With the outbreak of World-War Two, and the agreement between Germany and The Soviet Union, the Soviet army entered Latvia, and in the summer of 1940 the Soviet Regime began here. A few Jews were part of this new government and some of them in key positions. The Jewish community institutions were cancelled and gradually a new method of education was applied. In the middle of June 1941, Jewish property owners, active Zionists, members of Non-Communist organizations were exiled to Siberia [102], or sent to work-camps “ where they were trialed, and sent to jail; many of them died there. Some of the members of their families who were sent to various areas in Russia succeeded in remaining alive. Among them were the businessmen Simon Mantipel, members of the Loyal Latvian organization (“Eizsargas”) such as Dr. Pollack, and the organizations' Jewish musicians. After the declaration of war between Germany and Russia [103] the city became a center for those who were escaping into Russia [104]. Many Soviet officials, that were exiled from their positions in Lithuania and Latvia past through the city on their way to Velkiye Luki. Also Jewish refugees from Lithuania, Dugavghpils, and other places past through the city, and received help from the local Jewry. Many Jews left the city together with the local officials, and some were then officially exiled. Some went south to cross the border at Zilufe, and some went north to cross the border at Karsabah or Abrene; however the borders were not as yet officially open and only members of the communist party or officials were allowed to do so. The other Jews had to wait until July 4; however some did succeed earlier because of the andromosity at the time of the bombings. Jews that couldn't take the waiting returned to the city [105]. Hundreds of Rezneke's Jews succeeded in crossing the border. Many of them became Russian soldiers. Small groups of refugees (many were “Betar” members) tried to escape by way of the southern Russian borders and come to the Land of Israel. They were all caught by the Soviets and put in jail for long periods.
The Germans began to bomb the city and especially the area of the local railroad station on June 25 or June 26. The official deportations began on June 26 and June 27. It seems that some asked the local Rabbis what to do, and that Rabbis Lubocki and Rabbis Yafin replied that they were remaining in the city, but everyone should follow their own conscious [106].
The Nazis occupied Rezekne on July 3, 1941. At this time members of the Red army, members of the communist party and other Pro-Soviets still wandered around in the neighboring forests. Fires broke out in the city, and the corpses of 60 anti-Soviet Latvians were found there. The Jews were declared guilty of this incident. A local police auxiliary was organized from previous members of the Latvian police and members of the patriotic Latvian organizations (“Eizasargis” and “Prekunkrust”). By the middle of July their number already reached 150, and they then received a reinforcement from Riga.
One day after the occupation, all the Jewish males between the ages of eighteen to sixty were ordered to gather in the market place. The number counted was 1,400. Armed members of the auxiliary police surrounded them. Some young people were murdered then and there. One Jew committed suicide by taking poison, and another tried to escape by swimming in the lake, but was shot. The rest of the men were taken to the local jail, looted of their money and worthy belongings and were beaten. Some were shot and killed there.. The ones left alive their had to bury their dead and some were shot afterwards. The artisans were taken to various work camps [107].
On July 10, a regiment of the German security forces came to the city for a weeks' stay. Then over 140 Jewish males were murdered. This took place in two separate actzias; and was executed by he auxiliary police, under the supervision of the commanders of the German security police. They defined their doing as a reaction to the murder of the 60 Latvians, and the fires. This was the beginning of the planned murders of the Jews of the city. First the men were killed and then the women and the children. At first these killings took place in the Jewish cemetery and a few other places [108].
At the end of the month, Rabbi Lubocki was invited to the Gestapo headquarters. Then he was sent to the Jewish cemetery (or nearby forest [109]) where there was a call-up of all the Jews who were to be killed. The Rabbi spoke to them very sypathetically before they were shot to death. It is told that he led his congregation to the pit where they were murdered, wrapped in his tallith [110]. Rabbi Yafin also was killed in the Holocaust together with the members of his congregation [111]. One young Jew succeeded in killing three Latvians before being shot. According to one report, after this “actzia” the remaining Jews were taken to the Ghetto of Daugavpils, where most of them were killed.
During the month of August the number of murders continued to rise. Quite often 200 Jews were taken from the jail, in over crowded trucks to the rifle range. They were told to get undressed in the hut and then sent to the pit. German certificates testify that the auxiliary police under the supervision of the German security police did the killings, on August 1 and August 5. The “actzia” of August 1, included political prisioners, who weren't Jewish, while the “actzia” of August 5, was of only Jews. The women who remained in their houses were subject to robbery, beatings and rape. On about August 2, after most of the men had already been murdered, the women and the children were sent from their houses to the jail. They were taken in groups, to the Jewish cemetery or the rifle range, to be murdered. A group of women were raped the day before they were taken to be murdered. On August 23, the last groups were taken in thirty-three trucks to the rifle-range [112]. This was the last “actzia” and the end of the Jewish community of Rezekne.
In the autumn of 1943, this ghetto was finished with, and the remaining Jews were taken to the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp, near Riga. According to another report, the murders continued to take place in the Jewish cemetery; and when this was filled in the old rifle practice range of the “Eizasargis” in the Anchupani Mountains, a distance of five kilometer from the city [113].
The head of the police auxiliary issued a command to look for Jews who had gotten converted to Christianity. In October 1941, the police dicovered twelve converted Jews, who had been converted by the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, in order to save their lives. The Jews were killed and the priest was fired.
The Jews who worked for the Germans continued to do so, until they were sent to their deaths in 1943. In the summer of 1944, before the German withdrawal, the Germans brought a group of thirty Jews from the Riga ghetto to Rezneke, and ordered them to take the bodies out of the pits where they had been buried and burn them. After their task was completed, they were murdered [114].
In the city of Rezneke, the Jews who remained alive were two adults [115] and a few children, who were found in a hiding place. They had been helped by local residents. The Russian army freed the city on July 7, 1944.