Rezekne

Rezekne is a city and the administrative center of Rezekne Municipality. It has been known since 1264. In 1285, the Master of the Livonian Order, Wilhelm von Schauerburg (Willekin von Endorp Schaborch), laid the foundation of a castle there.

Until 1558, the castle was part of Livonia; from 1583 it belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (from 1655 to 1680 it was under Swedish rule). From 1772 it became part of the Russian Empire.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Rezekne was a district town of Vitebsk Province. In 1920–1940 it was part of the Republic of Latvia; in 1940–1991 it belonged to the Latvian SSR; and since 1991 it has again been part of the Republic of Latvia.

The town has had city status since 1773. Its names over time were: Rositten (until 1893), Rezhitsa (1893–1917), Rezekne (from 1920), briefly Rezhitsa again in 1944–1945, and since 1945 once more Rezekne.

Jewish Population

In 1786, about 500 Jews lived in Rezekne.

In 1802 — 536 (71.1% of the population);

1815 — 1,072;

1863 — 1,731 (51.3%);

1883 — 7,216;

1897 — 6,478 (60%);

1910 — 8,898 (43.2%);

1914 — about 11,000;

1920 — 4,148 (41.5%);

1925 — 3,911 (30.9%);

1930 — 3,577 (28.2%);

1935 — 3,342 (25.4%);

1944 — 4 Jews;

1996 — 129;

2001 — 102.

Jews settled in Rezekne in the last quarter of the 18th century, when a group fled from the village of Makashany, 18 km from the town, due to persecution. Members of this community continued to bury their dead in their native village. The Makashany cemetery was completely destroyed during World War I.

In 1786, a Jewish cemetery was established in Rezekne and the “White” prayer house was built. The town’s rabbi, Isaac Tsiyuni (known as Itsele of Ludza, as he was the son of the rabbi of Ludza), was buried there. The cemetery also served Jews from nearby shtetls such as Malta.

Community Institutions

The community operated a charitable fund “Kupat Zedaka Gedolah,” a public soup kitchen for the needy, a Bikur Holim society, and a home for the elderly.

In 1802 there were three Jewish merchants in the town.

In 1845 a synagogue was established.

In 1865 a Russian literacy school was opened by L. Pozin (by 1887 it had male pupils).

In 1851, Jewish merchants engaged in trade within Russia were permitted to reside in their own houses in the town, except in the square near the Orthodox church.

Religious Buildings

Green Prayer House (Der Griner Besmedresh), 5 Kraslavas Street — wooden building, constructed in 1845 with donations from homeowners; reconstructed in 1939; 105 members.

Merchants’ Prayer House — built in 1860 with donations from homeowners; 54 members.

Planover Prayer House, 17 Aizsargu Street — wooden building, constructed in 1870 with donations from homeowners; reconstructed in 1939; 44 members.

Stone Prayer House, 75 15 May Street — brick building constructed in 1878 by David Tager, Osher Pasman, and Zisel Pliner; reconstructed in 1929; 204 members.

Rabbis

In the first half of the 19th century (until 1858), the rabbis of Rezekne were:

Jonah Mann (1799–?)

Azriel Yafit (?–1861)

Isaak Tsiyuni (1861–1900)

From 1900, his son David Tsiyuni served as rabbi.

From 1904, Israel Dusovich (b. 1877–?) mainly ministered to the poorer members of the community.

From 1910, Leiba Perel served as rabbi.

From 1913, Haim Lubotsky (1877, Kovno — 1941), who ministered primarily to the more affluent members of the community; he was the author of Tosafot Haim.

From 1916, Movsha Skaruto (1889, Rositten — 1941).

At the beginning of the 20th century, the state-appointed (“crown”) rabbi was Yakov Polyak.

Communal and Public Life

In 1867, Rezekne had four synagogues and a first-class state Jewish school.

In 1875, a fire brigade was established with funds provided by Eliyahu Shapiro.

By 1887, there were ten synagogues in the city.

At the end of the 19th century, many Jews emigrated abroad. In 1893, emigrants from Rezhitsa (Rezekne) in the United States organized a charitable society called Bnei Rezhitsa.

