🕯 Kaiserwald concentration camp

Kaiserwald 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.