page_title: Burning of the Riga synagogues
section_title: Further restrictions on Jews
hierarchical_section_title: Burning of the Riga synagogues / Further restrictions on Jews
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. ADN-ZB/Donath II. Weltkrieg 1939-1945 Judenverfolgung durch die faschistischen deutschen Besatzungtruppen in der Sowjetunion. Lettische SSR, Riga: Jüdische Bürger dürfen nicht den Fußgängerweg benutzen, sondern müssen auf dem Fahrdamm gehen. Aufn. 1942 Information added by Wikimedia users.English: World War II 1939-1945. Persecution of Jews under the fascist German occupation troops in the Soviet Union. Riga, Latvia Soviet Socialist Republic: Jewish citizens may not use the sidewalks, but instead must walk in the roadway. Photographed in 1942.
context_page_description: The burning of the Riga synagogues occurred in 1941, during the first days of the World War II Nazi German occupation of the city of Riga, the capital and largest city in the country of Latvia. Many Jews confined in the synagogues died in the fires, and many other anti-Semitic measures were launched at the same time, ultimately followed by the murder of the vast majority of the Jews of Latvia.
context_section_description: At the end of July, the city administration switched from the German military to German civil administration.  Head of the civil administration was a German named Nachtigall.  Other Germans involved with the civil administration included Hinrich Lohse and Otto Drechsler. The Germans issued new decrees at this time to govern the Jews.  Under "Regulation One", Jews were banned from public places, including city facilities, parks, and swimming pools.  A second regulation required Jews to wear a yellow six-pointed star on their clothing, with violation punishable by death.  A Jew was also to be allotted only one-half of the food ration of a non-Jew.  By August, a German named Altmayer was in charge of Riga.  The Nazis then registered all the Jews of Riga, and they further decreed that all Jews must wear a second yellow star, this one in the middle of their backs, and not use the sidewalks but walk in the roadway instead.  Jews could be randomly assaulted with impunity by any non-Jew.  The reason for wearing two stars was so Jews could readily be distinguished in a crowd.  Later, when Lithuanian Jews were transported to the ghetto, they were subject to the same two-star rule.
  Officially the Gestapo took over the prisons in Riga on July 11, 1941. By this time, the Latvian gangs had killed a number of the Jewish inmates.  The Gestapo initially set up its headquarters in the former Latvian Ministry of Agriculture building on Raina Boulevard.  A special Jewish administration was set up.  Gestapo torture and similar interrogation tactics were carried out in the basement of this building.  Anyone who happened to survive this treatment was then sent to prison, where the inmates were starved to death.  The Gestapo later relocated to a former museum at the corner of Kalpaka and Alexander boulevards.
  The Nazis also set up a Latvian puppet government, under a Latvian general named Danker, who was himself half-German.  A "Bureau of Jewish Affairs" was set up at the Latvian police prefecture.  Nuremberg-style laws were introduced, which tried to force people in marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew to divorce.  If the couple refused to divorce, the woman, if a Jew, would be forced to undergo sterilization.  Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and non-Jewish physicians were forbidden to treat Jews.
caption: 1942 photo showing Jews in Riga required to wear the yellow star and forbidden to use the sidewalk
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