At the end of the 19th century, a Jewish school with Russian as the language of instruction was opened (in the early 1920s, the language of instruction became Yiddish).

In the early 1890s, a Hovevei Zion (Palestine-loving) circle operated in the city. From the beginning of the 20th century, a Bund organization functioned there; in 1905 it formed a self-defense unit.

At the end of the 19th century, the town physician was N. Tynyanov, father of the writer Yury Tynyanov.

On the Eve of World War I

In 1910, Rezekne had ten synagogues, a Jewish elementary boys’ school with a girls’ division, a Talmud Torah, a society for aiding poor sick Jews, a Jewish loan-and-savings association, and a mutual fire insurance society.

In 1913, Jews owned:

one pharmacy and all six pharmaceutical warehouses, all five bakeries, four hotels, both photography studios, all three barbershops, the only café, all five watchmaking workshops, approximately 200 shops and stores in Rezekne (including 55 grocery shops, all 15 haberdashery stores, all 12 tobacco shops, and all 23 textile shops). All six timber industrialists and the town’s sole livestock dealer were Jews. One Jew rented furnished rooms.

World War I and Aftermath

In the summer of 1915, as the фронт approached, part of the Jewish population and community leaders left the city as refugees, finding shelter in various parts of Russia.

For a short time, about 800 Jews from Lithuania and Courland were present in the city, having been expelled from combat zones by order of the Russian Imperial Army command, which accused them of collaborating with the advancing German (Kaiser’s) army. They received assistance.

On June 17, 1917, Jews avoided a pogrom thanks to an appeal by the city authorities. However, they suffered not from the German army but from looting by units of General Dragomirov’s White Army.

From December 1918, Soviet power was established in the city. In the final months of its existence in 1919, the city became the capital of the Latvian Bolshevik government of Pēteris Stučka. Thereafter, independent Latvia established authority in Rezhitsa (Rezekne).

In 1920, there was an attempted pogrom in Rezekne, during which 27 Jewish shops and 5 apartments were looted.

With the assistance of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (“Joint”), restoration of the Jewish community began in 1920 under the leadership of Rabbi Lubotsky.

Between the world wars, the rabbis included Yakov Polyak, Israel Dusovich, Haim Lubotsky, Movsha Skaruto, and Shevel Iofin.

In 1922, 13 of the 20 deputies in the city council were Jews.

Respected Jewish families in the city included the Rivosh, Manteifel, Cherfas, Anshelevich, Bobrov, and Imyanitov families, among others.

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Jewish Community in the 1920s–1930s

In 1921, the city council resolved that all proclamations and notices issued by the municipal administration, as well as street name signs, were to be printed in three languages: Latvian, Russian, and Yiddish. The proposal was introduced by city council member Entin.

In August 1921, about 500 Jewish refugees from Russia who had arrived in Rezekne were sent back.

During the 1920s–1930s, branches of various Jewish political parties and organizations operated in the city. There were nine synagogues, including Hasidic ones.

From 1921 to 1934, the yeshiva Beis Yosef functioned under the leadership of Mordkhe Zvirin.

In 1922, with the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint), a committee for aiding orphans was established.

In the 1920s, a Hebrew-language school was opened.

In 1922, a gymnasium was founded with Russian as the language of instruction, later switching to Yiddish (director: Efim Grigorievich Grozdinsky, 1871–1934).

In 1924, the sports society Hakoah was established.

In 1927, a branch of OZE (Society for the Protection of Jewish Health) was founded; in 1938, a dental clinic opened; in 1939, a children’s summer camp was established. In 1929, three Jewish schools were operating.

In 1930, the humorous publication Rezicer Asmoday was issued.

Welfare and Social Aid

The Jewish charitable society of the city, under the leadership of Manteifel, through its women’s committee recruited new members who paid monthly dues and organized fundraising events. Its primary concern was the Haim Rivosh Old Age Home. Haim Rivosh had been a major timber merchant and contractor in the 19th century and maintained the home for the elderly.

A hospital called Bikur Holim was established for the poor and unemployed who could not afford medical care and medicines.

Considerable attention was devoted to children. The OZE health society began with the “Drop of Milk” campaign, instructing young parents in newborn hygiene and care, and supplying infants with milk formula when maternal milk was insufficient. Ninety percent of Jewish newborns were covered by its services.

