Apraksts
Nearby is a memorial dedicated to innocent victims, located next to the Aglona Catholic Gymnasium, where on 23 August 1941, the Nazis shot the patients of the Daugavpils Psychiatric Hospital (269 men and 227 women), as well as 48 children (residents of the Grīvas Shelter) in Aglona. These individuals had been transferred from Daugavpils to Aglona and housed in the premises of the Catholic Gymnasium. They were executed and buried in two large pits.
Among the victims were not only mentally ill people but also those suffering from depression, mothers who had recently given birth, and children.
This atrocity was condemned by Aloizijs Broks (1898–1943), a Catholic priest who served as deacon in the parish of Aglona from 1932 to 1940. He was also an educator and translator, serving as the director of the Aglona State Classical Gymnasium and the Jaunaglona Gymnasium for Women.
During the World War II, on 23 August 1941, after the execution of the mentally ill, Broks delivered the sermon "Thou shalt not murder" in the Roman Catholic Basilica of Aglona, for which he was soon imprisoned by the German occupiers. Although he was released at the end of 1941, he was arrested again in May 1942. There is no reliable information about the circumstances of Aloizijs Brok's death. According to some sources and stories, Aloizijs Broks was killed in a gas chamber at the Stutthof concentration camp, while others claim he was killed in Latvia. An urn containing soil from the Stutthof camp was buried in the crypt of the Aglona Basilica.
In the area, there are a few tombstones and a crucifix with a memorial plaque in two languages (Latvian and Russian).
