Varakļāni Jewish Cemetery - a memorial to the victims of German-fascist terror
Memorial site

Varakļāni Jewish Cemetery, at the end of Kapsētas Street.

Two monuments can be seen, which were erected by surviving relatives and friends at the Varakļāni Jewish cemetery after the war.

One of them is located near the cemetery fence, where the mass extermination of Jews took place. The inscription on it in Russian and Yiddish reads: “We will forever mourn our parents, brothers and sisters who died at the hands of the fascists in 1941.” The second monument is located inside the cemetery; at the place where the murdered Jews were later reburied, it also has an inscription in Yiddish and Russian: “Eternal memory to the victims of German-fascist terror – the Jews of Varakļāni, brutally murdered on August 4, 1941.”

Nazi German troops entered Varakļāni in early July 1941 and from the very first days began the restriction of Jews and individual murders. A conditional ghetto was established near the Jewish cemetery, to which all Jews had to move. On August 4, in the territory of the Jewish cemetery, a German SD unit (“Arāja komanda”), with the help of local self-defense forces, shot practically all the Jews of Varakļāni (about 540 people).

Every year on the first Sunday of August, a memorial event dedicated to the Jews killed in Varakļāni is held at the Varakļāni Jewish Cemetery.