In 1933, some 800 Jews lived in Bielefeld, Germany, a city with 120,000 residents. When the Nazis rose to power, the Jews were forcibly excluded from public and economic life in the city. Jewish doctors, lawyers and businessmen were boycotted. Jewish businesses were Aryanized (transferred to non-Jewish ownership), Jews were forbidden from entering recreation sites, and physical abuse became routine. Dozens of Jews emigrated from Bielefeld in the first years of Nazi rule, most to neighboring countries, but were replaced by Jews who had been evicted from other parts of Germany.
In October 1938, approximately ten Jews of eastern European origin were evicted from Bielefeld as part of the expulsion to Zbaszyn, and by early November, only a third of the 151 Jewish businesses active in 1933 remained in the city. During the Kristallnacht pogrom on 9-10 November 1938, 18 Jewish businesses in Bielenfeld were looted and destroyed. 40-50 Jewish men, mostly storeowners, were arrested, and some 30 of them were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where they were incarcerated for several months. The synagogue on Turnerstrasse, which was established in 1905 and had 750 seats, was set alight. By 1942, the Nazis had demolished it completely.
In early 1939, Jewish organizations established agricultural training centers, to assist older Jews who had lost their jobs, and younger ones who were unemployed due to Nazi policies. By June 1939, some 1,650 Jews worked at these agricultural training farms in Germany, one of which was set up in Bielefeld. The Jews at this farm underwent professional retraining, and were then deemed fit for employment.
By the outbreak of World War II, the remaining Bielefeld Jews were housed in 19 "Jewish houses" (Judenhäuser). In the fall of 1941, some 500 Jews lived in Bielefeld, about 100 of them married to Christians.
From 27 November 1941 until 6 February 1942, 20 deportations left the Reich for Riga, Latvia, each holding approximately 1,000 Jews. .The first transport departed from Berlin and made its way to the Rumbula forest, by Riga. All the Jews on this transport were shot to death on arrival.
In December 1941, the deportation of the remaining 431 Jews in Bielefeld to the East began. On 12 December, 420 Bielefeld Jews were assembled, and the following day they were taken on buses to the railway station and made to board the third class carriages of the 3 o'clock train. The train already held hundreds of Jews from different cities. In total, 1031 Jews were deported on this transport to Riga, Latvia.
This photograph documents the deportation of 13 December 1941 to Riga, which included 74 children under the age of ten. According to our records, 102 Jews from this deportation survived, including a small number from Bielefeld.
By July 1942, 160 additional Jews had been deported from Bielefeld to ghettos and camps, most of them having been brought there from other towns in Germany.
In August 1943 the murder of the Jews who had been deported to Riga and confined in the Riga ghetto began. Only some 600 of the 20,000 Jews deported from the German Reich to Riga survived the Holocaust.
