2 Sitio(s) de ejecución
Anatolijs T., born in 1934:
Y.U.: After the shooting [of Jews in Aknīste], did you visit the place where the victims had been shot?
Witness: Yes, I saw the place before they were buried. [...]
Y.U.: Were the bodies arranged in order or in disorder?
Witness: In disorder, in disorder. Only one body was separated from the others.
Y.U.: Why?
Witness: There was a Jew in Aknīste called Apka. That was his first name. I don't know what his other occupations were, but he sometimes delivered meat to our family. He would travel around the parish to buy meat from farmers and sell it in town. I think that's why he wasn't locked up with the other Jews the night before—simply because he was out of town. In the morning, he arrived and was immediately arrested by an armed Schutzmann.
The pile of victims' bodies was still moving a little. Apka and the Schutzmann stopped on the main street, and Apka put his bag of goods down on the ground. [...] Then he walked with the policeman. After a while, we heard a shot, and my father told us it was Apka’s bullet.
We went back to our neighbor's house to take one last look through the [attic] window. About 150 meters away, between the house and the pile of bodies, we could see Apka’s body.
(Testimony N°YIU184LV, interviewed in Carnikava, on October 10, 2022)
"In July 1941, in the village of Aknīste, the fascist invaders shot 175 Jews of Aknīste, including women and children. The bodies were buried in two mass graves.
The 1st pit, 12 meters long and 1.7 meters wide and containing 85 bodies, is located to the northeast of the village, 300 meters from the road, at the end of Jaunā Street, and 150 meters from the town's main street, Ilūkstes Street.
The second pit, 10 meters long and 1.9 meters wide and containing 90 bodies, is located opposite Tirgus Street. It is located 20 meters from the militia, 200 meters from the market square and 180 meters southwest of the city's main street, Ilūkstes Street." [Act drawn by State Extraordinary Soviet Commission (ChGK), on October 12, 1944, p.101; GARF 7021-93-111/Copy USHMM RG.22-002M]
Aknīste is a town in Jēkabpils Municipality, in the Selonia region of Latvia, located near the Lithuanian border. It is situated approximately 44 km (27.3 mi) south of Jēkabpils. The town was first mentioned in written sources in 1298. Aknīste was part of Lithuania until 1921, when it was exchanged for Palanga and incorporated into Latvia.
The first trace of the Jewish community in Aknīste dates back to the mid-19th century. According to the 1935 census, the town had 199 Jewish residents, comprising 42% of the total population. The Jewish community of Aknīste was primarily engaged in commerce, operating most of the town’s stores. Grocery stores were run by Yankel Kogan and Feiga Elterman, while stores selling imported merchandise were operated by Rosa Berkovich, Sarah Sher, and Etta Gordon. Jews also owned four butcher shops and six textile shops. A number of Jews were involved in the service and artisanal sectors, including the Zlatakrilovs family, whose father was a coachman and whose eldest son worked as a tinsmith.
Aknīste had a Jewish library and a prayer house, which was run by Rabbi Yankel Sheftelovich (the building was later converted into a fire station after the war).
In 1940, Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union, and a number of its residents were deported to Siberia. The exact number of Jewish residents who remained in Aknīste on the eve of the Second World War is unknown, but according to eyewitnesses interviewed by Yahad, numerous Jewish families still lived in the town at that time.
Aknīste was occupied by German troops on June 26, 1941. By mid-July, the town’s Jewish residents, along with some Soviet activists—approximately 170 people in total—were rounded up by members of the local Self-Defense unit and imprisoned in the restaurant of the hotel "Austria," owned by Kossov. According to a local witness interviewed by Yahad, a number of Jews from surrounding villages, such as Susēja and Gārsene, were also gathered in the same hotel.
After spending a couple of days locked up in the hotel’s restaurant, on the morning of July 18, 1941, the Jewish detainees were divided into two groups. The first group was led out of the hotel "Austria" and shot in the yard behind the building of the bathhouse by members of the Aknīste Self-Defense unit and those who had arrived from Ilūkste. The victims were forced to stand in a circle and were shot all together by the perpetrators. In the afternoon of the same day, the remaining Jews were taken to the outskirts of town—to the end of Jaunā Street—and shot there by the same perpetrators.
One Jewish merchant, Apka, who had been out of town buying meat for resale, was killed later the same day after returning to Aknīste.
The victims’ bodies were left unburied until Soviet Komsomol members, who had been requisitioned, dug the pits. Afterwards, they were buried in two different locations: the first group of 90 victims killed in the hotel yard was buried in a pit on Tirgus Street, and the second group of 85 victims was buried in a pit dug at Jaunā Street.
Following the destruction of the Jewish community in Aknīste, the victims’ stores and homes were looted.
According to local witness accounts, in the summer of 1943, on the orders of the Germans, at least one of the pits was reopened to add lime before being closed again.
In the early 1950s, the reburial of the victims was initiated by Khone Galsman, a Jewish survivor from Aknīste who had become head of the town’s executive committee. Another survivor, Mary Calit (married surname), the daughter of Margenik, also helped organize the reburial. The victims’ bodies were exhumed and reburied behind the municipal cemetery of Aknīste, where a monument was erected several years later. The family of Leiba Feldhun, from Ganības farm in Asare parish, was also reburied in Aknīste. A memorial stone bearing the inscription "18.07.1941" was placed at the killing site on Jaunā Street.
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