After the liquidation of the Riga, Liepaja and Dvinsk ghettos in June of 1943, the remainder of the Jews in Latvia, along with most of the survivors of the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, were deported to Kaiserwald.
In 1944, a number of smaller camps around Riga were brought under the jurisdiction of the Kaiserwald camp. Ultimately, all Jews living in Latvia would end up here at Kaiserwald. Following the occupation of Hungary by Germany, thousands of Jews were sent to Kaiserwald, as were quite a few of the Jews from Lodz, in Poland. By March of 1944, there 11,878 prisoners in the camp and its subcamps. 6,182 of the prisoners were men, 5,696 were women, of this total only 95 prisoners were gentiles.
Unlike Auschwitz and Treblinka, Kaiserwald was not an extermination camp, the prisoners were put to work as forced laborers for German companies. Notably Allgemeine Elektrictats-Gesellschaft, which used a large number of female prisoners from Kaiserwald in the production of electrical goods. Other prisoners worked in other factories, mines, and farms, as well as inside the camp.
In July of 1944, as the Soviet Red Army approached the Latvian border, the Germans began to gradually evacuate the prisoners to Stutthof in Poland. Before the evacuations, thousands of Jews who were unfit for work - the sick, the frail, and the young - were put to death. All Jews who had ever been convicted of any offense, however minor, were executed prior to the evacuations, as were Jews under the age of 18, and all Jews over the age of 30. By Sept. of 1944, all the prisoners of Kasierwald had been moved and the Red Army liberated the camp on Oct. 13, 1944
