Sabile Holocaust

Sabile 1941

On June 14, 1941, prior to the German entry into Sabile, the Soviet Union deported massive numbers of Latvian citizens to Siberia. In Sabile, this only affected a handful of property owners.

In July, 1941, the Germans entered the area. On August 4th, all of Sabile’s Jewish families – 240 people – were imprisoned in a building near the Abava river. On August 6, 1941, the entire community was taken to the forest and shot, buried in a mass grave near Svente. In 1985, the memorial below was erected in that location.

From Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia, “During the Soviet period on the site of murder a monument was erected, it had a commemorative plaque in Latvian and Russian: “Here rest 240 victims of German fascists’ terror. Killed on 6 August 1941”.”

• Database of June 14, 1941 deportations
• Jews of Latvia: A Project. Names and Fates 1941-1945. This massive project to document Latvian victims of the Holocaust is now searchable by surname.
• Pinkas Hakehillot: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Latvia and Estonia, by Dov Levin, “Sabile“
• Sabile – Holocaust Memorial Places in Latvia, University of Latvia Judaica Study Center
• Yad Vashem
  • Photo database, Sabile
  • Shoah Names database, Sabile residents before the War
  • Shoah Names database, those killed in Sabile