KRETINGA
Pre-1940: Kretinga, town and apskritis center, Lithuania; 1940–1941: uezd center, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Krötting en, Kreis center, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Kretinga, rajonas center, Klaipėda apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Kretinga is located 133 kilometers (83 miles) west-southwest of Šiauliai. In mid-June 1941, there were about 700 local Jews in Kretinga. Including Jewish refugees, mainly from Klaipėda following its annexation by Germany in 1939, there were approximately 1,000 Jews in Kretinga at the time of the German invasion.
Kretinga lay within the zone (extending 25 kilometers [15.5 miles] behind the former Lithuanian-German border) that was subjected to “cleansing operations” against Jews and other suspected enemies, conducted by the head of the Staatspolizei (Stapo) office in Tilsit, SS-Sturmbannführer Hans-Joachim Böhme, during the first days of the occupation.1
German armed forces occupied Kretinga on June 22, 1941, without encountering any serious resistance. Immediately on the capture of the town, Lithuanian nationalists set up a local administration and police force. The so-called Lithuanian activists included the following individuals: the head of the district, Šedviatas; the mayor of the town, Piktušys; the head of the security police, Pranas Lukys (alias Jakys); the chief of police, Petrauskas; and other leading activists such as Petras Janušaitas and Brother Aloyzas.2
Measures were taken against the Jewish population during the first days of the occupation. All adult men (older than 14 years) were ordered to gather at the town’s market square. Soon most of the non-Jews were released, but Lithuanian auxiliaries and German police beat the Jews brutally and made them kiss their boots. Local Lithuanians flocked to the square and demanded that those arrested be hanged for having collaborated with the Soviets. At the end of the day, most of the Jews were locked in the synagogue. Others were taken to the local prison.3
On the next day (either June 25 or 26),4 forces of Stapo Tilsit, joined by others from Stapo Memel (Klaipėda), including members of the Schutzpolizei, traveled to Kretinga. Before their arrival, around 150 Jewish men had been escorted from the synagogue and herded into a fenced-in part of the square near the ruins of the Russian Orthodox Church, where they were held along with about 60 non-Jewish prisoners. German and Lithuanian police also searched the town for Jews in hiding. By afternoon, they had found about 30 more Jews, who were brought to the square. About half of the non-Jews were released by Böhme, who was in charge of the Aktion, after consulting with the local security police chief, Pranas Lukys. Then the Stapo forces, reinforced by Lithuanian police and about 20 soldiers of the local garrison (Ortskommandantur), conveyed all the victims by truck out of town to a place close to the estate of Pryšmanšiai. At this site, the Jews were forced to dig trenches while being beaten heavily by their guards. Before the execution, more of the Lithuanian (non-Jewish) prisoners were released. The Jews were then forced to line up in groups of 10, and 20 members of the Schutzpolizei from Tilsit shot them from behind into the completed trenches. Each group was informed that they were being shot in punishment for crimes committed against the Wehrmacht (two soldiers had been killed by snipers in Kretinga shortly after the capture of the town). In total, the Germans killed 214 persons (mostly Jews and including one woman). The Lithuanian activists served as guards during this Aktion, but the Germans did the shooting.5
During the following night, a fire broke out in the local synagogue and spread to neighboring buildings of the town. The Germans and Lithuanians immediately accused the remaining Jews of starting the fire as an act of revenge. These few hundred Jews (mainly women and children) were arrested and taken to Pryšmanšiai, where they were herded into a stable guarded by Lithuanian police (Litauischer Ordnungsdienst).6 This became a de facto ghetto for the Jews, where they were held for more than two months.
Following the fire in Kretinga, the police chief in nearby Palanga received a call from Kretinga, ordering him to arrest all the Jews to prevent a repetition of the arson there. Over the following days, the Germans and Lithuanians arrested 78 more people and shot them near Pryšmanšiai. Male Jews who had been hiding or were rounded up in the surrounding villages were taken to the prison in Kretinga, where they were abused and humiliated before being shot in turn after a few days or weeks. Between July 11 and 18, a further 120 men were shot at the Jewish cemetery in Kretinga.7
In early August, a meeting was held at the office of the Lithuanian head of the Kretinga district. Local Lithuanians met with several Gestapo officers to discuss the situation of the remaining Jews, among other issues. The Gestapo recommended that the Lithuanians should murder the Jewish women and children, as they were not worth feeding because they were unable to perform useful forced labor. The Lithuanians wanted to obtain confirmation from the Lithuanian administration in Kaunas first. The reply came the next day from the chief of police in Kaunas, saying that no decision had been made to murder the women and children, but this decision was to be left to the local officials. Plans were then made for the Lithuanian forces to kill the remaining women and children in early September 1941.
