Testimony of Shaya Taitz, born in Riga, Latvia, 1925, regarding his experiences in the Riga Ghetto, Kaiserwald, Strasshof, Stutthof, Magdeburg and Altengrabow

Testimony of Shaya Taitz, born in Riga, Latvia, 1925, regarding his experiences in the Riga Ghetto, Kaiserwald, Strasshof, Stutthof, Magdeburg and Altengrabow Life before the war; his immediate family; Jewish community; youth movements. Soviet occupation, June 1940; nationalization of property; closure of the Jewish schools in the community; German occupation, July 1941; collaboration by the Latvians with the Germans in the murder of Jews; detention of the witness' father along with other Jews and their murder in the Bikerniki forest; confiscation of property by the Latvians; anti-Jewish decrees including forced wearing of the yellow badge; draft to forced labor; appears before the authorities in the Gestapo headquarters; burning of the synagogues; deportation to the Riga Ghetto; activities of the Judenrat and the Jewish police; liquidation of the large ghetto; murder of Jews in the Rumbuli forest; underground activities; deportation of Jews from Germany and Austria to the area of the large ghetto; deportation to Kaiserwald on a truck; camp life including forced labor; attitude of the supervisors toward the inmates; transfer to Strasshof; transfer to Stutthof; camp life including forced labor; transfer to Magdeburg; air-raids on Magdeburg; transfer to Altengrabow; escape attempt; detention by the German police; liberation by the Red Army in Altengrabow, March 1945; draft into the Red Army; release from the military. Life in Riga; aliya to Israel, 1966.