Address 1941: Address in late August 1941. Street names in Latvia were often changed for political reasons, and some names used in 1941 differ from the pre-war names. We have generally standardized names to those used in 1939. Two lists of Latvian and German street names are available here or at Paul Berkay’s website.
Address Old: Last address before 1941 address. As many Jews had been evicted more than once from their homes, this is not necessarily their peacetime address. Moreover, under the Soviet occupation 1940/41, each person was restricted to 9 square meters of living space, so that many people were forced to move to smaller or shared quarters.
Alias/AKA: Variant names used in other sources.
Alive: Appears on a list of Jews who in April 1942 “donated” brass, copper, or other non-ferrous metals to a metals collection drive by the Schutzpolizei. Only one person—not necessarily the head of household—was named on that list for each apartment. That person, who evidently was alive, is designated by a number such as M85, and any family members who probably were alive by a number with the suffix f, such as M85f.
Away: Not at home at the time of the August census. This may mean: fled to USSR, out of town, hidden, or killed.
Camp or KZ: Was in specified concentration camp, usually Stutthof. Prisoner number is given in Camp Memo field.
Check: Information needs to be verified.
Converted: Converted to Christianity (in most cases after German occupation).
Death Memo: Data sources on time and place of death, as well as registration numbers in lists of the dead. Y=Yad Vashem, E=Extraordinary Commission, S=Stutthof. YL, EL = reported as killed but actually survived; YN, EN reported as killed but actually died of natural causes.
Deported: Deported to USSR on 14 June 1941.
Died Naturally: Died of natural causes either before the German occupation, or in the first 6 months of the occupation with credible medical evidence of a natural death.
Duplicate?: People from the Yad Vashem and Extraordinary Commission lists about whom too little is known for identification. Perhaps 200-300 may be duplicates of people already in the database.
False Papers: Lived under false identity.
Father’s Name: Not given in census but included here when obtained from other sources.
Fled: Fled to USSR after start of war.
Fled?: Probably fled to USSR.
Ghetto: Was in Liepaja ghetto 1942/43. No list of ghetto residents has been found, but we have tried to reconstruct such a list by including anyone who appeared in: (1) the metals collection list, including family members, (2) house books that had a note indicating “transfer to the Jewish list” in May/June 1942, (3) Schutzpolizei reports of 1942/43, (4) Stutthof records, (5) records of the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross, (6) the 1982 or 1992 lists of Libauers and matched the name of a 1941 resident of Liepaja, (7) lists submitted to us by survivors. In this way we have identified the names of 849 probable ghetto residents. As this number slightly exceeds the actual population of 832, our tally apparently includes some misassignments and duplicates.
Half-Jew: Met criteria for recognition as half-Jew and was therefore exempt from many anti-Jewish measures.
Hidden: Hidden by Latvians.
ITS: Name was submitted to International Tracing Service for search of their records of 14 million Nazi victims. For Latvian Jews these records start only with their 1944 arrival on German territory, and are incomplete.
Killed: Clear evidence of death is available for only a minority of victims. About 1600 are listed in the Yad Vashem Pages of Testimony and about 740 (duplicating many of the above) in the 1945 list of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, both based on survivor reports. Some 100 additional reports come from relatives or from camp records. Even these sources are not infallible: a few people listed as dead turned out to be alive. For the remaining 5000 we have relied on indirect evidence, such as certain “code” words in the 1941 census (whereabouts unknown, disappeared, did not return from work, detained, or occasionally a blunt arrested). Whenever such external evidence was available, we cited it in the Notes field and gave the source in the Death field. All together, this gave 4650 certain deaths.
Killed?: Probably killed. We have used this term in cases where the note in the census was not conclusive. Also, when no external evidence was available, we inferred death from the absence of a name in 1942-44 records and in post-war survivor lists. This inference should be reliable for the old and the young, who were systematically “selected” and killed off. But people born between about 1885 and 1932 had at least a small chance of surviving, and we therefore marked such people as “Killed?”.
Maiden Name: Not given in census, but sometimes available from other sources.
No Husband?: Used for women under 55 who had children but no husband. Although a few may have been widows, the others probably had a husband who was killed during July and then not listed in the census—especially after the family had been evicted from their original apartment.
No Parents?: Used for children when no parent was listed in the same apartment.
Non-Jew: Gentile spouse of a Jew.
Occupation: In most cases the census lists the occupation in August 1941: typically “worker” or “public works”. Where available, we have added the former occupation from Yad Vashem or pre-war directories.
POT: “Page of Testimony”, deposited at Yad Vashem by relatives or friends of the victim.
Spouse’s Name: Mainly from Yad Vashem records. Family relationships are not given in the 1941 census, but we guessed them when possible and linked family cards accordingly. In a number of cases Jewish families had doubled or tripled up (often with relatives) in the same apartment, and if the adults’ ages were similar, there is no way to distinguish siblings, inlaws, and spouses.
Survival Note: Source indicating that the person survived.
Survived: Survivors identified with a high degree of certainty.
Survived?: Used when a person of similar name is present in the lists of Libauers, but cannot be conclusively matched with a person in the database.