David Zivcon lived with his wife Henny in Liepāja. After the city was occupied by German troops in June 1941, the Jewish couple were at risk of persecution. David and Henny Zivcon evaded the mass shootings of December 1941. David Zivcon’s friend Robert Seduls promised to hide the Zivcons if their lives were in danger.
In July 1942 David Zivcon and his wife were confined in a ghetto, along with the few other surviving Jews. Zivcon had to work in the Security Service workshops as an electrician. In the home of SS Commandant Karl-Emil Strott, Zivcon discovered photos of the mass shootings at Šķēde beach, near Liepāja. He made secret copies of them, which were used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials after the war.
When the ghetto was evacuated in October 1943 and all inmates were to be deported, David and Henny Zivcon escaped along with another couple. They asked Robert Seduls for help. Seduls lived in an apartment building, where he worked as a janitor. He set up a hiding place in the basement, in which a total of eleven Jews survived.
One of the photos of the mass execution in Liepāja that David Zivcon found in the home of SS Commandant Karl-Emil Strott, 1941. Source: Bundesarchiv, B 162 Bild-02612
David Zivcon in the hiding place, Liepāja, 1944. The basement contained an emergency hiding place separated off by a wall. The small entrance was underneath a workbench. Source: Liepāja Muzeum, Signatur: LM_17422-6
David Zivcon (seated) with Schmerl Skutelski, Michael Libauer, and Yosl Mandelštam (back, left to right) listening to the radio in the hiding place, Liepāja, 1944. Source: Liepāja Muzeum
