Kretinga (Kretinge, Kretingen) | Klaipėda

Kretinga is one of the oldest settlements in Lithuania, but the number of Jews living there remained very low until the town was granted special privileges by the Polish kings in the middle of the 18th century. From then on, the Jewish population developed their business on both sides of the border with Germany, including the production and trade of amber. The Jewish population reached its peak in 1847, when the official data documented 1,738 Jews living in Kretinga. Due to large fires in 1855 and 1908, emigration and WWI, the Jewish population shrank by half by 1923. However, Jews maintained an active political, cultural and economic life during the interwar period. They established a popular Jewish bank, and its building also hosted the Hebrew elementary school, a kindergarten, a “Maccabi” hall, “Wizo” and a library. According to the census conducted in 1931, Jews owned 64 of the 77 shops and 18 of the 26 factories in the town. They were all nationalized in 1940, when the Soviets took power in Lithuania and at least seven Jews were deported. When the German army entered Kretinga on the first day of the war, more than 1,000 Jews lived in the town, including a number of refugees from Klaipėda, which was occupied by Germany in 1939.

On one of the first days of the war, all the men from Kretinga were assembled in the market square. Jews were separated in one section of the square, humiliated and beaten, and then detained in the synagogue. On June 26, 1941, they were driven outside of town in trucks and forced to dig a long trench in Kveciai grove near the Pryšmančiai estate. Then, the victims were lined up at the edge of the trench in groups of 10 and shot. In total, 214 people were shot that day, including a number of Communist activists of Lithuanian origin. The night after the execution, Lithuanian policemen set the synagogue on fire, but the flames spread to other buildings. Policemen blamed the Jews and conducted new raids, arrests and executions. Inmates in Kretinga, both Jews and Communists, were shot in a large trench dug in the Jewish cemetery. 120 Jews from Mosėdis were shot there as well in July 1941. After the Jewish men of Kretinga were executed, women, children and the elderly were placed in a stable of the Pryšmančiai estate and stayed there until the execution, which was carried out in early September 1941. The victims were told to undress in the barn and come outside one by one. Drunken executioners waiting outside attacked the victims with iron rods, knives and bayonets, while several Germans were photographing the scene, as witnesses recounted to Yahad investigators.

Go to the Townpage on the Holocaust Atlas website