Obj. ID: 44078 Memorial at the murder place near the Jewish Cemetery in Rēzekne, Latvia, 1947/1948
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Rēzekne Jews murdered here in August 1941.
Description:
A modest monument is situated between the Jewish cemetery and the river, on the site where the murder of Jews took place in the first weeks of August 1941.
It is a typical funeral stele made of sandstone, with a Hebrew inscription and a menorah depicted in its upper part. The inscription is similar to the epitaph on the monument in the Jewish cemetery in Ludza (see here).
Inscription
Hebrew:
מצבת זכרון
חרותה בלבבינו
דמעות נוזלות מעינינו
על טפינו נשינו וזקנינו
ועל הרבנים דקהילתנו
שנטרפו ונשרפו מהחיות
הפאשיסטים
פה רעזיקנע תש"א
Translation: Monument of memory, inscribed in our hearts, tears are running from our eyes about our children, our women, and our old people, and the rabbis of our community that were butchered and burned by Fascist beasts, here in Rezekne, 1941.
Commissioned by
Surviving Jews of Rēzekne
The troops of Nazi Germany entered Rēzekne on July 3, 1941. The first murders of Jews took place already on the following day. A week later, for propaganda purposes, a group of Jews was ordered to unearth Latvians killed by the retreating Soviets. After that, regular shootings of Jewish inhabitants began in the Jewish cemetery, lasting during the first two weeks of August 1941. Three mass graves were found after the war.
The monument was erected after WWII, probably by the Jewish survivors. In 1980, it was supplemented by another monument situated inside the Jewish cemetery (see here).
"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/rezekne-the-jewish-cemetery/.
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. 45.
Meler, Meyer, Jewish Latvia: Sites to Remember (Tel-Aviv: Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, 2013), p. 279.
Meler, Meyer, Mesta nashei pamiati: Evreiskie obshchiny Latvii, unichtozhennye v Kholokoste (Riga: by the author, 2010), p. 308.
Rochko, Josif, Jewish Latgale: Guidebook (Daugavpils, by the author, 2018), pp. 32-33.