Obj. ID: 44149
Memorials Monument at the First Murder Place in Subate, Latvia, 2000s
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Jews of Subate, victims of the Holocaust
Description:
The monument stands between two killing pits marked by a concrete border. The territory is fenced by a fence with concrete posts bearing the Stars of David.
About 200 m from this monument stands another monument marking two other killing pits (see here).
The current monument replaces a monument from the Soviet time: a low obelisk with a Russian inscription Память жертвам фашистского террора 1941 (Memory to the victims of the fascist terror, 1941) (see a photo in Meler 2010, 401, Meler 2013, 274).
The current monument is a granite stele stylized as a traditional tombstone, with a decorated upper part, a Star of David, and a short dedication in English.
Inscription
English
To genocide
victims
Subate 1941
Commissioned by
Jews originating from Subate
11 image(s)
sub-set tree:
The Nazi German troops occupied Subate on June 28, 1941. On July 20, Latvian self–defenders of the Subate region arrested all Jews and placed them in two large sheds located on Lauku Street. On the following day, a commando of murderers, set up by the self–defense unit from Ilūkste, drove Jews in groups of 30–50 to four pits behind the Jewish cemetery, where they shot them. In the course of the day, about 300 Jews of Subate and Jewish refugees from Lithuania were killed.
After the war, the pits with the victims buried therein were fenced off with a fence with concrete posts bearing Stars of David. During the Soviet times, those stars were covered with cement, which later fell off. The original monument was a low obelisk with a Russian inscription Память жертвам фашистского террора 1941 (Memory to the victims of the fascist terror, 1941) (see a photo in Meler 2010, 401, Meler 2013, 274).
In the 2000s, the monument from the Soviet time was replaced by a granite stele stylized as a traditional tombstone, with a decorated upper part, a Star of David, and a short dedication in English.
"Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia," a website by the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Latvia, http://memorialplaces.lu.lv/memorial-places/zemgale/ilukste-municipality-subate/.
Meler, Meyer, Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember (Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013), p. 376.
Meler, Meyer, Mesta nashei pamiati: Evreiskie obshchiny Latvii, unichtozhennye v Kholokoste (Riga: by the author, 2010), p. 403.
Rochko, Josif, Jewish Latgale: Guidebook (Daugavpils, by the author, 2018), p. 28.