CEMETERY FOCUS December 2010: Asote, Zemgale, Latvia

Details of Access: The site is located in the Krustpils district, in Kuku county, at the border of Jekabpils. There are no road signs, but it is accessed by taking the ‘A6’ Highway from Riga to Daugavpils. The Jewish cemetery of Asote is on the left side of the highway about 200m past the border of Jekabpils.

Location & Demarcation: The cemetery is situated in a suburban location, on flat land, separate, but near other cemeteries. The cemetery boundary is formed by a metal fence on three sides, and the fourth side consists of the old gravestones from Krustpils cemetery. No road or entrance sign mark the site.

Graves, Gravestones, Memorial Markers & Structures: The cemetery contains marked mass graves and a memorial monument to the Holocaust victims. Burials at this Cemetery are indexed. The registry is located at the office of the chairman of Jekabpils Jewish community. This the only Jewish cemetery which emerged in Latvia after the Second World War. In the 1950’s, the old Jewish Cemetery in Krustpils (founded in the early 19th century) was liquidated, and the tombstones were transported to Asote and arranged in rows on the border of the cemetery. In 1958, the remains of Jews from Krustpils and Plavinas, killed in 1941, were reburied at this cemetery. A year later, a monument was erected.

History of the Jewish Community: Throughout the period up to the end of the 18th century, Jews were officially banned from living in what was then known as Jacobstadt. In 1739, the few Jews who lived in the town (despite the ban) were expelled. In 1786, Jakobstadt rejected a suggestion from Baron von Recke to allow Jews to live in the town. The ban was ultimately annuled in 1795.
In 1830 a yeshiva was opened – one of the first in Kurland. In 1840, seven families (40 people) moved from Jakobstadt to Kherson gubernia to work on the land. In 1881, 2,254 Jews (41% of the total population) lived in the town. By 1935, the Jewish proportion of the town’s population was down to 14% (793 people). In 1915, the Russian administration demanded from those members of the Jewish community who had avoided resettlement into Russia, that they provide three hostages as a guarantee of their loyalty. The hostages were Gershon Landman, Baer Schreiber and Yosef Gurfinkel.
In 1922, the Jews of Jekabpils were accused of kidnapping a Christian boy and there was a strong likelihood of a pogrom breaking out but the situation was resolved by the intervention of the police.
The municipal authorities allowed Jewish merchants to keep their shops open on Sunday afternoons.
On June 29, 1941, Jekabpils was occupied by Nazi troops. A few days later, all the Jews were locked into the synagogues, where they were kept until September of the same year when they were killed 12km away from the town at the Kukas swamp.
From 1944-1953 and 1963-1964, David Morgen, a Jekabpils Jew, was head of the town’s administration.
Jews who returned to the town after the war rebuilt the cemetery and created a minyan which operated until the early 1990s, when many local Jews left Latvia. The community was officially registered in 1994. It is a member of the Council of Jewish Communities of Latvia and has approximately 40 people, mostly senior citizens.

Source: Jewish Community of Latvia as part of a Lo Tishkach youth project. Images © Lo Tishkach Foundation