Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

238 Novadpētnieku vākums
From the History of Holocaust in Daugavpils
Josifs Ročko
Summary
According to different data, from 15 000 to 20 000 Jews were murdered during the war
in the Daugavpils ghetto and beyond it. It is mentioned in Latvijas Enciklopēdija (Latvian
Encyclopaedia) that the number of victims exceeded 20 000 people. Some tens managed to
survive. Special teams – “eisatsengroups”, Viktors Arājs team, as well as 240 local policemen
were involved in persecution and annihilation of innocent people. These were people
of different nationalities, mainly workers, of low educational qualification. But a teacher, a
lawyer, a journalist, local guards, former Latvian Army officers were also found among the
executors. The age of these people was from 18 to 50 years.
In 2002–2006, the author registered more than 100 memoirs of old city inhabitants –
non-Jews who were witnesses of the Holocaust, as well as of almost 20 Jews, a part of
whom managed to evacuate, and a part had survived in the ghetto. All this enabled to
understand the relations between Jews and their neighbours, to bring out cases of anti-
Semitism as well as to show how different groups of Jews reacted to the on-coming of
the Soviet power.
The stories of Holocaust witnesses enabled to reveal the tragedy of Jews during the
evacuation days, as well as to determine new places of execution, to understand Jews’
behaviour and the psychology of their neighbours, since some of them became collaborators
during these years. New cases of rescuing have been revealed as a result of analyses
and comparison of oral history materials with archive documents.
Sarra Ichlova with her son Moshe, aged 2, turned to be in ghetto. On 28 April 1942,
when going to work, she managed to carry out her son in a bag and hand him over to
Tekla Balodis, an acquaintance of hers. She was a lonely, 25-years old single woman, an
invalid. Before the war, Tekla Balodis had been working for seven years as a baby-sitter for
the Ichlov family. The brave Latvian woman hid the Jewish boy. She was limp but still she
managed to make an underground passage under a hen-house where Moshe was hiding
during the day-time. The child stayed there until the liberation of the city. The boy was so
scared that he was afraid of day light after the liberation and was afraid to go out.
In October 1943, the remaining ghetto prisoners were sent to Riga. A group of prisoners
jumped out of the goods truck window having cut barbed wire.
David Stolar was among them. Before the war, he used to live and work at the mill of
Lady farm, near Krauja. He knocked at Dobkevich house at night.
Jan Dobkevich opened the door. “Jasenka, please save me”, said David. Jan Dobkevich
was an illiterate drayman, he understood Idish well. The Dobkevich family – Jan and
Katerina (Katarzhina) – gave shelter to the Jew. David would sit at the table together with