• Memorials to the murdered Jews of Kretinga
Several memorial stones in Kretinga remember the city's Jews who were murdered in summer of 1941. The Jewish community of Kretinga was among the first to be entirely murdered in the Holocaust.
Image: Kretinga, before 1914, Postcard from »Russian-Crottingen«, public domain
Kretinga, before 1914, Postcard from »Russian-Crottingen«, public domain

Image: Kretinga, 2011, On the Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
Kretinga, 2011, On the Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
Prior to the First World War Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. At that time the city of Kretinga was bordering the German province of East Prussia. 1918 Lithuania gained independence, in 1923 Lithuania occupied the Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland), its capital was the seaport of Klaipėda, about 25 away from Kretinga. During the interwar period the population figure doubled to about 5,300 in 1939. About 700 Jews lived in the city who during the 1930s were subject to growing anti-semitic hostilities. In March 1939, the Klaipėda Region once again became part of the province of East Prussia following a German ultimatum. At that many Jews flew tried to escape the National Socialists by fleeing over the new border to Lithuania, 300 of them to Kretinga.
In 1940 Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union. One year later, on June 22, 1941 the German Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union and occupied Kretinga on the first day of the campaign. On June 26, 1941 members of the Gestapo and policemen of the »Einsatzkommando Tilsit« together with Lithuanian policemen murdered 214 Jewish men from Kretinga in a forest a few miles west of the city. This massacre was on of the first mass shootings of Jews after the German attack on the Soviet Union. During the following weeks and months German and Lithuanian units again and again murdered Jewish children, women and men from Kretinga, amongst other places on the Jewish cemetery. By the end of August 1941 there were no Jews left in Kretinga.
Image: Kretinga, before 1914, Postcard from »Russian-Crottingen«, public domain
Kretinga, before 1914, Postcard from »Russian-Crottingen«, public domain

Image: Kretinga, 2011, On the Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
Kretinga, 2011, On the Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
During the summer of 1941 German and Lithuanian units murdered approximately 1,050 Jewish children, women and men in and around Kretinga.
Image: Kretinga, undated, The synagogue destroyed in 1941, public domain
Kretinga, undated, The synagogue destroyed in 1941, public domain

Image: Kretinga, 2011, Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
Kretinga, 2011, Jewish cemetery, Vilma Norvaišienė
After the Second World War Lithuania was again part of the Soviet Union. Shortly after the end of the German occupation a Soviet special commission examined the crimes and collected the names of the murdered Jews of Kretinga.
The murder of the Kretinga Jews was subject of various trials during the late 50s and early 60s against members of the »Einsatzkommando Tilsit« and the »Einsatzgruppe A« (mobile killing unit) in the Federal Republic. Most of the men accused were only sentenced to only a few years of prison.
Only after the end of the Soviet Union memorials were erected at the historical places where the Jews of Kretinga had been murdered. In the forest of Kveciai about three kilometres west of Kretinga a stone cube is placed at the site of the mass shootings. The inscription in Hebrew and Lithuanian reads: »On this site 700 Jews were murdered in 1941.« The Jewish cemetery of Kretinga is partly preserved. Here too a small memorial stone was erected in the 1990s remembering the 356 Jews who were murdered here.
Image: Forest of Kveciai, 2010, Memorial on the site of the mass shootings of 1941, Vilma Norvaišienė
Forest of Kveciai, 2010, Memorial on the site of the mass shootings of 1941, Vilma Norvaišienė

Image: Forest of Kveciai, 2010, Inscription on the memorial, Vilma Norvaišienė
Forest of Kveciai, 2010, Inscription on the memorial, Vilma Norvaišienė
Name
Žydų žudynių ir užkasimo vieta
Address
Mėguvos g. 37
97155 Kretinga
Open
The memorials are accessible at all times.