Location of the monument:

Latitude: 56.330331
Longitude: 27.512882

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 at the Rāzna Lake (approximately 2 km from Kaunata) a monument with the Star of David and an inscription in Latvia “Here at the end of July 1941 Nazis murdered approximately 100 Jews from the vicinity of Kaunata”.

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.