In mid-August 1941, the wives and children of 15 Jewish men who had been shot in early July—at least 20 people—were shot by the Lithuanian policemen.8 The remaining Jewish women, children, and elderly confined at Pryšmanšiai had been informed that their male relatives had been taken away to a separate labor camp. At the beginning of September, these Jews were told that now they would be able to join the men. They were taken to a nearby threshing hall, supposedly for a medical examination. As they left the hall, they [End Page 1077] were attacked with iron bars, knives, and bayonets by drunken members of the Lithuanian auxiliary police. Some Germans stood by and photographed this gruesome scene. Those Jews who survived the attacks were shot, and all the victims were buried in a mass grave. The number of Jews taken from the barn in Pryšmanšiai and murdered in early September 1941 was approximately 120.
In 1961, the German court in Tübingen, Germany, convicted and sentenced two former members of Stapo Tilsit, named Wiechert and Schulz, for taking part in the killings on June 26, 1941. Pranas Lukys was sentenced to five years in prison by the German court in Ulm in 1960.9
SOURCES
Information on the murder of the Jews in Kretinga can be found in the following publications: Hitleriniai žudikai Kretingoje: Faktai kaltina (Vilnius, 1960); B. Baranauskas and E. Rozauskas, eds., Masinės žudynes Lietuvoje (1941–1944): Dokumentu rinkinys, vol. 2 (Vilnius: Leidykla “Mintis,” 1973), p. 396; Shalom Bronstein, ed., Yahadut Lita: Lithuanian Jewry, vol. 4, The Holocaust 1941–1945 (Tel Aviv: Association of Former Lithuanians in Israel, 1984), pp. 353–354—a translation can be found in Joseph Levinson, ed., The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania (Vilnius: Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2006), pp. 98–100; Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry (New York: Judaica Press, 1995); “Kretinga,” in Dov Levin and Yosef Rosin, eds., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 617–621; “The Holocaust in 21 Lithuanian Towns,” published at jewishgen.org; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1976–1979), vol. 15, Lfd. Nr. 465, vol. 16, Lfd. Nr. 499, vol. 17, Lfd. Nr. 509 and 521, and vol. 19, Lfd. Nr. 547; and Konrad Kwiet, “Rehearsing for Murder: The Beginning of the Final Solution in Lithuania in June 1941,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 12:1 (Spring 1998): 3–26.
Documentation on the fate of the Jews of Kretinga during the Holocaust can be found in the following archives: BA-BL (R 58/214); BA-L (B 162/2582-2615); LCVA; LYA (3377-55-107); RGVA (500-1-758); and USHMM.
NOTES
1. RGVA, 500-1-758, p. 2, report of Stapo Tilsit, July 1, 1941, published in Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Berlin: Hentrich, 1997), pp. 372–375.
2. Urteil LG-Tüb, gegen Wiechert und Schulz, May 10, 1961, in JuNS-V, vol. 17 (1977) Lfd. Nr. 509, pp. 343–344.
3. Ibid.
4. RGVA, 500-1-758, p. 2, report of Stapo Tilsit, July 1, 1941, dates the Aktion on June 25, 1941. Other sources date it on June 26, 1941.
5. Ibid.; JuNS-V, vol. 17 (1977) Lfd. Nr. 509, pp. 343–346.
6. RGVA, 500-1-758, p. 2, report of Stapo Tilsit, July 1, 1941; and LG-Ulm, Urteil gegen Böhme u.a., August 29, 1958, in JuNS-V, vol. 15 (1976) Lfd. Nr. 465.
7. The 78 victims include 15 Jewish men shot in early July with the participation of Lukys; see JuNS-V, vol. 16 (1976) Lfd. Nr. 499, pp. 816–817. Also see BA-BL, R 58/214, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 19, July 11, 1941.
8. JuNS-V, vol. 16 (1976) Lfd. Nr. 499, p. 818.
9. Urteil LG-Tüb, gegen Wiechert und Schulz, May 10, 1961, in JuNS-V, vol. 17 (1977) Lfd Nr. 509; Urteil LG-Ulm, gegen Lukys and Schmidt-Hammer, November 3, 1960, in JuNS-V, vol. 16 (1976) Lfd. Nr. 499.
