Kretinga (55°53'N, 21°15'E) is the name of the Shtetl that was home to the Gillis family for many centuries. Kretinga was home to Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Germans and Jews, Jews making up a third of the population in the 19th. century.  Emigration, the results of WWI, the Holocaust, Soviet rule and Lithuanian independence would change all that.

Use the menu below to peruse Kretinga's history, see some images of our Shtetl and read the horrifying story of the decimation of Kretinga's Jews at the hands of the Nazis with the active complicity of some of the community's Lithuanian neighbours.