History

The Jewish community in Rēzekne (Pol. Rzeżyca) most likely emerged in the final quarter of the 18^th century. In 1786, the local Jewish cemetery was established alongside the so-called white house of prayer.

In 1802, a total of 542 Jews lived in Rēzekne, including three merchants. In 1815, the number of Jews reached 1,072, accounting for 90% of the entire population. In 1851, the local Jewish merchants were granted permission to erect their own houses. They could be built anywhere in the town with the sole exception of the square in front of the Orthodox Christian church. In the years 1861–1900, Isaac Tzioni served as the local rabbi. He was the son of the rabbi of Ludza and was commonly referred to as “Yitzele from Ludza.” Later on, his son Ben-Chaim Tzioni (1885–1944) went on to become the rabbi of Kazan, while his grandson – Yitzchok Zilber (1914–2004) – was the founder of the Toldos Yeshurun religious movement, whose the primary aim was to promote Orthodox Judaism among the Russophone Jews of Israel.

According to the 1897 census, there were 10,795 people living in Rēzekne, including 6,478 Jews, who accounted for 60% of the town’s population. In 1914, the number of Jews increased to ca. 11,000 – a half of the entire population of Rēzekne. Before World War I, the town had its own Talmud Torah school with a total of 100 students, as well as a Jewish people’s school, with girls and boys attending it on separate shifts. The most popular among the local political movements was the Bund, which had ca. 100 members. It founded a self-defence unit which kept the looming threat of pogroms at bay. The Bund was also responsible for the workers’ strikes which took place in 1905.

A number of well-known individuals were born in the town of Rēzekne towards the end of the 19^th century, including the poet Nachum Dimanstein, the Russian writer and literary scholar Yury Tynyanov (1894–1943, grandson of the local industrial tycoon Ber Epstein, whose company had a turnover reaching millions of roubles in the tsarist era), the Soviet komdiv (division commander) Semon Ventsov-Krantz (1897–1937), the artist Arkady Nayshlos (murdered during the Holocaust), and the film director Fridrich Ermler (1898–1967).

Following the Russian Revolution, the local Jews lived in fear of an impending pogrom, but it was ultimately prevented by the intervention of the municipal authorities on 17 June 1917. In the years 1917–1919, the town of Rēzekne changed hands on numerous occasions; first captured by the German army, it was then taken over by the White Army forces led by General Dragomirov, followed by the Latvian Bolshevik government of Pēteris Stučka. The town eventually became part of the independent Latvian state, with demobilised Latvian soldiers plundering the local shops in 1920 on three occasions. All these circumstances led to a decline in the size of the local population, including, in particular, its Jewish part. In 1920, there were 4,148 Jews living in the town, accounting for 41.5% of its entire population. The provenance of the residents also changed significantly, with many of the former locals migrating deep into the Russian territory and replaced by newcomers from Courland and Lithuania.

Once Latvia gained its independence in 1920, the local pre-war Jewish organisations resumed operations. The Rivosh, Manteifel, Tscherfas, Anshelevich, Bobrov, and Imianitov families managed to preserve their high social status. During the interwar period, there were nine different synagogues and houses of prayer in Rēzekne. The local rabbis were Jakub Polak, Israel Dusovich, Chaim Lubotzky, Moshe Skaruto, and Shevel Yofin. In 1922, 13 out of 20 members of the municipal council were Jews. The town had two Jewish primary schools, a Jewish secondary school (founded in 1922), as well as a number of religious educational facilities. In 1923, the main Jewish primary school changed its language of instruction from Russian to Yiddish; at that time, the school had a total of 448 students. A local Hebrew-language school was opened despite strong opposition. The decline of the local Jewish population proved to be a lasting trend. In 1925, there were 3,911 Jews living in the town, which had a total population of 12,260.

The local Jewish community became involved in numerous charitable initiatives. The Jewish Charitable Society, headed by Mikhail Manteifel, remained active throughout the 1920s and the 1930s. Its activities were supported by a “women’s committee” which ensured the influx of new members, all of whom paid monthly contributions. In addition, the Society also organised fundraising events. Most of the obtained funds were allocated to the maintenance of the local nursing home, originally founded back in the 19^th century. The institution was named after Chaim Rivosh, a 19^th-century timber merchant, construction company owner, and philanthropist. During the interwar period, the old nursing home received a new lease of life. In addition, a Bikur Cholim hospital was established, catering to the poor and unemployed.

