From the 17th century, the settlement was a panhandle of Lithuania, and after the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it became a part of the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire.

The settlement was the site of a mass killing of Jewish residents, during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic States.

[3] After German occupation forces arrived in Aknīste around the 25th of June, they created defence groups (Schutzmänner) mainly composed of Latvians.

On the 17th (or the 4th depending on the source) of July 1941, local Jews were rounded up into the hotel "Austrija", with O. Baltmanis, the commander of the Ilūkste region SS einsatzgruppe, an unknown SS oberleutnant, and two SS soldiers present, under the premises that the Jews were to be transported to the Daugavpils ghetto.

On the 18th of July, under the orders of O. Baltmanis, and disobeying of said order by J. Valdmanis, the Jews were executed in the yard of the hotel by Baltmanis' Schutzmänner gathered from other parts of Ilūkste.