[1] In the center of Plungė stands a monument for the 10th anniversary of regaining the independence of Lithuania and a sculpture of Saint Florian built by the Lithuanian book carrier Kazys Barzdys.

Since the private hospital was founded in 1939, maternity and surgical sections started operations in the city.

Lithuanian Jews were active in the town's government and comprised around half of Plungė's inhabitants leading up to The Holocaust in Lithuania.

[4] Lithuanian nationalists, led by Jonas Noreika,[5][6] seized control and formed a town administration and police force.

German forces killed 60 young Jewish men, accused by the Lithuanians of being a rear guard for the Red Army, shortly after the town's capture.

On 13 or 15 July in the Plungė massacre, the Lithuanian nationalists transported Jewish men, women and children to ditches near the village of Kausenai where they were shot.

Of the 1,700 Jews living in Plungė in 1939, very few survived and often those who were victims of the Soviet deportations from Lithuania prior to the Holocaust.

[7][8][9] The Jewish holocaust survivor and sculptor Jacob Bunka was one of the town's few Jews to survive the war.

During the interwar period years of the independence of Lithuania Plungė's economic was based on the factory of fibre flax and cotton Kučiskis – Pabedinskiai and also on the activities of Jewish businessmen and agricultural products made by Samogitian farmers.

However, these plans didn't come to fruition as it became obvious that the city did not have enough water resources, although some companies were established in Plungė.