Obj. ID: 44101 Memorial at the Aizupieši Forest near Riebeņi, Latvia, 1955
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Riebeņi Jews murdered on this site
Description:
The monument on the mass grave of Riebeņi Jews is situated in the middle of a forest. It stands on an edge of the grave marked by a concrete frame.
It is a tombstone, probably Jewish, in secondary use. The black polished granite stele on a pedestal bears an inscription in Russian. Its back side (the front of the original tombstone) was once inscribed with an epitaph (probably Hebrew) to the deceased person which was removed. The front side of the pedestal was also once inscribed with an epitaph (probably in a non-Jewish language), which was removed.
Inscription
Russian
Вечная память
евреям местечка
Риебини
трагически
погибшим от руки
немецко-фашистских
оккупантов
23 августа 1941 года
Родственники
Translation: Eternal memory / to the Jews of the shtetl Riebini / tragically / perished by the hands / of the German-Fascist occupants/ August 23, 1941. Relatives.
Commissioned by
Relatives of the victims
All Jews of Riebeņi who did not escape to the interior areas of the USSR were murdered in the Aizupieši Forest on August 23, 1941. According to the information gathered by the local museum, 271 Jews were murdered, according to other sources, the number of victims is 381.
The mass grave was fenced already by 1947, as it is seen in photographs published by Meyer Meler (2010, p. 363; 2013, p. 285).
In 1955, the monument on the mass grave was erected “thanks to the local administration and to the victims’ relatives” (Meler 2010, p. 363; Meler 2013, p. 286). The inscription, however, mentions only victims’ relatives.
In 1959, local authorities planned landscaping and upkeep of the mass grave (Lenskis, p. 33).
"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/riebini-municipality-the-aizupiesi-forest/.
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. 33, 58.
Meler, Meyer, Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember (Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013), pp. 285-286.
Meler, Meyer, Mesta nashei pamiati: Evreiskie obshchiny Latvii, unichtozhennye v Kholokoste (Riga: by the author, 2010), pp. 362-364.