The town is situated on the northeastern shore of Lake Vištytis, close to the Russian border (Kaliningrad Oblast).

On September 8, 1570, Sigismund II Augustus, in his capacity as Grand Duke of Lithuania, granted Vištytis town rights and coat of arms.

[1] During World War I, in 1915, the town was devastated by Imperial Russian troops retreating after the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes, and afterwards it was occupied by Germany.

With the end of World War I, Poland and Lithuania regained independence as separate countries, and the town was disputed.

Local Poles formed a Polish municipal committee headed by wójt Józef Kałwajć and gathered over 1,000 signatures on a petition to incorporate the town to Poland, wanting to belong administratively to Suwałki County, while local Lithuanians formed a Lithuanian municipal committee, recognizing the sovereignty of Vilkaviškis County within Lithuania.

First the men were shot, then the women - but, to save bullets, the Jewish children were killed by having their heads bashed against the trees in the town park.

[4] A memorial to the victims was later erected by the Soviets near a windmill called Grist Mill, but the plaque made no mention that those buried in the nearby fields were Jews.