Aknīste is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in Aknīste municipality

Aknīste municipality

Aknīste municipality is a municipality in Selonia, Latvia. The municipality was formed in 2009 by merging Aknīste town with its countryside territory, Asare parish and Gārsene parish the administrative centre being Aknīste....

, Selonia

Selonia

Selonia , also known as Augšzeme , is a cultural region of Latvia encompassing the eastern part of the historical region of Semigallia...

, in the southern portion of Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, near the Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n border. The town is located near the river Dienvidsuseja.
For the first time name Akniste had been mentioned in year 1298. Town was a part of Lithuania for few centuries ( starting with 17th century), but in the beginning of the 1920ties Lithuania exchanged Akniste for Palanga

Palanga

Palanga and beautiful sand dunes. Officially Palanga has the status of a city municipality and includes Šventoji, Nemirseta, Būtingė and other settlements, which are considered as part of the city of Palanga.-Legend:...

.

The town was the site of a mass killing of Jewish residents on July 18, 1941, during the Nazi

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 occupation

Occupation of the Baltic republics by Nazi Germany

The occupation of the Baltic republics by Nazi Germany occurred during Operation Barbarossa from 1941 to 1944. Initially, many Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians considered the Germans as liberators from the Soviet Union. The Balts hoped for the restoration of independence, but instead the...

 of the Baltic states

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

.