After these three months, I was transferred to the assembly camp at Sperlgasse.
I had served my prison sentence.
Of course I knew all the people over there, as the marshals were members of the Jewish community.
I was familiar with most of the Gestapo department heads as well,...
...because we had furnished them and had been under their supervision back then [Steinbach worked in a storage for Jewish property earlier].
The collection and opening of the crates as well as the accumulation of all the valuable assets...
...was supervised by various people, amongst them Commissioners Zeitlberger and Becher.
And they even tried to keep me there.
They pleaded for me.
But it did not help, due to the fact that Brunner 1 [Alois Brunner] arrived.
Brunner 1 was informed about my case,...
...even Brunner 2 [Anton Brunner], who was part of that committee, told him.
But he just answered: "He is going"
There were 50 people missing for that transport...
...so I was sent to Riga on January 26th 1942.
5 days later I arrived in Riga.
It was the bitterly cold winter of 1941/42.
It was harrowing, the people were leaving the train...
...with 3rd-degree frostbites on their feets, hands...everywhere.
That's were my luck started,...
...which helped me to survive all this.
As I departed...
...the marshals of the Viennese Jewish community were in charge of allocating people on the train.
And they knew that the first wagon will be heated...
...because it was directly attached to the SS-wagon.
That was the only one with heating and they put me on it.
And they loaded my whole luggage on the waggon. Noone else had such a privilege.
What was your luggage?
My luggage consisted of seven or eight suitcases.
It included clothing, a gramophone and all kinds of other things.
While I was in prison, the boys knew that after my release, I will be deported right away.
They brought me everything from home, bedclothes and all kinds of things.
So I would have at least a little bit...
...to scratch a living.
And that was the case, wasn't it?
Upon arrival in Riga...
...we were 1250 people in total.
Of these 1250, 1200 were marched to the Ghetto.
As I already mentioned, it was a terrible winter,...
...everything was frozen,...
...all toilets and so on. It was horrible, it looked awful.
Everybody went to the Ghetto and we,...
...the 50 that appeared to be the youngest and strongest were taken out,...
...we had to clean the cars.
While there, I had to witness that people who were too weak...
...were thrown onto the cars.
Those were brought away and I heard shots.
We were received by SS and Latvian police.
Arriving there as Europeans from a relatively civilized country,...
...we realized how little a human life was worth [in this new enviroment].
I will never forget what my first thought was at that place.
I had a large amount of pharmaceuticals in my luggage.
And I thought about swallowing that stuff - all of it.
That was the only time...
...I was so distressed after all I had to witness - that I lost my composure.
To cut a long story short: That was the time the second miracle unfolded.
The Ghetto was about two hours away from Skirotava train station...
...and the people were marched there.
But at the same time, young people from the Ghetto...
...were allowed to come to the trainstation with large sleds.
They were guarded of course.
And they were allowed to load bread onto those sleds.
And I walked past...
...a girl that stood there with such a sled.
And she approached me:
"Yes", I replied.
I had never seen her before.
She told me: "The luggage, if you have any, will be lost."
"If you still have it, bring it here."
Normally, people had no luggage, because it had been loaded onto different cars.
They only carried hand-luggage,...
...and when it became too heavy during the 2-hour-march, it was taken away as well.
But I had my whole luggage on the first car.
I went to the luggage, got it and brought it to the girl.
The sleds they used where huge, bigger than this table.
And she but the put my luggage on her sled, covered it with blankets and added layers of bred.
When we arrived at the Ghetto in the evening,...
...I was the only one in the Ghetto with luggage.