The Legacy of the Black Days of June

LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum

Rasa Ardys-Juð«, Editor of BRIDGES, involved in the Lithuanian-American Community, Inc (LAC) as a past member of the Board of Directors, and as a member of the LAC of New Jersey.

These were memories and remembrances of "Baisusis Birzelis" or "The Black Days of June". Moscow instructed its occupying forces to begin purging Lithuania of its people to make room for its own during the night of June 14th 1941. People were awakened between one and four a.m., given about an hour to pack a few belongings, and transported by train to Siberia. From June 14th to June 22nd, the Lithuanian Red Cross reported that nearly 35,000 people had been deported. Many more were to follow.

Entrance to the Lithuanian Genocide Victims Museum. Photo courtesy of LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum

Thirteen waves of purging were carried out between 1945 to 1950. Over 100,000 Lithuanians had been relocated to barren and frigid work camps in Siberia. In the years to follow many deportees succumbed to the lifeless area or were returned many years later to Lithuania after successful "rehabilitation". Other Lithuanians were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. Their lives and stories were hushed under the Soviet system...until now.

LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum was founded in October of 1992. The Museum is located in the former KGB headquarters/prison in Vilnius, Lithuania. In this building, repressive authorities Ö as the NKVD and NKGB Ö planned and carried out acts of genocide and repression against the Lithuanian people from as early as the end of the 19th century by the Russian Empire to September 1991 by the Soviet government. This building stands as a symbol of these crimes against humanity.

Many governments have used the prison for Soviet-style justice, interrogation, and penal purposes. The primary building was built in 1899, while the addition on Auku Gatve was built around 1914. The buildingÒ³ other additions were finished in 1929. During the periods between 1899 and 1991, the building was used for a variety of governmental intentions.

• 1899 Ö 1915: The Russian Imperial Vilnius District Judicial Chambers.
• 1915 Ö 1918: The German Occupation Governmental Offices.
• 1919, January to April: The Bolshevik V. Kapsuko Commissariat and Revolutionary Tribunal Quarters (CK).
• 1920 Ö 1939: The Polish-OccupationÒ³ Government Judicial Chambers.
• 1940 Ö 1941: The Soviet Repression Quarters Ö NKVD Vilnius Committee, NKGB, and NKVD prison.
• 1941 Ö 1944: Gestapo Police Headquarters and SD Offices, and the Sonderkommando Quarters.
• 1944: After the second Soviet occupation, the NKGB Ö later the MGB, KGB Ö took permanent residency; the lower area (basement) interrogation and prison quarters were installed.

The interrogation room preserved as it had been used by the KGB. Photo courtesy of LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum

Since 1940, the Internal Prison (Central Interrogation Division) operated in the basement of the building. The conditions of the prison were inhuman. The so-called "enemies" of the state were kept in cold, damp basement cells. As a rule, they were the ex-members of non-communist organizations, civil servants, police officers and military officers of independent Lithuania, post-war freedom fighters, and other innocent people. A net of new prisons, with certain administrative bodies, was established all over Lithuania for the primary purpose of persecution and eventual annihilation. This Vilnius-centered prison was one of many evacuated when Lithuania reestablished her independence.

The number of victims of this genocide and terror during 1940 and 1958 alone was staggering -- one of every three Lithuanian citizens. More specifically, 131,000 were deported; 200,100 were imprisoned; 20,000 partisans perished; some 5,000 civilians were murdered; and about 1,000 were formally sentenced to death. Due to this Soviet terror and repression, 490,000 people chose the fate of exiles. The total human loss to Lithuania, including the Nazi occupation and World War II, reached well over 1,091,000 out of the nearly four million population count at that time.

In 1964, the larger part of the prison was redesigned to accommodate the Secret KGB archives. By this time, inmates housed in the 19 basement cells were those hostile to Soviet ideology and fighters for human rights. On March 11th, 1990 Lithuania proclaimed restoration of its statehood, and, in August 1991, KGB activities were officially stopped. To cover up their actions, the KGB authorities rushed to spruce up the prison, and shred or burn some documents. Several bags of shredded documents were left behind and are part of the permanent exhibit at the museum today.

When LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum was founded, the prisonÒ³ interior was left as it had been during the times of the KGB for a reason. Visitors can view and experience the prison cells, interrogation room, officersÒ and guards' rooms, bathrooms, fingerprinting and documentation room, and the exercise yard area. It was the goal of the exhibits to reflect the history of anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi resistance in Lithuania and its consequences in a "real" sense.

Exercise yards surrounded by barbed wire . Photo courtesy of LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum

The Museum also collects, preserves, and archives important historical documents which highlight the actions of the repressors. It is presently in the process of preparing several special exhibitions emphasizing different historical periods and events in Lithuanian history, such as:

• the NKGB-NKVD years of Soviet repression and terror (1940-1941);
• the reign and results of the Nazi government during 1941-1944;
• the physical and spiritual genocide of the Lithuanian people by the Soviet regime from 1944 to 1990;
• LithuaniaÒ³ anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi actions, and individual portraits of LithuaniaÒ³ freedom fighters;
• the largest deportation of Lithuanian people which occurred in 1948 Ö a 50th year commemoration;
• and, the victims of the Genocide.

Future plans also include the restoration of the buildingÒ³ area of torture and execution. This will house a special memorial to LithuaniaÒ³ freedom fighters with photographs and biographical information.

This documentation, the exhibits, and maintenance of the prisonÒ³ gruesome attributes serve to educate and remind visitors that one quarter of LithuaniaÒ³ population was sacrificed by the Soviet system. In addition, the genocide was hidden by the Soviets from the western world in an attempt to portray a positive image of the now defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Presently, visitors include not only tourists from other countries, but most importantly LithuaniaÒ³ school children whose history education until 1990 had been dictated by the Soviet system with alterations to Lithuania's history. The extent to which deportations, persecution, arrests, and terrorization of Lithuanian and other Baltic human rights activists were perpetrated were kept hidden from the general population.

LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum provides Lithuania's future with vital knowledge of her true past Ö one that can arm her to prevent genocide from occurring again.