Further details of the reign of terror instituted in Latvia by the Nazi occupation forces were given here today by Wolf Scheinman, who recently succeeded in escaping from Latvia after hiding in different towns for nearly a year, In Riga, he said, where Jews were forbidden to ride on streetcars, the Nazi soldiers started dragging Jews off the cars as soon as the notices to that effect were posted, and before the majority of the Jews were aware of the new order. The Jews taken from the care were immediately shot.
Similarly, the Nazis decreed that Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, but placed the notices in out-of-the-way places and shot Jews who unwittingly violated the order. Scheinman relates that he saw two Jewish girls in Riga shot because they stepped on the sidewalk to allow a column of marching Nazis to pass. Entire families were wiped out, he said, if the Nazis discovered that any member of the family had been employed in a Soviet enterprise, even in the most minor capacity.
Jewish evacuees from Bessarabia have turned out to be among the best farmers on the collective farms in the Saratov district on the Volga, it is reported today by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee on the basis of reports reaching here.
At a general meeting of farmers of the Chapayev collective it was announced that the Bessarabian Jews have greatly contrituted to victory by the good example they set in performing the varied tasks assigned to them.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