Thanks to the efforts of Mikhail Bobrov, the municipal council allocated funds for the establishment of a Jewish kosher canteen for impoverished pupils. During the winter, the establishment provided hot meals for a total of 120 children, with 18,000 meals handed out free of charge every year. During Passover, students who came to the canteen would be provided with everything that a Jewish family should have on that occasion. Traditional hamantash pastries would be given out to celebrate the Purim holiday. In the summer, the establishment organised various recreational activities for the pupils under its care. These included day camps for 50 children from impoverished families, who would stay at the camp from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for six weeks.

The Jewish Healthcare Society (known in Poland as the TOZ) also operated in the town, with one of its main initiatives being “A Drop of Milk” – a health and nutrition-oriented campaign for the benefit of new-born babies. 90% of all Jewish children remained under the care of the local TOZ. Other charitable organisations included Malbish Arumim (“Clothing for the Poor”), Gemilut Chesed (“Loving Kindness”) and Tzedakah (“Charity”). There was also a local dental surgery which operated on a charitable basis.

A number of Jewish political parties are known to have operated in Rēzekne during the interwar period. Despite the fact that the working class was not present in large numbers, the Bund continued to have a much greater influence than the local Zionist organisations – the Kadima and the Mizrachi. Branches of the Agudath, the Jewish Peoples’ Party, the Zionist-Socialists and the Revisionist Zionists also had their followers in the town. Various youth organisations affiliated with the Zionist movement remained active in Rēzekne; these included the Betar, the Bar Kochba, the Hashomer Hatzair, the HeHalutz, the Borochov Yugnt, and the Herzliya, as well as the HaPoel and HaKoach sports societies.

The situation changed following the coup d'état of 15 May 1934. Only a single Jewish school remained active, its students being able to choose between two classes – class “a,” in which lessons were taught in Yiddish, and class “b,” in which the language of instruction was Hebrew. The language of instruction at the local Jewish secondary school was Yiddish. In general, all schools started to put much greater emphasis on religious education. The Zionist organisations which remained active in town were the Betar, the Herzliya, and the newly formed organisation called Olim. Three Jews – attorney-at-law G. Chertkov, Shalom Luri, and Josef Arshan – sat in the municipal council.

In 1935, 3,342 Jews lived in Rēzekne (25.4% of the total population). Nonetheless, they still owned 75% of all local businesses (299 out of 398). For many years, Jews had held sway over the linen processing industry and the timber trade (including, in particular, construction timbers). With the establishment of B. Shershevsky’s publishing house, the town also became a local publishing centre. A local printing house owned by A. Imianitov was founded back in the 19^th century. The company remained in business throughout the interwar period, with Imianitov himself also working as the director of the local library. By 1939, a total of 349 students had graduated from the local Jewish secondary school.

During the Soviet occupation of Latvia in the years 1940–1941, the Jewish cultural and social life was put to an almost total halt.

On 3 July 1941, the German forces captured the town. By the time the Einsatzgruppe 1b arrived to Rēzekne on 9 July, a group of Nazi collaborators known as the “Self-defence,” consisting of ca. 120 individuals, had already become active in the town. Similar squads comprising 30–80 members were also formed in other towns around the district. Apart from local residents, the Rēzekne “Self-defence” unit also included ca. 30 people from Riga.

The first mass murder of Jews took place on 4 July 1941. A group of 1,400 Jewish men was gathered at the local market square. Ten of them – including Boruch Weksler, Mitia Manteifel, and Morduch Hassel – were executed by a firing squad in order to force the rest into submission. The remaining local Jews were locked away in prison. When the Einsatzgruppe arrived, the Germans ordered the “Self-defence” militiamen to take positions along the river bank, where the local police force used to be stationed before the war. The local Jews were ordered to exhume the bodies of the people whom the NKVD had arrested and killed in the first days of the Soviet-German conflict. Dismembered bodies of ca. 30 Latvians were found, many of them missing their genitals and eyes, with some of the skulls showing signs of scalping. The Germans accused Jews of perpetrating the heinous crime and began shooting at them. Jews attempted to flee by jumping off the precipice into the river and swimming into the Leščinska orchard. The Nazis organised a manhunt, tracking down the fleeing Jews as if they were animals. As a result, between 120 and 140 people lost their lives in the orchard.

