring food to the ghetto were punished by public hanging in the square near Sarkanā Street.

By the end of October 1941, when the gate of the Riga ghetto was closed, most of the Jews in the various regions of Latvia had already been murdered. However, there was disagreement within the Nazi occupation regime about the fate of the Jews of Riga, Daugavpils and Liepāja. The civilian administration wanted to keep them alive as labor, while the  punitive department demanded total destruction. In mid-November, the later position prevailed, and SS General Friedrich Jekeln, who had previously been responsible for the extermination of Ukrainian Jews including the assassination of more than 33,000 Kiev Jews in Babyn Yar in September 1941, was appointed Chief of the Supreme SS and Police of the Occupied Baltics and Belarus. It was Jekeln who planned and managed the mass murder of the prisoners in the Riga ghetto.

Preparations for the “action” began on November 27 and did not go unnoticed by the prisoners. A fence was built along Daugavpils and Ludzas Streets, which ran along four blocks in the so-called “Small Ghetto”. About 4.5 thousand able-bodied men were imprisoned there, while about 300 women were imprisoned in the Temporary Prison, and later moved to a building complex at 66 Ludzas Street, outside the “Small Ghetto”. The other prisoners were informed through posters that they must pack their belongings and wait on the streets of the ghetto early in the morning on November 30 to be transported to another place of detention.

On November 30, through specially designed openingss in the ghetto fence near the Old Jewish Cemetery, columns of prisoners were taken out of the ghetto. Their path led to the Rumbula forest, about 9 kilometers from the ghetto, where pits had already been dug by Soviet prisoners of war. The column was transported and escorted by the men of the “Arājs Kommando” and German units. The Riga City Police was also mobilized to guard the road to Rumbula. Those who could not walk fast enough were shot by a convoy on the way. Additionally, about 800 people who could not or did not want to leave their apartments were shot in the streets and homes of the ghetto. Later, their bodies were collected and buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery by a special Jewish team.

As the prisoners marching along the highway approached Rumbula, the large columns of about 1,000 people were divided into smaller groups that were brought into the forest. There, while being beaten by the convoy of escorts, people were forced to leave their belongings, undress, take off their shoes. Then they were driven to the side of the pit where they were awaited by a special German unit of 12 people with previous experience participating in the mass murders in Ukraine. Officers of German punitive and military agencies, civil administration officials, and representatives of Latvian punitive  agencies were also present.

The victims were forced to descend into the pits on a special ramp and lie face down on the ground before they were shot in the back of the head. Each group that was shot was thrown onto the bodies of the previous group, a method Jekeln ironically called “sardine packing”. Since the shooting teams worked in shifts, the killings took place all day until dark. Following this  pattern, the second major murder operation took place on December 8. In total, about 25,000 people were killed over those two days.