Location of the monument:

Latitude: 56.847484
Longitude: 21.199939

After the Nazi troops entered Pāvilosta in July 1941, arrests of Jews began and a number of restrictions were introduced – all Jews had to move into one building, had to wear the yellow star, do forced labour, etc. Mass–scale murder of Jews from Pāvilosta and its vicinity – Jūrkalne and Saka, took place in December in the Grīņi Nature Reserve (approximately 4 km from Saka). It was carried out by a German SD unit that had arrived from Liepāja with the assistance of local self–defenders. 68–80 Jews were killed in total.

During the Soviet period on the site of murder a small monument in granite with an inscription in Latvian “Graves of Victims of Fascism” was placed.

Further reading:

• Meler M. Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember. Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013.
• Ezergailis A. The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941-1944: The Missing Center. Riga: The Historical Institute of Latvia; Washington, DC: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1996.

Search for the related names of Jews at http://names.lu.lv.