Through the efforts of Mikhail Bobrov, municipal funding was secured to organize a kosher kitchen for poor Jewish schoolchildren. Each winter, the kitchen provided meals for 120 pupils, distributing about 18,000 free portions annually. Before Passover, pupils received everything necessary for the holiday; for Purim, they were given the traditional hamantaschen pastries.

To organize summer recreation, children were first gathered daily for several hours in a garden. Later, a semi-colony (day camp) was created, where 50 children from poor families attended for six weeks, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., receiving breakfast and lunch. This assistance was significant support for parents.

A dental office was organized, along with charitable societies: Malbish Arumim (“Clothing the Naked”), Gemilut Hesed (“Interest-Free Loan”), and Tzedakah (“Charity”), which sought to ensure aid reached all who needed it.

Political and Cultural Life

A number of political parties operated in Rezekne. Despite the absence of a substantial industrial working class, the General Jewish Labour Bund (Bund) was more influential than the Zionist organizations (Kadima and Mizrachi).

The city had branches of Agudat Israel, the Jewish People’s Party (Folkspartei), Socialist Zionists, Revisionist Zionists, and Zionist youth organizations including Betar, Bar-Kokhba, Hashomer Hatzair (“Netzach”), HeHalutz, Borochov Youth, and Herzliya.

Sports societies included Hapoel and Hakoah.

There were two Jewish elementary schools, a Jewish gymnasium, and several religious educational institutions.

After the Coup of May 15, 1934

Following the coup d’état of May 15, 1934, changes occurred in Rezekne. Only one elementary school remained, with two streams—Yiddish and Hebrew. The language of instruction in the Jewish gymnasium was Yiddish. The schools acquired a more religious character.

Among Zionist organizations, only the newly created Olim, Trumpeldor (Betar), and Herzliya continued to operate.

Jews continued to serve on the city council after the coup. Among them were Sholom Lurie, attorney G. Chertkov, and Iosif Arshan.

In 1935, Jews owned 75% of the commercial enterprises in Rezekne. Traditionally, they predominated in the primary processing of flax, as well as in the timber and lumber trade.

The publisher B. I. Shershevsky began his activity in Rezekne. Even earlier, in the 19th century, A. N. Imyanitov had founded a printing house employing ten workers; by the 1930s it was considered exemplary. Imyanitov also maintained a library.

German Occupation

Troops of Nazi Germany entered Rezekne on July 3, 1941. Already by July 9, when Einsatzkommando 1b arrived in the city, a local “self-defense” group numbering 120 men was active there; in other towns and shtetls of Rezekne district, similar groups of 30–80 men had been formed. Not relying solely on local forces, the occupiers requested an additional 30 men from Riga.

The first murder of Jews in Rezekne occurred on July 4, 1941, when 1,400 Jewish men were assembled in the market square. More than ten young men—including Borukh Veksler, Mitya Manteifel, and Mordukh Gassel—were shot on the spot to intimidate the others. The remaining Jews were sent to prison.

A week after the Germans’ arrival, members of the Einsatzkommando gathered the Rezekne “self-defense” units on the riverbank opposite the former militia building, where Jews were forced to exhume bodies. These were the bodies of approximately 30 Latvians who had been arrested by NKVD officers in the first days of the war. The corpses had been mutilated—genitals cut off, heads scalped, eyes gouged out.

The Jews compelled to exhume the bodies were accused of committing these crimes. When killings of Jews began, some attempted to escape down a ravine across the river and hide in Leshchinsky’s orchard. They were pursued and hunted down “like animals.” A total of 120 people were killed in the orchard.

This episode was described in a diary and in a letter to his wife by a German military chaplain who participated in the burial of the victims.

The story had further consequences. Articles appeared in the Latvian press alleging torture and executions carried out by NKVD personnel in Rezekne with the participation of Jewish doctors.

On September 6, 1941, the Nazi newspaper Tevija (“Fatherland”) published a report claiming, among other things, that victims had had the skin of their hands removed (“gloves taken off”), that Hildegarde Kurikova had her breasts cut off, teeth knocked out, and needles driven under her fingernails. The paper asserted that “documents and other materials” proved these claims.

