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In Salspils people died through hunger, cold, and often shootings and hangings. In order to always have a certain number of people in Salaspils, groups were sent from the ghetto which were selected at the morning muster.

In this way Joseph got to Salaspils after eight weeks in the Ghetto. He returned after six months, emaciated, when the camp was largely dissolved. Altogether there had been 1.500 men in that camp - some of them children of six-teen.

Only 600 returned to the ghetto, reduced to skeletons, and many of them died subsequently.”

Horror-struck at the arrival in the ghetto

As we reached the ghetto a horrendous picture revealed itself. Before we arrived, Latvian families had lived in this ghetto. Of those 40,000 people, all but about 4,000 had been killed before we reached Riga.

We saw the puddles of blood. Some tables were still set. One could see that the people had been yanked suddenly out of their lives. The apartments were totally ransacked, after all the masters were interested to enrich themselves from any valuables.

You can imagine our horror and fear as we took all this in. We daily dreaded a similar action, since we recognized now that this was the reason why we had been deported to the East.