of occupation." Professor Ezergailis estimates that about 5,700 Jews of Liepāja and the surrounding district fell into German hands. On June 29 and June 30, 1941, there were random shootings of Jews in Liepāja by German soldiers. About 99 Jews (plus or minus 30) were killed in these shootings. Shootings began almost immediately. For example, at 5:00 p.m. on June 29, arriving German soldiers seized 7 Jews and 22 Latvians and shot them at a bomb crater in the middle of Ulicha street. At 9:00 p.m. the same day German soldiers came to Hika street, where they assembled all the residents and asked if any were refugees from Germany. One man, Walter (or Victor) Hahn, a conductor who had fled Vienna in 1938, stepped forward and was immediately shot. (Another source says that Hahn was killed by a mob of Latvians fomented by Nazis.) The next day, June 30, soldiers went to the City Hospital, arrested several Jewish physicians and patients, disregarded the protests of the Latvians on the hospital staff, and shot them. Among the victims was 10-year-old Masha Blumenau. Rainis Park massacre On June 29, 1941, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 1a, (EK 1a) under SS-Obersturmbannführer Reichert entered Liepāja. One of the first people EK 1a killed, on June 30, was the musician Aron Fränkel, who, not knowing that Einsatzkommando had set up headquarters at his place of employment, the Hotel St. Petersburg, showed up for work. He was identified as a Jew and immediately shot. During the fighting, the Soviet forces had dug defensive trenches in Rainis Park (Raiņa parks) in the center of Liepāja. On July 3 and 4, 1941, in their first documented massacre in Liepāja, Reichert's EK 1a men, all Germans of the SD, rounded up Jews and marched them to these trenches in the park. Once at the trench, they were shot and the bodies pushed in. How many were killed during these shootings is not known. Estimates range from several dozen to 300. After the war, the Soviet Union investigatory commission concluded that 1,430 people were killed in the park shootings, which Professor Ezergailis characterizes as an exaggeration. One participant, Harry Fredrichson, later testified that in one massacre he participated in, 150 people were killed. Anti-Jewish measures As a naval base, Liepāja came under the command of the German navy, the Kriegsmarine. Lieutenant commander (Korvettenkapitan) Stein was appointed as town commandant. On July