Archive for August, 2012

Article 1 of 6

Situation plan created by and property of Castle Research Center Lithuanian Castles. All rights reserved

In 1944, the Soviet Union drove the army of Nazi Germany from the territory of Lithuania and occupied the country for a second time. Repressions against the citizens of our country began without delay. Members of the anti-Soviet armed resistance and underground anti-Soviet organisations, their supporters, farmers, teachers, intelligentsia; politicians, public servants, soldiers, and other officials of former independent Lithuania; and members of the Catholic clergy were arrested, imprisoned, exiled, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed. The convicts were judged by Military Tribunals of internal troops and an Extraordinary Meeting with the State Security Minister of the USSR. Pursuant to the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR, they imposed penalties which included custody or the death sentence (by shooting). Indictments were based on torture or documents obtained illegally. Between 1944 and 1953, the Extraordinary Meeting convicted at least 11,932 people and the Military Tribunals – at least 22,080.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE TOTALITARIAN REGIME
IN LITHUANIA 1940–1953.

In 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a secret agreement (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) for the division of Central and Eastern Europe. Lithuania fell under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, as a result, on 15 June 1940 Lithuania was occupied and subsequently annexed by the USSR. In order to carry out the sovietisation of the country, to break and destroy it, physical and spiritual destruction of the nation took place. The scheme was prepared by the top Communist Party officials of the Soviet Union and implemented by the repressive NKVD–MVD and NKGB–MGB structures and subordinate courts – Military Tribunals of the USSR NKVD troops and the non-judicial authority, the Extraordinary Meeting of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR. These institutions carried out the instructions of Communist Party officials by surveilling, arresting, investigating, imprisoning, and killing “traitors of the motherland”. During the first Soviet occupation in 1940, 23,000 Lithuanian citizens were arrested, executed, or exiled.

From the end of June 1941, when the country was occupied by the military forces of Nazi Germany until 1944, nearly 30,000 Lithuanian citizens were arrested and deported to concentration camps, another 60,000 were taken for forced labour in Germany, and 240,000 were killed, approximately 200,000 of them Jews.

In 1944, the Soviet Union drove the army of Nazi Germany from the territory of Lithuania and occupied the country for a second time. Repressions against the citizens of our country began without delay. Members of the anti-Soviet armed resistance and underground anti-Soviet organisations, their supporters, farmers, teachers, intelligentsia; politicians, public servants, soldiers, and other officials of former independent Lithuania; and members of the Catholic clergy were arrested, imprisoned, exiled, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed. The convicts were judged by Military Tribunals of internal troops and an Extraordinary Meeting with the State Security Minister of the USSR. Pursuant to the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR, they imposed penalties which included custody or the death sentence (by shooting). Indictments were based on torture or documents obtained illegally. Between 1944 and 1953, the Extraordinary Meeting convicted at least 11,932 people and the Military Tribunals – at least 22,080.

Between 1944 and 1953, around 186,000 people were arrested and imprisoned, of which 143,000 were imprisoned in GULAG camps, 118,000 – exiled, and nearly 21,000 members of the armed anti-Soviet resistance and their supporters perished.

Soviet Gulag camps

Editors note - The Gulag (Russian: ГУЛаг, tran. GULag) was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. GULag is the acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies (Russian: Гла́вное управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х лагере́й и коло́ний, tran. Glavnoye upravlyeniye ispravityel'no-trudovih lagyeryey i koloniy) of the NKVD. It was officially created on April 25, 1930 and dissolved on January 13, 1960.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the procedure for carrying out the most severe sentence – death by shooting – as well as the place of burial were classified as a state secret. In 1990, after the re-establishment of independence in Lithuania, it became known an appropriate burial place for the bodies of the executed convicts. General-Lieutenant Ivan Tkachenko, the person designated by the NKVD–NKGB for the Lithuanian SSR, had in 1944 selected the grounds of the former Tuskulėnai Manor as the site that complied with all the security requirements of the time. In this 1.3 ha territory near the city centre surrounded by a high brick and timber fence it was easy to safely hide the burial sites of the bodies. The MGB documents from 1952 specify that Tuskulėnai was selected “due to the impossibility of driving outside the city limits at night as the situation in the Lithuanian SSR was extremely tense”. There was still armed anti-Soviet resistance and therefore there was fear of clashes with freedom fighters while moving the corpses for burial. Another important circumstance was the experience of 1941 when, at the outset of the war between Germany and the USSR, retreating security agents did not have time and did not manage to conceal the execution sites. In summer and autumn 1941, graves of people executed in the NKVD internal prison were identified in Kaunas Petrašiūnai Cemetery.

