Obj. ID: 52631
Jewish Funerary Art Holocaust memorial in Silene, Latvia, 1957
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Jews of Silene (former Borovka), murdered on this site.
Description:
The monument is situated at the shore of the Smiļģiņa Lake.
The monument stands on the mass grave which is surrounded a fence. The monument is a black granite stele on a large base faced by red stones. The stele bears a Hebrew and a Russian inscription. The date, August 1957, is written in the lower right corner in Russian.
Inscription:
Hebrew
חבל על דאבדין ולא משתכחין [סנהדרין קי"א א]
לזכר חללי השועה [השואה]ה שנענו ונפלו
על קידוש השם האומה בידי הנאצים
בשנת ה' תש"א
Translation: Woe over those who are gone and are no longer found (Sanhedrin 111a). In memory of the Holocaust victims that were tortured and slain for the sanctification of the [Jewish] nation by the Nazis in the year 1941.
Russian
Незабвенным еврейским
жертвам павшим от рук
фашистов, июль 1941 г.
в Боровке
Август 1957 г.
Translation: To unforgettable Jewish victims who perished at the hands of fascists in July 1941 in Borovka. August 1957.
Commissioned by
Jews from Silene
sub-set tree:
On 21 July 1941 the Jews of Silene (former name Borovka) and “Soviet activists” were arrested. The activists were kept in the Small synagogue and the Jews – in the Grand Synagogue. About 27 July, the arrested Jews were taken to the vicinity of the Smiļģiņa Lake, where a voluntary commando of murderers, formed by members of self–defense units of Silene, Skrudaliena, and Saliena, shot them.
A monument on the killing site was installed in August 1957 (according to the inscription. It is important to note that the Hebrew inscription begins with a citation from the Talmud and speaks about “the sanctification of the nation,” not of God’s name. The Russian inscription, on the other hand, explicitly says that the victims were Jews.
"Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia," a website by the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Latvia, http://memorialplaces.lu.lv/memorial-places/latgale/daugavpils-municipality-silene/.
Lenskis, Ilja, Holokausta piemina Latvijā laika gaitā 1945–2015 = Holocaust Commemoration in Latvia in the Course of Time, 1945–2015 (Riga: Muzejs “Ebreju Latvija,” 2017), p. 63.
Meler, Meyer, Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember (Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013), pp. 355-356.
Meler, Meyer, Mesta nashei pamiati: Evreiskie obshchiny Latvii, unichtozhennye v Kholokoste (Riga: by the author, 2010), pp. 382-383.
Zeltser, Arkadi, Unwelcome Memory: Holocaust Monuments in the Soviet Union, trans. A.S. Brown (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2018), pp. 211n221, 282.