Site of the Palanga Jewish massacre and grave

On June 26, 1941, women, children, and the elderly were imprisoned in one of the synagogues in Palanga.
A few days later, they were transferred to the former village of Valteriškė (now Vilimiškė), where a temporary ghetto was established. Although the entire area was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and guarded by guards, the local residents of Palanga were not afraid to approach the fence and pass food to the prisoners. Women from the ghetto were forced to do various public works in Palanga: they cleaned the streets and transported raw amber to warehouses. On October 11, 1941, the temporary ghetto began to be liquidated. Jewish women with children and the elderly were told that they would be taken to another ghetto near Darbėnai. They were ordered to hand over their most valuable possessions: money and jewelry. On the night of October 11-12, groups of 30 people were taken from Valteriškiai in trucks to the Kunigiškiai forest, where they were murdered. The massacre was organized and carried out by the Kretinga County, Palanga District, and Palanga City police (at least 50 executioners participated in various stages of the massacre) on the orders of the SD and Gestapo in Tilsit and Memel (Klaipėda). The massacre took place at night, illuminated by the headlights of trucks, and ended at dawn. In total, about 200 women, children, and elderly members of the Palanga Jewish community were killed. In 1991, a memorial was erected at the site of the massacre, with an inscription in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Lithuanian: “In this place, the Nazis and their local collaborators brutally murdered 200 Jews in 1941.” The site of the massacre and the grave are located 1.1 km east of Liepojos plentas (A13 – main road). On the way to the site of the massacre and the grave, there are two marble pillars (steles) with a six-pointed Star of David, erected by Lord G. Džaneris, indicating the direction and distance to the site of the massacre. On June 18, 2015, the site of the massacre and the grave were registered in the Register of Cultural Values of the Republic of Lithuania (unique object code – 10992).