Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp

Kaiserwald (Ķeizarmežs, Mežaparks, Kaizervalde) was a Nazi concentration camp situated in the Sarkandaugava and Mežaparks neighborhoods of Riga, the capital of Latvia. It originally served the function of a collective assembly point distributing Jewish labourers for the German Army to a number of surrounding satellite workcamps. When the SS took command they transformed Kaiserwald into a concentration camp with approval from Reichskommissariat Ostland. At its highpoint the camp had 12,000 Jewish enforced labourers. 50% of these were women. Most were German Jews, but a notable minority were survivors from the liquidated Jewish communities of Vilnius and Kaunas in neighbouring Lithuania. Kaiserwald was established by the SS in March 1943 during a time when the war began to turn against the Germans. On 21 June RFSS Heinrich Himmler issued a command in which he insisted upon an acceleration of the 'Final Solution.' Jews were to be 'cleared' from all the Ghettos with the able bodied being sent to concentration camps and the unfit, elderly and children being earmarked for liquidation. This turn around in events was to a huge disadvantage to the German Army that had previously been responsible for Jews in Riga. The Jews had been working in satellite camps producing wares and textiles for the Army. The families of the labourers were quartered in the Riga Ghetto. This, too, had come und

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