On June 29, 1941, the occupying Red Army began a disorganized withdrawal from Riga, then under German aerial bombardment.

Some Soviet sympathizers in the city set out pails of water and gave bread to the retreating troops, but these were futile gestures amid the military disaster.

Additionally, the Soviet regime's extensive list for purges included a disproportionate number of Jews in professions that are perceived as potentially "anti-Soviet" - rabbis, intellectuals, labor organizers and Zionist organizers, liberals and social democrats, and urban professionals and merchants[citation needed].

At the time of the German invasion, the surviving Jewish community in Latvia was in a state of shock and disarray; unlike many of the other Jewish communities that came under Nazi rule in WWII, there was no plan or systematic effort in Latvia to warn the population of the existential threat from the Nazis.

Shortly after German troops entered the city on July 1, 1941, the Nazi occupation authorities incited Latvian nationalists to commit deadly anti-Jewish riots known as "pogroms".

Frida Michelson reported that they were singled out by fellow Latvian professionals from among the other Jews arrested and immediately shot.

[6] On July 2, at the instigation of the Germans, Latvian armed youths wearing red and white armbands went about the city dragging Jews out of their homes and arresting them.

Members of Pērkonkrusts including, among others, Viktors Arājs and Herberts Cukurs cooperated with the Nazis in exterminating the Jews of Latvia.

[2][7] A Riga newspaper Tēvija, ("Fatherland") regularly published anti-Jewish propaganda, such as an editorial on July 11, 1941, entitled "The Jews—Source of Our Destruction".

[2] Others were forced at gunpoint to put on the talith (prayer shawl) and tefilin (phylactery), then dance and sing Soviet songs.

[8] Much of this was simply makework designed to humiliate and intimidate the Jews, although in at least one instance a small group of Jewish women was detailed to Jelgava to work in the fields for six weeks.

He also draws the inference that the lack of deliberate killings by the Latvians shows the Germans were at the root of the plans for the massacres.

Perkonkrusts and "other Latvian hangers-on" surrounded the building, trapped the people inside, and set it on fire.

Only the Peitav Synagogue in the center of the city was not burned, and this was because of its location adjacent to apartment buildings and a church.

Among the Jews killed in the synagogue massacres were the cantor Mintz and his whole family, the rabbi Kilov, and Sarah Rashin (or Rashina), a 21-year-old internationally famed violinist.

Under "Regulation One", Jews were banned from public places, including city facilities, parks, and swimming pools.

A second regulation required Jews to wear a yellow six-pointed star on their clothing,[20] with violation punishable by death.

[19] The Gestapo initially set up its headquarters in the former Latvian Ministry of Agriculture building on Raina Boulevard.

[19] All of them had been involved with the Jewish Latvian Freedom Fighters Association and it was hoped this would give them credibility in dealing with the occupation authorities.

Council members were given large white armbands with a blue Star of David on them, which gave them the right to use the sidewalks and the streetcars.

[26] Thirty-five days after the Riga ghetto was established, 24,000 of its inhabitants were force marched out of the city and shot at the nearby forest of Rumbula.