Riva Zivcon lived in Liepāja. In July 1941 German troops occupied the city and its approximately 6,500 Jewish inhabitants were subject to persecution. Riva Zivcon and her one-year-old daughter Ada survived the mass shootings of the Jewish population and were interned in the Liepāja ghetto in July 1942. In October 1943 the ghetto was evacuated and its inmates taken to Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp. Riva Zivcon had to perform forced labor.
With the help of a Latvian police officer, the mother and daughter escaped the Riga ghetto. They could not find a permanent place to hide in Riga. Riva Zivcon returned to Liepāja with her daughter in April 1944 and turned for help to Robert Seduls, a non-Jewish friend of her brother-in-law David Zivcon. Seduls took the mother and daughter into his basement hiding place, where he was sheltering David Zivcon and other Jews. He was afraid that all the people hiding there might be discovered due to loud noises made by Ada and therefore found another hiding place for her, with Otilija Schimelpfening. The girl’s helper called her “Gertrude” as a cover and claimed she was an orphaned relative.
Ada and Riva Zivcon survived the war.