# Dvinsk <table class="place-meta"> <tr><td>Hebrew / Yiddish</td><td dir="rtl">דווינסק (Dvinsk); דינבורג (Dinaburg)</td></tr> <tr><td>Local name(s)</td><td>Daugavpils (Latvian); Dvinsk (Russian/Yiddish); Dünaburg (German); Dyneburg (Polish)</td></tr> <tr><td>Region (today)</td><td>Latgale (Latgalia), Latvia</td></tr> <tr><td>Coordinates</td><td>55°53′N 26°32′E</td></tr> </table> <table class="place-meta place-eras"> <tr><th>Era</th><th>Town name</th><th>Country / jurisdiction</th></tr> <tr><td>to 1772</td><td>Dyneburg</td><td>Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Inflanty / Livonia)</td></tr> <tr><td>1772–1918</td><td>Dünaburg / Dvinsk (from 1893)</td><td>Russian Empire (Vitebsk Governorate)</td></tr> <tr><td>1920–1940</td><td>Daugavpils</td><td>Republic of Latvia</td></tr> <tr><td>1940–1941</td><td>Daugavpils</td><td>Soviet Union (Latvian SSR)</td></tr> <tr><td>1941–1944</td><td>Dünaburg</td><td>Nazi Germany (Reichskommissariat Ostland)</td></tr> <tr><td>1944–1991</td><td>Daugavpils</td><td>Soviet Union (Latvian SSR)</td></tr> <tr><td>present</td><td>Daugavpils</td><td>Latvia — Latgale</td></tr> </table> ## Overview Daugavpils — known to its Jews as **Dvinsk** (earlier Dünaburg/Dinaburg) — is the principal city of Latgale in southeastern Latvia, about 160 km southeast of Riga. Jews settled from the 17th–18th centuries, and by 1913 the community numbered about 55,700, nearly half the population; Dvinsk was a noted centre of both Hasidic and Litvak-Mitnagdic learning (home to the rabbis Meir Simcha of Dvinsk and the Rogatchover Gaon) with Yiddish- and Hebrew-language schools. Following the German occupation in summer 1941 the Daugavpils Ghetto was set up in the Griva fortress barracks. Of roughly 15,000 Jews confined there, the great majority were shot in a series of mass killings (chiefly at Pogulanka forest) in the second half of 1941; survivors were transferred to the Kaiserwald camp near Riga in 1943. Only about a thousand lived to see liberation. <small>Sources: YIVO Encyclopedia — Daugavpils; Wikipedia — Daugavpils Ghetto, History of the Jews in Latvia; JewishGen — Daugavpils (Dvinsk) Ghetto List; Virtual Shtetl — Daugavpils.</small> ## People with events here | Person | Event | | --- | --- | | [[Zvi Brinker (b.1890)]] | Born 10/19/1890 | | [[Dov Nosson Notte Bar Yakar Brinker (b.1893)]] | Born 01/07/1893 | | [[Rose Hudl Hadassah Brinker (b.1894)]] | Born 04/14/1894 | | [[Shalom Gad Brinker (b.1902)]] | Born 02/01/1902 | | [[Gittel Levikson (d.1947)]] | Born |