Daugavpils Ghetto

Daugavpils Ghetto
Jews in the Daugavpils ghetto, probably in August, 1941
Also known as	Dvinsk ghetto, the Citadel, Ghetto Dünaburg
Location	Daugavpils, Latvia and vicinity, including Pogulyanka (Poguļanka) Forest (sometimes called Mežciems forest).
Date	June 26, 1941 to October 1943
Incident type	Imprisonment, mass shootings, forced labor, starvation
Perpetrators	Erich Ehrlinger, Joachim Hamann, Günter Tabbert, Roberts Blūzmanis
Organizations	Nazi SS, Rollkommando Hamann, Arajs Kommando, Latvian Auxiliary Police
Victims	13,000 to 16,000 Jews, mostly Latvians with some Lithuanians
Survivors	About 100

Following the occupation of Latvia by Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941, the Daugavpils Ghetto (German: Ghetto Dünaburg) was established in an old fortress near Daugavpils. Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia, located on the Daugava River in the southeastern, Latgale, region of Latvia. The city was militarily important as a major road and railway junction. Before World War II, Daugavpils was the center of a thriving Jewish community in the Latgale region and one of the most important centers of Jewish culture in eastern Europe.^[1] Over the course of the German occupation of Latvia, the vast majority of the Jews of Latgale were killed as a result of the Nazi extermination policy.