Obj. ID: 50269 Memorial at the Killig Site of Men in the Kaziņas Forest in Ventspils, Latvia, 1959
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
The Jews of Ventspils
Description:
Inscriptions
Russian:
На этом месте
в 1941–1942 году
немецкие фашисты
и их приспешники
расстреляли и
зарыли многих
советских граждан
Translation: In this place, in 1941-1942, German fascists and their helpers shot down and buried many Soviet citizens.
Latvian:
Šajā vietā
1941.–1942. gadā
vācu fašisti un
to rokaspuisi
nobendēja un
apraka daudzus
padomju pilsonus
Translation: In this place, in 1941-1942, German fascists and their henchmen killed and buried many Soviet citizens.
Commissioned by
The authorities of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
6 image(s)
The Nazi troops occupied Ventspils on 1 July 1941. The first large–scale murder of Jews took place in the second part of July in the Kaziņas Forest; at the time a German SD commando, with the assistance of local self–defenders, shot 300 Jewish men. In August and September a couple of actions followed.
The monument was unveiled on May 9, 1959. In Soviet times, the monument was within the territory of a military base; therefore, it was publically accessible once a year on Victory Day, May 9.
Barkahan, Menahem, Rita Bogdanova, Meier Meler, Latvia: Synagogues, Jewish Cemeteries, Burial Places of the Holocaust Victims. Map of Memorable Places of Jewish History (Riga, 2005)., pp. 419-420.
"Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia," a website by the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Latvia, http://memorialplaces.lu.lv/memorial-places/kurzeme/ventspils-the-kazinas-forest-i/.
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. 25.
Meler, Meyer, Mesta nashei pamiati: Evreiskie obshchiny Latvii, unichtozhennye v Kholokoste (Riga: by the author, 2010), p. 92.