Former President Valdas Adamkus:
Hiding in the woods near Kaunas

"I thank my friend Gabrielius Žemkalnis, brother of Vytautas Landsbergis, that I’m still alive. In the years of World War II, he and I joined the resistance movement for Lithuania's independence, together with Leo Grinius, by publishing and circulating the underground, anti-Nazi newspaper “Jaunime, budek!” (Youth, Be on Guard!) in Kaunas.

One day, in 1944, I was suddenly visited by Žemkalnis' sister. She said her brother had been arrested by the Gestapo, but that he had managed to whisper my name to her as he was led out of the apartment. She immediately understood that it was something he and I had together that I had to be warned about. I was still only 17 years old, but realized that this could be extremely serious, so I ran to the woods and hid there for a long time. Read more...

Professor Irena Veisaite:
Escaping from the Kaunas ghetto

In August 1941 all the Kaunas Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto which was located in the Kaunas suburb Vilijampole. Irena stayed in the ghetto with her grandparents and one aunt. The 7th of November 1943 is a date Irena will never forget. Lithuanian friends of her parents, the Strimaitis family, had managed to convey a message to her in the ghetto, saying that she should follow one of the labour brigades out of the ghetto to the work place in town. They also had procured false documents for her. An agreement was reached with a Jewish policeman who was responsible for the list of workers that she should not be included on the list that day, but still follow the group out and then try to escape unnoticed into a side street as soon as they passed the ghetto gates. The moment of stepping out of the column of Jewish workers was the most horrifying and dangerous one in young Irena's life. But fortunately she made it without being detected. Read more...

Attorney Regina Narusiene:
Hiding behind a blue Kaunas curtain

“I was almost five years old, but I still clearly remember the day when a truck with Soviet soldiers drove up to our home in Kaunas. My father ordered me to hide behind the blue curtains in the home’s living room and not make even the smallest move or sound. Our family was to be deported to Siberia and the soldiers had come to take us. It felt as though it took an eternity before my father returned and told me I could come out from my hiding place. A truck with German soldiers had come up behind the Soviet truck, forcing the Soviets to leave. That probably saved our lives. As the Soviets were returning to Lithuania in 1944 we escaped to Germany, and after living in Displaced Persons camp for 5 years, in 1949 we emigrated to the United States.” Read more...

Dr. Jonas Sliupas:
Declining the presidency (1926)

The year is 1926. It is a very dark late autumn evening in Kaunas, Lithuania's capital between 1st and 2nd World Wars, when three officers from the Lithuanian army rush up to the house where Dr. Jonas Sliupas now lives while he teaches at the University of Kaunas. It is nearly midnight when the officers knock heavily on his door and asks to come inside. The officers bring shocking news. They tell that since the early autumn of 1926 key officers within two army groups have been in full swing of planning a coup d’état in Lithuania, and that they have now reached the point that they want to depose of President Kazys Grinius and insert a new President. The question to Dr. Sliupas is therefore whether he can accept becoming the country's new President.
But Dr. Sliupas is not willing to accept. Read more...