Krāslava Municipality, Krāslava, Rīga Street

Location of the monument:

Latitude: 55.894556
Longitude: 27.165874

With the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Krāslava, already on 29 June 1941 the local self–defenders began arresting and shooting some Jews. At the end of July mass–scale arrests began, as the result of which the Jews of Krāslava (approximately 1000 people) were placed in two synagogues and adjacent buildings. On 26 July 1941 the arrested Jews were convoyed to Daugavpils ghetto; the feeblest were shot on the way (approximately 40 persons). In August local self–defenders and policemen arrested a couple of hundred Jews from Krāslava more. Part of them was taken to the Augustovka Ravine (approximately 1 km from Krāslava) and a part of them – to the bank of the Daugava River near turpentine factory and were shot there.

In 2003, upon the initiative of the Politically Repressed Persons of Krāslava District and with the donation by the Foundation of Canadian Latvians, a memorial was erected in the centre of Krāslava, dedicated to remembrance of all victims of terror of occupation powers (sculptors Indulis and Ivo Folkmanis). The memorial is a sculptural figure of a woman – a symbolic image of “Mother Latgale” – and seven stone plaques, each of them dedicated to a particular group of repressed persons: those deported on 25 March 1949 and 14 June 1941, victims of the Nazi regime of 1942–1943, participants of the national resistance movement and national soldiers, as well as national partisans and their supporters, dissidents – participants of non–violent resistance. A separate plaque was erected by the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia; it bears the Star of David and an inscription in Latvian: “To Jews – Victims of the Nazi Regime. 1941”.

  • 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.


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