However, at the instruction of the prosecutor in Daugavpils, who requested the alleged documentation, the Rezekne police conducted an investigation. Witnesses were questioned, and the police reported that “not everything published in the newspaper ‘Tēvija’ corresponds to the truth.” Kurikova was alive and living in Rezekne; there were no women among the exhumed bodies. According to the father of Yakov Terentyev, his son had been beaten and shot in the head, but no flesh had been cut from his back. No tongues had been cut out, no “gloves” removed, and no needles driven under fingernails. No evidence was found that Jewish doctors had participated in abuse.

The main goal of the Nazi authorities had been achieved—to incite hatred against the Jews. Given the rapid German advance, it is doubtful that the NKVD had time to carry out such elaborate tortures. In some places, there was not even time to fulfill their standard procedure of destroying archives.

The events in Rezekne bore the hallmarks of a typical Nazi propaganda operation, similar to those carried out in the first days of occupation in Daugavpils and Riga.

In early August 1941, over a period of two weeks, Jews were shot every morning at the Jewish cemetery in Rezekne. Three mass graves were discovered there, each 2.5 meters wide and 14, 16, and 30 meters long. A total of about 2,500 Jews were murdered at this site.

Beginning on August 23, 1941, Jews—alongside Roma, Latvians, and Russians—were executed in the Ančupāni Hills. Jewish women and children (the men had already been killed) were taken there to be shot. They were forced to undress; they were abused and raped in a guardhouse before execution.

After the majority of Rezekne’s Jews had been annihilated, the local “self-defense” group was dissolved on August 27, 1941, and reorganized into five police precincts.

According to a report of the Rezekne district police, as of June 20, 1942, the number of “liquidated” Jews in the 1st police precinct (Rezekne city) was 3,219 persons. For a time, only a few specialists were left alive; together with Jews who had been captured while in hiding, they were shot in 1943 in the Viping Forest.

Liberation frpm Nazi and Postwar Community

On on July 26, 1944 Soviet army entered Rezekne, with the participation of a rifle division under the command of Major General Mikhail Emmanuilovich Moskalik (1898–1956).

After that, several hundred Jews returned to Rezekne and reestablished the community. A synagogue functioned at 5 Kraslavas Street. The rabbi was Moses Borukhovich Shur (1876–?). On ordinary days, 30–40 people attended services; on holidays, 250–300.

A monument to the Jews of Rezekne murdered during the Holocaust was erected at the Jewish cemetery. In the 1950s, the rabbi of Rezekne was N. Shmukler.

In the early 1990s, a Jewish community was reestablished in Rezekne (chair: Diana Veysman; later I. Taits; currently Rashel Kuklya). In 2011, only several dozen Jews lived in the city.

Rezekne Jews erected two monuments at the cemetery: one at the lower section near the river (with an inscription in Hebrew), and another in the upper part of the cemetery, where burials continue.

In 2006, the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia installed a memorial at the intersection near Leshchinsky’s orchard. The inscription, in four languages, reads:

“On this site, on July 15, 1941, local Nazis shot 120 Jews of Rezekne.”

Notable Natives of Rezekne

Among those born in Rezekne were:

Mikhail Grulev

Michel Kikoine

Yury Tynyanov (grandson of Ber Epstein, whose firm had million-ruble turnover in the tsarist period)

Friedrich Ermler

Nathan Imenitov (1884–1965, Boulogne-Billancourt, France), French sculptor

Nison Mindel (1912–1999), rabbi, Ph.D. (1962), secretary to Menachem Mendel Schneerson, author of works on Jewish philosophy

Abram Tsemakhovich (Timofeevich) Rubish (1887–1938, Daugavpils), engineer and public activist, chairman of the Daugavpils branch of ORT, organizer of the Union of Merchants and Industrialists and the “Discount” credit association

Nachman Dimanshtein, poet

Arkady Neischloss, painter (perished in the Holocaust)

Dr. Anshelevich

Z. Ioffe, gabbai of the Riga synagogue

Ya. Polyak, director of several schools and colleges

Ya. Pliner, former deputy of the Saeima, later director of the “Eureka” school