Riebiņi ( lv, Riebiņi, ltg, Ribiniški, pl, Rybiniszki, yi, Ribinishok) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in Riebiņi Parish,

Preiļi Municipality Preiļi Municipality ( lv, Preiļu novads) is a municipality in Latgale, Latvia. The municipality was formed in 2000 by merging Aizkalne Parish, Preiļi Parish and Preiļi town. In 2009 it absorbed Pelēči Parish and Sauna Parish, too the a ...

in the Latgale region of Latvia.

History

The village was a

shtetl A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...

, and most of the inhabitants were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. According to the census of 1897, there were 533 Jews living in the village (91% of the total population). In the beginning of the 20th century, many of the Jews left for Israel or the United States, and in 1935, Jews constituted 68% of the total population. At the end of August 1941, Latvian civil defense police (reportedly - former members of the ''

Aizsargi Aizsargi (literally: "Defenders", "Guards") was a volunteer paramilitary organization or militia ( lv, Aizsargu organizācija, "Guards Organization", AO) in Latvia during the interbellum period (1918–1939). The Aizsargi was created on March 3 ...

'') arrested Jews and locked them into the synagogues. Then they were moved to Ribiniški Forest (4 km. northwest of the shtetl) and murdered there in a mass execution. There were some local inhabitants from Solutions district who took part in the massacre and several Germans who watched it.

References

Towns and villages in Latvia Shtetls Jewish Latvian history Holocaust locations in Latvia Preiļi Municipality Latgale {{Latgale-geo-stub