2 Killing site(s)
Ivan (Yanis) S., born in 1929: "The first shooting took place in July, on the outskirts of Zilupe, in the hamlet of Dinaborgski, where 17 Jews were killed. The column of victims passed by Dinaborgski’s house, and he later recounted the event to me. After the war, the bodies were exhumed and reburied in the Jewish cemetery.
In the following month, several more shootings—including a mass execution—were carried out near the village of Zabolocki, on land owned by Ivan Timofeev. The site was located at the foot of a hill near a river, approximately 500 meters from his house. Ivan also told me what he had witnessed there.
In the 1960s, a memorial was erected at this second killing site. No such marker was ever installed at the location of the first." (Testimony N°YIU142LV, interviewed in Zilupe, on August 20, 2022)
"After occupying the town of Zilupe, the Germans and their collaborators—local police officers and aizsargi—began the mass extermination of Soviet citizens, primarily Jews. In July 1941, all Jews were driven from their homes and confined in a so-called “ghetto” near the market square. They were stripped of civil rights, forced to wear yellow stars sewn to the front and back of their clothing, and held in inhumane conditions under police guard. The belongings left behind in their homes were looted by police and aizsargi.
The mass executions began in August 1941. Groups of 20–30 Jews were shot almost daily at two sites. The first group, 17 people, was executed in the village of Ranshyno [now Rakšina, Rakšini] in the Pasiena volost, in a birch grove near the hamlet of Ilia Petrovich Dinaborgski, about 50 meters from the Zilupe–Brigi road. According to Dinaborgski’s testimony, the victims were brought there in two trucks at night in early August 1941. Forced to dig their own grave, they were then shot with rifles. After the war, their remains were reburied in the Jewish cemetery.
Subsequent executions took place at the Zabolocki cemetery in the Brigi volost [now Briģi parish], about 3 km from Zilupe. More than 500 Jews were shot there in August 1941, including during a mass execution on August 24, when victims were brought and killed continuously from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Witnesses recalled that local police and aizsargi both escorted the Jews to the site and carried out the shootings. Kabylkina testified that she heard screams, moans, and children’s cries, and later heard drunken policemen boasting of atrocities—lighting fires inside the pits and forcing elderly Jews to jump over them, burning alive those who failed; smashing infants’ heads together before throwing them into the pit. Before execution, victims were stripped to their underwear, and their clothing was seized by the perpetrators.
An inspection after the war found two levelled pits at the Zabolocki cemetery, each measuring 6 × 4 meters, covered with ash mixed with small bones.
In May 1944, before retreating from Ludza uezd, the Germans exhumed the bodies in an attempt to erase evidence of the crime. The remains were burned on large pyres doused with gasoline, the fires kept alight for several days. Prisoners, chained together, were forced to carry out this work and were executed afterward. The site was guarded by German soldiers, with even local police denied entry.
The commission established that during the occupation of Ludza uezd, the German forces and their Latvian collaborators tortured and murdered civilians regardless of gender or age. In Zilupe alone, 517 people—including 129 children—were killed […]." [Act drawn by State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK), on December 20, 1944, pp. 15-17; GARF 7021-93-114/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M]
Zilupe—known as Rozenovsk until the early 20th century—is a small town in eastern Latvia, close to the Russian border, about 114 km (71 miles) northeast of Daugavpils. The settlement developed rapidly after the opening of the Vindava–Rybinsk railway in 1900, which connected it to major trade routes.
Jewish families were first permitted to settle in Zilupe in 1903, drawn by new commercial opportunities. The community quickly became an integral part of the town’s life. By 1930, approximately 500 Jews lived in Zilupe, representing about 70% of the population. Although this number remained stable during much of the interwar period, the Jewish share of the population decreased after Zilupe was granted town status and merged with surrounding villages. By the 1935 census, 471 Jews lived in the town, making up around 30% of residents.
Economically, the Jews of Zilupe played a dominant role in local commerce and services. They owned 59 of the town’s 69 shops and enterprises, including inns, bakeries, and workshops. Many worked as tailors, shoemakers, and artisans, while others engaged in small-scale manufacturing and trade.
Religious and community life centered on the synagogue, built in 1912, which also served as a meeting place for social and cultural events. A Jewish cemetery was established in the 1920s. Education was an important focus for the community: in 1923, a Jewish school opened, offering both secular and religious instruction, staffed by Jewish teachers. In 1939, a new two-story school building was completed.
During the interwar years, Jews in Zilupe participated actively in the town’s civic and cultural life, but they also experienced growing antisemitism, particularly in the 1930s. After Kārlis Ulmanis came to power in 1934, economic boycotts and political exclusion intensified. The Soviet occupation in 1940 brought further challenges: Jewish institutions were nationalized, religious activity was restricted, and some community members were deported to remote parts of the USSR. These measures, combined with political repression, marked the final disruption of Jewish communal life before the Nazi invasion in 1941.
At the start of the war, heavy bombing struck the Zilupe train station, killing many people and destroying numerous buildings, including homes, the hospital, and the synagogue. By the time the German army occupied Zilupe on July 6, 1941, many Jews had fled eastward, but an estimated 400 remained in the town. A new administration was quickly established, including the German military command post (Kommandantur) and the creation of a Latvian Self-Defense unit, also known as the auxiliary police or Aizsargi.
Soon after, the Jewish population was registered, and a series of anti-Jewish measures were introduced. Jews were forced to wear yellow stars and subjected to hard physical labor. Around mid-July 1941, local Jews, along with a number of refugees from Lithuania and other parts of Latvia, were forced to relocate to the poorest section of Zilupe, which was turned into a ghetto. Local police searched Jewish homes to ensure no one remained behind, while also looting their belongings.
The destruction of Zilupe’s Jewish population took place through a series of shootings in July and August 1941, carried out at two different sites. The first killing occurred on July 15, 1941 (though some sources place it in late July or early August), when 17 Jews were taken to a birch grove near the village of Rakšina. They were escorted there by Latvian policemen under the supervision of one or two German officers. Upon arrival, the victims were forced to dig a pit, into which they were shot and buried.
Because the site’s close proximity to the town made it unsuitable for further executions, subsequent killings were moved to a forested area near Zabolocki village in Briģi parish, about 1.5 km from Zilupe. One of the largest mass shootings took place there on August 24, 1941 (some sources suggest early September), coinciding with the liquidation of the Zilupe ghetto.
According to testimony from Yahad witness Ivan (Yanis) S., born in 1929, the ghetto inmates had initially been confined in a two-story Jewish school building. On the day of the liquidation, all the Jews were assembled in the town’s market square. Under the false pretense that they were being relocated to Ludza, they were taken—on foot and by truck—in groups to the killing site. Upon arrival, they were forced to undress and were then shot beside pits that had been prepared in advance. The Aktion was carried out by members of the Arājs Kommando, a Latvian auxiliary unit that had arrived from Riga, in collaboration with local police.
In May 1944, as the front lines approached, the bodies were exhumed and burned as part of Operation 1005, an effort to conceal evidence of the crimes. The work was carried out by 24 Soviet prisoners of war, who were murdered at the same site once the task was completed.
After the war, the remains of the 17 victims killed near Rakšina, along with those of other Jews murdered in the Zilupe area, were exhumed and reburied in the town’s Jewish cemetery, where three monuments were later erected. No memorial was ever placed at the original Rakšina killing site. In 1961, a monument was erected at the second site near Zabolocki village. It commemorates 246 Jews from the Zilupe municipality and five non-Jewish victims murdered there. According to Soviet archives, a total of 517 people were killed in Zilupe, including 129 children.
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