1 Killing site(s)
Nora A., born in 1927: "The Germans occupied Koknese without resistance. Many local Latvians welcomed them with flowers and volunteered to serve under the new administration. Alfreds Lazdinsh, head of the pioneer unit, and Artis Mernieks were executed. The town’s Jewish residents soon disappeared; according to local accounts, they were taken to a nearby forest and killed. Some victims were reportedly buried alive, as the ground was seen moving after the burial." (Testimony N°YIU3LV, interviewed in Sērene, on October 9, 2018)
Koknese is a historic town in Latvia, the administrative center of Koknese Municipality, located on the right bank of the Daugava River. It lies approximately 21 km (13 mi) east of Jaunjelgava and 90 km (55.9 mi) southeast of Riga.
Little is known about the origins of the Jewish community in Koknese or when Jews first settled there. According to the 1935 census, 16 Jewish residents lived in the town, making up 2.47% of its total population. On the eve of the German occupation, five Jewish families remained in Koknese.
The local Jewish community consisted mainly of small merchants and skilled workers. Among them were Schiff, who sold various goods; Evian, who operated a fabric store; Kovnat, who ran a shop selling ready-made clothing and footwear; and Wulfson, the town’s pharmacist.
Koknese was occupied by German troops in late June or early July 1941.
Detailed information about the Holocaust in Koknese is scarce. One day in 1941, a local resident discovered the killing site in the Paugi Forest, where approximately 15–16 Jews from Koknese had been executed. Shaina Evian (Evjans) from Vecbebri, a village about 10 km from Koknese, was also murdered at the same site along with her family.
According to local witness Ruta Š., born in 1934 and interviewed by Yahad, Jewish families from Koknese—including both adults and children—were gathered and, during the night, escorted on foot to a nearby forest. There, near a sandy embankment by the roadside, they were lined up and shot. Witnesses recalled that the children were not shot but killed by being beaten with sticks. The Aktion was carried out by local Latvians, reportedly former members of the Aizsargi, who may have formed a Self-Defense unit at the start of the occupation.
Following the execution, the victims’ bodies—at least in part—were not buried and remained at the site, half-naked. Local residents, who knew the perpetrators, were outraged, particularly at the indignity of leaving corpses exposed by the road. Eventually, a man from the town, acting on his own initiative, went to the site and buried the bodies.
In 2006, the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia erected a monument at the killing site—a stone bearing an inscription in black granite, in both Latvian and English: "The Jewish families from Koknese: Shifs, Evjans, Kovnats, Vulfsons and Veiners were murdered in this forest in autumn, 1941."
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