The camp was in operation from December 1941 through March 1942, and served as overflow housing for Jews from Germany and Austria, who had originally been intended for Minsk as a destination.

[1] The next four transports were, on the orders of SS-Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppen A, brought to Greater Jungfernhof, an abandoned farming estate on the Daugava River.

Under the new plan, Jungfernhof would serve as improvised housing in order to make available labor for the construction of the Salaspils concentration camp.

The former estate of 200 hectares in size, had built on it a warehouse, three large barns, five small barracks and various cattle sheds.

There were no watchtowers or enclosing perimeter, rather a mobile patrol of ten to fifteen Latvian auxiliary police (Hilfspolizei) under the German commandant Rudolf Seck.

In December 1941 a total of 3,984 people were brought in four separate trains to Jungfernhof, including 136 children under ten years old, and 766 elders.

The testimony of an eyewitness, that there was a gas van assigned to the camp, is no longer accepted and is treated as unsubstantiated.

As part of the Dünamünde Action under the false representation that they would be taken to an (actually nonexisting) camp in Dünamunde, where there would be better conditions and work assignments in a canning plant, between 1600 and 1700 inmates were taken to Biķernieki forest.

Viktor Marx, from Württemberg, whose wife Marga and daughter Ruth were shot, reported: In the camp it was said that all the women and children should come away from Jungfernhof and go to Dünamunde, where there would be hospitals, schools, and massive stone buildings where they could live.