The Untold Stories. The Murder Sites of the Jews in the Occupied Territories of the Former USSR

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Community:

Ludza

Murder Sites:

The Brick Factory

Rezekne Street

Pogulyanka

The Garbarovsky Forest

Commemoration:

Commemoration of Jewish Victims

Ludza

Ludza, Ludza County, Latgale District, Latvia

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View of the town, 1928
YVA, Photo Collection 8206/3

The Jewish community of Ludza (until 1920, Lyutsin) dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. Most of the Jewish population worked as artisans, loaders and tradesmen.
Ludza Jewry was famous for its rabbis. In 1880-1882, Abraham Isaac Kook, the future Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, lived in Ludza and was taught by the local rabbi, Eliezer Don Ichye. Rabbi Eliezer’s son Ben Zion Don Ichye was one of the founders of the Mizrachi movement in Latvia, and the last rabbi of Ludza from 1926 until his death in the Holocaust.
During the period of the Independent Latvian Republic (1919-1940), some Jewish schools operated in Ludza.
After the Soviet occupation of Latvia in June 1940, all private enterprises were nationalized, and Jewish community institutions closed. Numerous Ludzan Jews were arrested on the night of June 14-15, 1941, and exiled to the Soviet interior.
The Germans occupied Ludza on July 3, 1941. The ghetto was established the same month. The Jewish population was murdered in several operations from July 1941 until the spring of 1942.
The Red Army liberated Ludza on July 23, 1944.

Related Resources

List of Jewish Victims