Rumbula Viewed From The Riga Ghetto from The Ghetto of Riga and
Continuance - A Survivor's Memoir, (c) 1998, all rights reserved
by Alfred Winter with permission of the family of Mr. Alfred
Winter, may his memory be for a blessing In Early October 1941,
the Germans issued a decree that the Ghetto would be closed, or
locked, by October 15, 1941 and that all Jews had to live in the
Ghetto by October 25, 1941. Any Jew found outside of the Ghetto
after this date was subject to arrest and prosecution. From that
day on Jews could leave the Ghetto only by escort. Every day
Germans, as well as Latvians, picked up the Jewish laborers at
the gate of the Ghetto and returned them at night time. Some SS
and army units kept the Jews right at the place of work and
housed them in confiscated housing with up to 50 persons in one
room. Mostly men were taken from work, until one day, the
Germans wanted sewing machine operators. 500 women volunteered
for this work and actually 250 women were taken and incarcerated
in the womenís