The Germans established two ghettos for the Jews of Riga. On the night of November 29, Germans separated working Jewish men from the rest of the ghetto inhabitants and removed them to a fenced area at the northeastern corner of the city that had been cleared of its residents three days before. On the night of November 30, German and Latvian guards ringed the western part of the "large ghetto." The inhabitants were rounded up in groups of 1,000, and on the following day, December 1, they were taken out to the Rumbuli Forest, eight kilometers from town, and shot to death at the edge of large pits that had been prepared.
All inhabitants of the "large ghetto" were murdered on December 8-9. In the two phases of the Aktion, approximately 30,000 people were murdered at Rumbuli, including the members of the Aeltestenrat and the historian Simon Dubnow.
