the Hasenputh district. The documentation however does not always distinguish between different Roma groups, thus on April 24, 1942, EK A reported having killed 1,272 people, including 71 Roma, with no further description. December 15–17: "The Big Action" The largest of the Liepāja massacres took place on three days from Monday, December 15 to Wednesday, December 17, 1941. On December 13, Kurzemes Vārds published an order by Emil Diedrich, the Nazi police in Liepāja, which required all Jews in the city to remain in their residences on Monday, December 15 and December 16, 1941. The order came from SD headquarters in Riga; whether it was received by Kügler or his deputy, Reichle, was disputed, with both Kügler and Reichle later claiming Kügler was on leave in Germany. The Latvian police began arresting the Jews in the city on the night of December 13 to 14, bringing them to the Women's Prison, where they were confined in the courtyard. There was not enough room for the people, so they were ordered to stand facing towards the wall, and not move, look for relatives, or look at the guards, who beat people and treated them with brutality. There was an old wooden building, a garage, barn, or horse barn, at the beach at Šķēde. Some of the Jews were taken to this building on the evening of Sunday, December 14. Pēteris Galiņš, of whom little is known other than that he was killed in Russia in winter 1943, was in charge of the Latvian guards, and he ordered a team of 20 to report for duty at 5:30 a.m. on December 15. The execution site was on the beach, north of the city, and north of the small barn or garage, which was used as a temporary holding point for the victims while their turn came to be executed. A trench had been dug in the dunes that ran parallel to the shore and was about 100 meters long and 3 meters wide. Columns of Jews were formed at the Women's Prison and marched out under guard to the killing site. The guards were Latvians with Germans acting as supervisors. Once at the site, the Jews were housed in the barn and taken in groups of 20 of a time to a point 40 or 50 meters from the trench, where they were ordered to lie face down on the ground. Groups