Ančupāni Memorial to the Victims of the Second World War
Memorial site

The memorial is located in Ančupāni, in the vicinity of Rēzekne. It was created to commemorate the tragedy of Audriņi – the extermination of civilians during the Nazi German occupation, which took place in 1942 in the village of Audriņi, Makašāni Parish, Rēzekne County. From the autumn of 1941, several Red Army prisoners of war who had escaped, hid in Audriņi.

On 18 December 1941, their whereabouts were discovered and four auxiliary police troops were killed in clashes. On 24 December, 203 residents of Audriņi were arrested and imprisoned in Rēzekne Prison. On 3 January 1942, most of the arrested were shot near the Ančupāni Hills, about 5 km from Rēzekne, and on 4 January, 30 men, arrested in the village of Audriņi, were publicly shot in the market square of Rēzekne, and the village itself was burnt down. The memorial was unveiled on 27 July 1974. It was designed by landscape architect Alfons Kišķis (1910–1994). The evergreen spruce trees on the right side of the road symbolise people lined up to be shot, while the stone wall on the opposite side of the road represents the shooters. In the lowest part – the Valley of Suffering – a boulder-strewn path leads past the mass graves of the people who were shot, ending at a con crete wall with the inscription: “They died so that you might live.” Then, the stairs leading to the Square of Life follow, with the central sculpture “Mother Apple Tree” by sculptor Rasa Kalniņa-Grīnberga (1936) in the square.