VALDEMARPILS, LATVIA

Other Names

• Sasmacken
• Sasmaken
• Sassmacken
• Shasmaken

Location

• Talsi District
• 57 deg 22'N/ 22 deg 35' E
• 101 km WNW of Riga

Maps

• Tourist map from town square, 1989
• Russian map of Sassmacken and environs, 1865, L C G & M, Riad VII, List 2, from Library of Congress
• Hand-drawn map by Sol Katzen
• Another hand-drawn map by Sol Katzen
• Hand-drawn map by Laurence Weinberg, 1921 - Contributed by Mark Mitchell. Please note that North is down on this map. A letter also accompanies the map. Unfortunately, the photos mentioned are too poor to duplicate.

Cemetery

• International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies - Cemetery Project
• Photographs of the cemetery site and tombstones
• Description of cemetery, 1995, with transcript of one remaining tombstone.
• Planned Cemetery Monument

Other

• Sassmacken, or "Somashken", is named in one of Sholem Aleichem's stories, "A Man from Buenos Aires". An English translation of the story is included in International Literature, Volume 2, published by The State Literary Publishing House, Moscow, 1939., pp.23-31. It can be found at YIVO.