Location of the monument:
Latitude: 56.336589
Longitude: 27.556962
When at the end of July 1941 the Nazi occupation started in Kaunata, all Jews of the parish were arrested. A couple of days later shooting actions began, which continued until September. During this period local self-defenders shot approximately 100 Jews. Two sites of massacres are known – one is close to the Barki Cemetery, the other – near the Rāzna Lake.
In 2007 the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia erected on the site of massacre near the Barki Cemetery a monument with the Star of David and an inscription in Latvia “To the Victims of Nazism – Jews from Kaunata and its vicinity murdered at the beginning of August 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.
Search for the related names of Jews at http://names.lu.lv.