These events were later described by the German army chaplain who participated in the funeral of the victims. In his diary and in the letter to his wife, he wrote:

“The bodies, buried beneath the shack, were unearthed by the children who had come there to play. The Todt organisation, tasked with the renovation of the local roads, brought in a group of Jews – about 70 people in total – and forced them to begin exhuming the dead. When one of the prisoners refused, he was beaten up. He still would not start digging up the corpses, so he was executed on the spot. Many Jews were beaten up so badly that they were barely even alive. Once the bodies were exhumed, Jews were pushed into the pit and sprayed with gunfire from pistols and rifles. Since there was not enough time to drive all prisoners into that pit, some of them were simply slaughtered with the shovels which had been brought to the site to dig up the graves. What caused a general outrage at our staff was that it was not only the Latvians, but also the troops forming part of the Todt organisation who murdered those prisoners… However, everyone seemed to agree that Jews should have been lined up against the wall. The local propaganda unit filmed footage during the funeral that followed [...]. It may be that another town will be included in that film, for similar executions were carried out in all Baltic states back in those days.” In 2006, the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia had a monument built on the site to commemorate the Jews murdered there during the war. The monument is located at the crossroads, near the Leščinska orchard.

The mass murder committed in the orchard had significant repercussions. On 6 September 1941, the Nazi newspaper called Vaterland published a report written by its Latvian correspondent. The author listed specific examples of alleged atrocities; some of the dead men, he wrote, had strips of skin torn away from their backs, with the wounds later sprinkled with pepper and salt. Others had their “gloves taken off,” as he put it, which meant that their hands would be placed in boiling water, allowing the skin to be peeled from them like gloves later on. A woman named Hildegarda Kurikova allegedly had her breasts amputated and her teeth kicked out, while needles were driven underneath her fingernails. “All of this is confirmed by the existing documentation and other materials,” the newspaper concluded. At the request of a prosecutor from Daugavpils who ordered the aforementioned documents to be presented, the Rēzekne police launched an investigation; following a number of witness hearings, the police stated that “not all of the information presented in the newspaper turned out to be true. Kurikova is still alive and resides here, in Rēzekne. None of the bodies found belonged to women. The father of one of the murder victims, Jakov Terentev, stated that his son had been beaten up and then killed by a shot to the head; however, no skin was ever peeled from his back. The allegations of tongues being wrenched out, skin being peeled off the hands of the victims or needles being driven under their fingernails also turned out to be false. So far, no evidence has been found which would suggest that Jewish doctors have ever mutilated any of the dead bodies.”

In spite of all this, the Germans achieved their intended goal, inciting the local population to develop growing hatred towards Jews, much as they had done in Daugavpils and Riga. As a result, executions of Jewish residents would take place on every morning in the Rēzekne Jewish cemetery from the beginning of August 1941, for a period of two weeks in total. Three mass graves – all of them 2.5 metres wide – were dug on the site, their respective length being 14, 15 and 30 metres. Ca. 2,500 people were murdered throughout that period, with Jews, Romani, Latvians, and Russians routinely shot to death up in the Ančupāni Hills since 23 August 1941. Both women and children were murdered there; the men had already been executed by that time. Women were stripped naked, tortured, and raped in the guardhouse. Once all of the Jews were killed, on 27 August 1941 the “Self-defence” units were disbanded, with their members transferred to the local police.

According to the report prepared by the district police in Rēzekne, by 20 June 1942 the number of murdered Jews had reached 3,219. According to Rachela Kukla, the chairwoman of the postwar Jewish community council in Rēzekne, those who managed to survive the longest were professionals whom the occupying forces found useful. In the end, however, all of them were executed in the Vipingas Forest in 1943, along with all hiding Jews captured by the Germans.

Once the war came to an end, the town saw the return of several hundred Jews who had managed to flee deep into the Soviet territory after the German invasion of the USSR. With time, most of them moved to the city of Riga.

The entry incorporates large fragments of the text Daugavpils by Mejer Meler, forming part of the book entitled Mesta Nashey Pamyati. Yevreyskie Obshchiny Latvii, Unichtozhennye v Holokoste. The text was made available to POLIN Museum courtesy of the “Jews in Latvia” Museum in Riga (Muzejs “Ebreji Latvijā”), for which we extend our deepest gratitude.

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