History
Before the war the Seduls had lived at 44 Peldu Street. At that time Roberts worked at the port, but later got a job as a house janitor at 14 Tirgoņu Street (now 22 Tirgoņu St). Robert with his wife Johanna (Anna) and two little daughters (Indra, b. 1937) and (Irida, b. 1940) moved into an apartment on the second floor of the building overlooking the courtyard. Roberts was a good craftsman, strong physically, performing the duties of janitor, stoker, electrician and locksmith for the building.
Before the war Roberts was on friendly terms with Dāvid Zivcon (one of the sheltered Jews). With the arrival of the Nazis the persecution and extermination of Liepāja Jews began. Roberts witnessed horrifying scenes of Jews being arrested, beaten and mocked which he could not accept. He met Dāvid, promising that if he was in trouble he would help him and his wife Henny.
When the German army entered Liepāja on 29th July 1941 around 5,700 Jews fell into the hands of the Nazis. From the very first executions of Liepāja Jews of 5700 Jewish residents only 1500 Jews were still alive in February 1942. Killings continued until on 1 July 1942 when the 816 remaining Jews were confined to the Liepāja ghetto. Most of the surviving Jews came from upper class families with specialist professions of particular value to the Germans. While in the ghetto, David Zivcon remained in touch with Roberts often discussing the possibility of creating a hiding place if he decided to go into hiding.
At the beginning of October, it became clear that the ghetto would soon be liquidated. On 5th October Dāvid and his wife Henny fled, along with Hilda and Mihoel Skuteļskis. Roberts was only expecting his friend and his wife but when they arrived accompanied by two others he could not refuse to help.
Roberts fitted out a hiding place for the fugitives behind a secret partition in the cellar of the building where he lived together with his family. The hiding place was only accessible through a special hatch in Roberts’ workbench. The main challenge for those in hiding was being permanently cut off from the outside world, keeping as quiet as possible and only seeing daylight again when they were liberated in 1945. Above the hiding place was a German bakery which meant that anyone in or visiting the bakery hearing a noise might investigate with the risk that everyone including the Seduls family and their little girls would immediately be killed. Later, the Jews in hiding were joined in the cellar by another three men who had remained in Liepāja to work for the Germans after the ghetto was liquidated. Roberts Seduls offered to help them so there were now seven people under his protection. Feeding so many people during wartime was a complicated exercise but since most cellar occupants were able craftsmen they carried out various repair jobs providing Roberts with the opportunity to earn extra food. Early in the morning of 29th April 1944, Roberts brought another three refugees who had come from the Paplaka military base to occupy the hiding place. One of them, Ārons Vestermans, later recalled how he and his wife had knocked at the Seduls’ door and were met with a friendly
reception. Roberts fed them, handed them a gun and took them down to the cellar where to their surprise they found a number of Jews in hiding.
A week later, the fugitives in Seduls’ hiding place were joined by Riva Zivcone – the wife of Dāvids’ cousin Leopolds Zivcons, who had been shot near the lighthouse at the start of the war. After the liquidation of the Liepāja ghetto she and her little daughter were moved to the Riga ghetto from which she had managed to escape. While still in the Liepāja ghetto Dāvids had told Riva that if necessary she could turn to Seduls for help. However, no doubt for safety’s sake, he did not reveal that he himself was planning to escape and hide in the Seduls’ house. Therefore, when Roberts took Riva to the cellar she was surprised to find Dāvids there. There were now 11 Jews in Seduls’ hiding place. They had to live together in difficult circumstances, running the risk that at any moment bakery staff might discover them and they might be handed over to the Nazis.
One of the inmates of Seduls’ cellar, Kalman Linkimer, kept a diary from 1941 to 1945 although unfortunately he left behind the first section in Paplaka. However, from memories evoked by his cellar companions he was able to reconstruct many episodes missing from the first part of the diary. This diary is a unique document of the Holocaust historiography. It provides an insight, not only into WWII events that took place under German occupation but also into the fate of thousands of Jews from Liepāja Jews and other countries.
Linkimer’s diary portrays events at the time of the Holocaust in Latvia which are not reflected in statistics or reports. It vividly portrays the terror of those years as well as the heroism and courage of the people precipitated by those terrible events.
The everyday life of the cellar’s inhabitants is vividly portrayed in the diary including their difficult living conditions and constraints. The slightest noise could betray them and lead to a police search with dogs inevitably resulting in the deaths not only of the fugitives but also the Seduls family. Survival at all costs was their prime concern, to remain alive and bear witness to the crimes of the Nazis and their henchmen.
This is how Kalman Linkimer described the hiding place at 22 Tirgoņu Street:
“Stairs led down to the cellar. In the entrance hall there was a locksmith’s workshop, and behind it was a space where the boiler for the building’s central heating was located. We got into our hiding place through a narrow hatch in the heavy workbench; inside, there were two small rooms without doors, as well as a larder. I immediately understood that everyone gathered there was there not only to save their lives; they also had a goal and a duty which we would now strive to fulfil together. On the wall hung several maps, with the situation on the Eastern Front marked on them. At once my eye fell upon a shelf labeled with numbers; on the right side was a sign – “ammunition”. There were also six pistols, acquired with their own money. I straight away realised that they wouldn’t take us alive. (Likermer’s italics). Now a chance had finally come for us to defend our lives with weapons in our hands, and, when the time came, to bear witness to the blood of innocent Jews. All the safety measures demonstrated that clever people were working there. Everything was provided for. Spades and axes were ready, in case during the bombing the hiding place filled with debris. There was also a larder for food, with untouchable stocks, in case in an emergency Roberts was not able to get any. They had themselves connected water mains and electricity, and from spare parts Dāvids had constructed a radio, which he listened to with headphones. They had made beds for the women, and the six men slept on the floor in their room. The chairs were fitted with rubber supports, so that they didn’t make any noise. It was necessary to speak in whispers, because there was a bakery on the floor above; we had to be very careful that they didn’t hear us. A signalling system had been installed between the Seduls and the cellar – there was a little light, and the frequency and length of its illumination had specific meanings: one long signal meant turn on the motor; two long signals meant turn it off; two short signals meant that they had to go to the Seduls, and three short signals meant that everyone had to go out of the large room, because someone was coming to the cellar; five signals meant that the Seduls were coming down, while many signals in a row was an alarm. Then everyone had to take up their pistols and be ready.”
“...When Roberts took us to the cellar, we were happy to meet the people who had been living there for six months already. They turned up unnoticed – who knows where from – as if they had grown out of the earth.
The “permanent residents” asked us to guess where they had appeared from. We started to look for the hiding place, but couldn’t find it. In order to mislead us still further, Zivcons turned on some kind of complicated mechanism, saying that the door was opened with the help of electricity. But still we couldn’t find anything. After that, Dāvids showed us everything. Inside a wall around half a metre thick, an aperture had been made, which was covered up by the workbench. Behind the workbench there was a metal plate which could be dragged out, and under it was the entrance to the hiding place. I will never forget this sight, all my remaining life. The occupants of the hiding place got down on all fours and with remarkable nimbleness squeezed through the opening into their cave. Without a trace, the plate covering the entrance to the hiding place slid back into its place. The fugitives had built the wall with the automatic door from the bricks of the destroyed Choral Synagogue. Roberts had brought the bricks in July 1941, when on the orders of the Nazis the synagogue was demolished. He often said “these are the holy bricks of the Liepāja Choral Synagogue”.
* (NINETEEN MONTHS IN A CELLAR: HOW 11 JEWS ELUDED HITLER’S Henchmen The Diary of Kalman Linkimer (1912–1987). Translated from Yiddish; published in 2003)