1 Killing site(s)
Justs O., born in 1931: "About two years after the shootings, the victims’ bodies were exhumed and burned. The people forced to carry out the exhumation and cremation had chains on their feet. Gasoline was poured directly into the mass grave before the remains were set on fire. The entire operation lasted one day. To prevent local residents from witnessing the process, the area was enclosed with a waxed canvas screen, approximately two meters high. Thick smoke spread through the village, and the stench was overwhelming. After the cremation, the graves were covered with sand. Once the Germans left, many people—including myself—went to the site, as money had been scattered around. It had likely been buried with the victims during the executions. There were only a few meters separating the three mass graves: one large pit for the Jewish victims and two smaller ones for the Roma victims. Two of the graves ran parallel to the cemetery, while the third lay slightly lower, positioned perpendicularly." (Testimony N°YIU132LV, interviewed in Dekšāres, on August 16, 2022)
"On August 3, 1941, at the Jewish cemetery in Varakļāni, 780 Soviet civilians of Jewish origin were executed. The mass grave at the site measured approximately 2 meters wide and 40 meters long. Salimon Alekseïevitch Iouchkevitch, a witness to the massacre, later recalled: "In the evening, they began bringing the Jews in and shooting them. Before being shot, they were ordered to undress and lie face down, placing their clothes and shoes beside them. They were executed in groups of ten. The shootings were carried out by soldiers wearing armbands marked with the emblem of death: a skull and two crossed bones."
In January 1942, the Germans rounded up all the Roma living in the town of Varakļāni and its surrounding volost. They were brought to the same cemetery and executed.
Over the course of the occupation, approximately 1,000 people were killed in Varakļāni by the German forces. Among the victims were 220 elderly individuals, 280 women, and 310 children. Prior to execution, the victims were detained in the courtyard of the Varakļāni cooperative, which served as the main holding area.
In July 1944, as the German defeat approached, the perpetrators attempted to erase evidence of their crimes. The bodies were exhumed and burned. According to witness accounts, “In July 1944, the bodies were dug up and burned by the Germans. They poured a flammable liquid over the remains before setting them on fire. The local population was strictly forbidden from approaching the site. Anyone who entered the restricted area risked being shot on sight, without warning." [Act drawn by State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK), on October 16, 1944, p. 97; GARF 7021-93-29/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M]
Varakļāni is located approximately 200 km (124 miles) east-southeast of Riga. The town was founded in the 18th century and, following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, was incorporated into the Russian Empire. Historical records indicate that a Jewish community was already established in Varakļāni by 1784. Around the same time, a Jewish cemetery and a burial society were founded, signaling the formation of an organized Jewish communal life.
By 1847, 250 Jewish residents were recorded in the town. Their numbers grew rapidly in the second half of the 19th century, reaching 1,365 by 1897—comprising approximately 75.4% of Varakļāni’s population. During this period, most Jews were engaged in the trade of agricultural goods, while many others worked as skilled craftsmen, including shoemakers and tailors. The Zogut family, for example, was well known—12 of its members worked as tailors.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Jewish population began to decline due to a combination of emigration to America and a cholera epidemic that claimed numerous lives. By 1935, following expulsions, the devastation of World War I, the upheaval of the Russian Revolution, and continued emigration, the community had decreased to 952 residents, still comprising 58% of the town’s total population.
During the interwar period, when Varakļāni became part of independent Latvia, the town maintained a vibrant Jewish communal and cultural life. Institutions included a Yiddish-language kindergarten, a Jewish primary school, a library, a drama circle, an orchestra, the Bikur Cholim healthcare society, and a pharmacy owned by a man named Gutman. Varakļāni was home to three synagogues: the Great Prayer House (Die Weise Shul) for Hasidic Jews, the Green (or Small) Synagogue, and a study house (beth midrash) used by the Misnagdim. Rabbi Leizer Yankel Grodsky served the community from 1918 onward.
Jewish residents played an active role in the town’s social and political life. Many were involved in both Zionist and non-Zionist movements, including the Bund, the Arbeiterheim, the Culture League, and even the outlawed Latvian Communist Party.
In 1928, Jews owned approximately 90% of Varakļāni’s businesses and workshops. However, by 1935, this number had been reduced by half as a result of government-imposed "Latvianization" policies, which sought to limit Jewish economic influence.
A major turning point came in 1940 with the Soviet annexation of Latvia. The new regime swiftly nationalized private businesses and closed many Jewish communal and cultural institutions, marking the beginning of a period of repression and decline for the town’s Jewish population—one that would soon be exacerbated by the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust.
Following the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, more than 200 Jews from Varakļāni succeeded in evacuating eastward. However, approximately 700 Jews—including some refugees—remained in the town when German forces occupied it at the end of that month. Soon after, a new local administration was established, which included the formation of a Latvian Self-Defense squad.
From the outset of the occupation, the new authorities began targeting individuals suspected of Soviet sympathies, including several Jews. Anti-Jewish policies were swiftly implemented. Jews were forced to wear yellow stars, barred from interacting with non-Jewish residents, and prohibited from receiving medical treatment from non-Jewish doctors. Their access to food was restricted to a few designated, poorly stocked stores. Jewish homes were looted, and community members were subjected to forced labor, such as cleaning streets and public areas.
Around mid-July 1941, the entire Jewish population of Varakļāni was forcibly relocated to the area near the Jewish cemetery, known as the Neustadt suburb. This section of the town became an open ghetto under the supervision of Latvian guards. Life in the ghetto was marked by systematic beatings, robbery, and forced labor. Several Jews were also killed by members of the Latvian police.
The Varakļāni ghetto was liquidated on August 4, 1941 (or August 3, according to Soviet archives) in a mass execution carried out by the SD unit known as the Arājs Kommando, which had arrived from Riga. They were assisted by members of the local Self-Defense squad and civilian collaborators. Prior to the executions, nearly the entire Jewish population was rounded up—along with their valuables—and detained in the basement and yard of the consumers’ cooperative building in the market square.
Under the false pretense that they were to be resettled in Palestine, the victims were transported to a killing site located behind the Jewish cemetery. There, a long pit had already been dug by requisitioned local men. Young Jewish men were the first to be taken by truck. Upon arrival, they were ordered to disembark, lie face down in the pit in groups of ten, and were shot. Later that evening, women, children, and the elderly were brought—on foot and in carts—and murdered in the same way. After the executions, the same local men who had been forced to dig the pit were made to cover it.
According to local sources, around 540 Jews were killed at the site that day, though Soviet archives place the number as high as 780. In 1942, approximately 20 local Roma were also murdered and buried in separate pits at the same location.
Witnesses interviewed by Yahad - In Unum reported that Gutman, the Jewish pharmacist, poisoned his own family on the day of the massacre in an attempt to spare them the horrors of execution. Several Jewish women who had been baptized and married to non-Jewish men were initially spared during the Aktion but were executed later. A number of Jews who attempted to hide were eventually discovered and perished in the surrounding marshes while trying to flee.
In July 1944, as the German defeat approached, the perpetrators launched efforts to conceal their crimes as part of Operation 1005. The victims’ bodies were exhumed and burned. Flammable liquid was poured over the remains, and the area was tightly controlled—locals were forbidden from approaching, and anyone entering the zone risked being shot on sight.
After the war, surviving relatives exhumed the remains from the pit located just beyond the cemetery fence and reburied them within the cemetery grounds. Two monuments were later erected: one at the original killing site and another at the reburial location, serving as lasting memorials to the victims of Varakļāni’s Jewish community.
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