Building housing a mikveh (ritual bath), Plunge, prewar
YVA, Photo Collection, 503/10620
Following the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in June 1940, all local shops and industry, mostly Jewish-owned, were nationalized. Jewish educational and political institutions were closed down.
On June 22, 1941, while the Soviets retreated from Lithuania, local armed nationalists took control of Plunge, ordered the Jewish population to leave their homes and incarcerated them in the town’s synagogue.
The German army occupied Plunge on June 24, 1941. The town’s Jews, imprisoned in the synagogue, were brutally tortured, and several were sent to forced labor. The Jews of Plunge were killed in two murder operations during 1941. The Red Army liberated Plunge in the summer of 1944.