This is the translation of a certificate dated 23 June 1952 by Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Grishin, head of the Lithuanian SSR MGB Division, about the reasons why the grounds of the former Tuskulėnai Manor were selected in 1944 for burying the bodies of people executed in the Lithuanian SSR NKGB–MGB internal prison between 1944 and 1947. The place name Tuskulėnai is not mentioned in the certificate.

This is the translation of a letter dated 19 February 1952 from Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Grishin, head of the Lithuanian SSR MGB Division, to Major-General Arkady Gertsovsky, head of the USSR MGB Division A, regarding the opportunity to destroy the remains of the bodies on the grounds of Tuskulėnai Manor using chemical products.

Photo property of the Lithuanian Special Archives. All rights reserved.

Lieutenant-Colonel Pavel Grishin

People executed in the NKGB–MGB internal prison and participants of the anti-Soviet underground movement tortured or killed during NKVD counterinsurgency operations in Vilnius and its environs, were buried within the grounds of Tuskulėnai until the late spring of 1947 when the death penalty was abolished in the USSR. At the beginning of 1950, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR passed the decree “On the employment of the death penalty for traitors of the motherland, spies, and saboteurs-subversives”, as a result of which the death penalty, pursuant to the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR, was re-instated and the execution resumed. Most were carried out in the same NKGB–MGB internal prison as before and continued until 1961. Executions continued after 1961 but they were not carried out pursuant to the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR. You would need to look at each and every individual execution that took place after 1961 to determine on what basis they were carried out.

Today, the burial sites of those executed after the re-instatement of the death penalty,
still remain a secret.

Tuskulėnai is the only known location where the bodies of those executed in Vilnius NKGB–MGB internal prison were buried, and therefore it has become one of the symbols commemorating the victims of the Soviet terror.

MGB – rus. МГБ, Министерство государственной безопасности – Lith. Valstybės saugumo ministerija – Ministry of State Security [of the USSR]

MVD – rus. МВД, Министерство внутренних дел – Lith. Vidaus reikalų ministerija – Ministry of Internal Affairs [of the USSR]

NKGB – rus. НКГБ, Народный Комиссариат Государственной Безопасности – Lith. Valstybės saugumo liaudies komisariatas – People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs [of the USSR]

NKVD – rus. НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел – Lith. Vidaus reikalų liaudies komisariatas – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs [of the USSR]

Lithuanian SSR – Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic

RSFSR – the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic

USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Bronius Eiva was a Lithuanian partisan leader. He was arrested 8 September 1944. He is one of the many that between 28 September 1944 and 16 April 1947 that were executed in the NKGB–MGB internal prison in Vilnius and then buried in the mass graves at Tuskulėnai.

This is a translation of excerpts from the letter of farewell Bronius Eiva wrote to his wife, dated September 1944, written from the prison of Ukmergės People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, where severely wounded, he was being investigated after his arrest on 8 September 1944.

“This is my last letter. I shall die and you shall live. Please raise our precious daughter Rūtelė-Regina, and when she grows up please tell her I loved her…I lay wounded in the right leg. But it is not the pain that bothers me most, it is the sorrow for you…Please find out when I was shot or hanged and where they bury me. Dig me up and take me to Šeta cemetery.”

TUSKULĖNAI MASS GRAVES

Starting in autumn 1944, death penalties passed by Military Tribunals of the USSR and the Extraordinary Meeting were carried out in the NKGB–MGB internal prison in Vilnius (now – Gedimino pr. 40 / Aukų g. 2A). Between 28 September 1944 and 16 April 1947, the death penalty was carried out on 767 people; 613 of them were sentenced under Articles 58(I)(a) and 58(I)(b) ‘For treason’ of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Статья 58 Уголовного Кодекса РСФСР/вариант 1926 года). Under these articles, people were charged for actions which sabotage the military power of the USSR, its independence as a country, and sanctity of its territory.

In 1944, the death penalty was carried out on 45 convicts

In 1945 – on 479 convicts

In 1946 – on 185 convicts

In 1947 – on 58 convicts.

The largest number of executions, 45 people, was carried out on 21 March 1945. After the executions, the bodies were secretly buried within the grounds of Tuskulėnai Manor.

The convicts included;

Participants of the anti-Soviet movement

Participants of the uprising of 23 June 1941

Fighters of the Polish Armia Krajowa

People charged with war crimes

People who served in civil or military structures of Nazi Germany

Deserters from the Red Army

People charged with criminal offences

The death penalty was carried out on people of fifteen different nationalities, the majority being Lithuanians and included among others Russians, Poles, Germans, Belarusians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Jews, etc.

