The Liepāja Actions
The first mass killing of Jews in Liepāja took place on July 3 and 4, when about 400 people were shot to death, followed by the shooting of another 300 Jews on July 8. The German group of SD and policemen did the shooting, while the members of Latvian Selbstschutz convoyed victims to the killing site.
Housed in a wooden barrack, originally designed as a horse stable and because of her skill with languages, she was employed in the camp administration as a Lauferin, whose duties were as a messenger and interpreter.
According to a fellow prisoner, “These girls had to stand next to the guardhouse waiting for orders. Whenever Camp supervisor Mandel or overseer Margot Drechsler needed them they yelled “Lauferin, and the girl had to do as ordered on the double.”
In 1919, when Lithuania was fighting for its independence, he volunteered to serve in the Lithuanian army, and three years later In 1922 married a non-Jewish Lithuanian woman, and became the father of a daughter. Gens had hoped to transfer to the fledgling Lithuanian air force, but that branch of the armed forces only accepted bachelors. Instead he was sent to the front, joining an infantry regiment in the war against Poland, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and won a decoration.
