Holocaust Memorial Memorial site

In August 2004, a Holocaust Memorial was opened on Cēsu Street in Preiļi. The architect was Sergejs Rižs, and the author and financier of the idea was David Zilbermanis, a local resident living in the United States. The memorial is located in the area between the graves of Jewish citizens and the shooting pits of Jewish residents.

The first Jews arrived in Preiļi at the beginning of the 19th century, when the town of Preiļi began to form. According to the 1935 census, out of 1,662 residents of Preiļi, 847 (51%) were Jews. Most of them were merchants, craftsmen, as well as intelligentsia – doctors and teachers.

When the German Nazi army entered on July 28, 1941, more than 720 Jews from Preiļi and the surrounding area were exterminated on August 9 and 10. After the war, some Jews returned to Preiļi, but the community was never restored.

In 2013 and 2014, students of the German youth association LOT and its leader Klaus Peter Rex carried out clean-up and monument cleaning work at the Jewish citizens' cemetery. A map of the cemetery was drawn up. In 2015, at the initiative of David Zilbermanis, with his funding and donations, a memorial arch was opened for the Jewish community in Preili, at the entrance to the Jewish citizens' cemetery, on the way to the Holocaust Memorial.

In 2018, the Preiļi Memorial Society (chairman Sergejs Rižs) conducted excavation work at the site of the killing of Jews next to the cemetery of Jewish citizens. Three pits were discovered. After conservation, the material evidence can be viewed in the main exhibition of the Preiļi History and Applied Arts Museum at Raina Boulevard 28. Museum specialists offer visitors the educational program “Thinking about the Holocaust means thinking about yourself.” The program begins in the museum exhibition and ends at the Holocaust Victims Memorial. The memorial, together with the cemetery, is used to educate the public as an open-air museum.