The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

Pre-1940: Palanga (Yiddish: Polangen), town, Kretinga apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Kretinga uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Polangen, Kreis Kröttingen, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Palanga, Kretinga rajonas, Klaipėda apskritis, Republic of Lithuania

Palanga is located about 144 kilometers (90 miles) west of Šiauliai on the Baltic coast. According to census records, a total of 455 Jews were residing in Palanga in 1923. The size of the town’s Jewish population fluctuated over the next de cade, with some individuals emigrating, and as a result, the number of Jewish residents had decreased slightly by June 1941.

Palanga was occupied by German armed forces on June 22, 1941. Just one day after the arrival of German troops, a German officer was killed in the town. On orders from the head of the Gestapoleitstelle Tilsit, SS-Sturmbannführer Hans-Joachim Böhme, the head of Grenzpolizeikommissariat (Border Police Office, GPK) in Memel, Dr. Frohwann, began to arrest all the male Jews and suspected Communists residing in Palanga. This order was carried out by members of GPK [End Page 1101] Memel and the Tilsit Gestapo, assisted by the Lithuanian auxiliary police. The male Jews were locked in the town’s synagogue, and from there, they were taken to the building that served as the bus depot. At the end of June, 111 men were shot in an Aktion organized by the Tilsit Gestapo. At least 100 of the victims were male Jews; they were shot together with about 8 suspected Lithuanian Communists. A detachment of 30 members of the Memel Schutzpolizei under the leadership of Polizeileutnant Werner Schmidt-Hammer, and at least 15 airmen from the 6th Company of pi lot candidates from Fliegerausbildungsregiment 10, also participated in the mass shooting, which took place on the sand dunes near Birutė Hill.¹

Following the killing of the Jewish men, the women and children were initially taken to the synagogue, where they were imprisoned for several days under subhuman conditions. They received almost no food or water, and at night the Lithuanian guards would shoot in the air, break windows, and instill fear in the prisoners. After a few days they were taken to a farm near Kretinga, which served as an improvised ghetto. The farm buildings held 226 people for nearly two months, guarded by a detachment of the Lithuanian auxiliary police. The able-bodied were employed in carrying raw amber to a central warehouse. Food and water were supplied in very sparing quantities, and around 10 people died of starvation and disease. In late August or early September, all the women and children (at least 200 people) were taken to the Kunigiškiai Forest, where they were shot by a detachment of the GPK Memel, assisted by Lithuanian auxiliary policemen.²