The engineer Mihails Rage lived in Riga. When German troops invaded Latvia in June 1941, Rage fled east. However, since his wife was ill, they had to return to Riga. They were interned in the ghetto in the fall of 1941. Rage was drafted into forced labor. In 1943 the ghetto was dissolved and Rage was taken to Kaiserwald concentration camp. In the Balastdamm sub-camp, Rage met his acquaintance Zeligs Šmuļjans, who put Rage in contact with Jānis Lipke.
At the end of 1943, Rage and two other prisoners escaped the camp with Lipke’s help. Lipke took Rage to Frīdrihs Rozentāls’ farm in Miltiņi, where Lipke had already hidden seven other Jews. Later, Rage moved to Mežamaki Farm near Dobele, the home of the siblings Jānis, Lidija, and Elza Millers. He built an underground hiding place there for other persecuted Jews. He could not use it himself, since he suffered from asthma. In July 1944, German soldiers and Latvian collaborators discovered four Jews hidden at Mežamaki and shot them dead. Rage survived because Lidija Millere claimed he was her non-Jewish husband.
Mihails Rage (2nd from left) with his family and his rescuer Jānis Lipke (right), Riga, 1950s. Source: Žaņa Lipkes memoriāls, Riga