The territory of the Tuskulėnai Manor served as a secret mass grave until 26 May 1947 when, following the order of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, the death penalty was abolished and replaced with 25 years imprisonment at a penitentiary establishment (work camps). On 12 January 1950, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR passed a decree re-instating the death penalty.

Between October 1950 and July 1952, 182 people sentenced to death were executed at Vilnius NKGB–MGB internal prison. Their place of burial is still not known.

During the time of the Soviet occupation, the territory of the former Tuskulėnai Manor was vigilantly watched over by NKGB–MGB–KGB officials. Until the early fifties, the territory was fenced and guarded. In 1990, after the re-establishment of independence in Lithuania, the archives became accessible and witnesses could tell their stories, as a result of which the secret of this location was revealed. At the beginning of 1994, the State Security Department of the Republic of Lithuania identified a mass grave within the grounds of Tuskulėnai Manor of people sentenced to death by Soviet repressive structures. An archaeological investigation was conducted and bodies were exhumed. Forty-five graves with 724 bodies were found.

Forensic medicine experts identified that 666 victims had gunshot wounds. 506 of them were killed with one shot to the head, 111 – two shots, 31 – three shots, 13 – four shots, 4 – five shots and 1 – six shots

The skulls of 239 victims had signs of gunshot wounds and other forms of physical violence. 122 of these had marks inflicted by a blunt instrument, 112 – had signs of cuts and stabbing and 5 – had signs of deep cuts

In 2004, after the remains of the bodies exhumed were transferred to the chapel-columbarium, the place was officially opened to public on All Soul’s Day, November 2.

KGB – rus. КГБ, Комитет Государственной Безопасности – Lith. Valstybės saugumo komitetas – Committee for State Security [of the USSR]

MGB – rus. МГБ, Министерство государственной безопасности – Lith. Valstybės saugumo ministerija – Ministry of State Security [of the USSR]

NKGB – rus. НКГБ, Народный Комиссариат Государственной Безопасности – Lith. Valstybės saugumo liaudies komisariatas – People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs [of the USSR]

RSFSR – the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic

USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Scheme of archeological research 

The situation plan of the archaeological excavations of the Tuskulėnai Manor between 1994 and 1996 and in 2003. (Created by the Castle Research Centre Lithuanian Castles)  

Situaition plan created by and property of Castle Research Center Lithuanian Castles. All rights reserved

Note - The Lithuanian word “PERKASOS” is TRENCHES

Look for the next article

Part 2 of 6

The “PROCESS”

EXECUTIONS BETWEEN 1944 AND 1947 

Dear readers

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Dear VilNews readers, we need your help. As we have said, the victims that were executed in the NKGB–MGB internal prison in between 28 September 1944 and 16 April 1947 were buried in secret mass graves in the territory of the Tuskulėnai Manor. These victims have been found, their bodies recovered, given the dignified burial they never received and their souls have been blessed by a Holy person of the religion the worshipped.

26 May 1947, following the order of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, the death penalty was abolished.

On 12 January 1950, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR passed a decree re-instating the death penalty. Between October 1950 and July 1952, 182 people sentenced to death were executed at Vilnius NKGB–MGB internal prison.

Their place of burial is still not known. 

After July 1952 to 1961 executions continued pursuant to the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR.

The burial place of these victims is still unknown. 

The 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR was terminated in 1961 but executions continued.

The burial place of these victims is still unknown 

Dear readers we would like to find where these people are buried, recover their bodies, give them the dignified burial they never received and have them blessed by a Holy person of the Religion they worshipped.

This is where we need your help. The NKVD and NKGB–MGB officers that oversaw these executions are now all dead. What ever records and documents which still exist are most likely locked away in a vault somewhere in the Russian Federation and it would seem highly unlikely that anyone in the Russian Federation would be kind enough allow access to these documents and records so that we could find out the location of the burial sites or simply tell us where these people are buried.

We know that there are people out there that know the location of some of these burial sites. Maybe it is a person that processed the documents, maybe it is some one that was just a rank and file soldier that was ordered to drive the truck that transported the bodies or was ordered to dig the trenches for the graves, maybe it is a colleague of one of these people or maybe it is the bartender that heard some of these people talk of it one night. The possibilities are endless.

Maybe none of these people with first hand knowledge of the burial sites are still alive. In that case we are sure that there are people out there with second hand or even third hand information. To have first hand knowledge of these executions would weigh very heavily on any civilized person’s heart and it is very possible that after carrying this weight inside them for many years they finally felt the need to free themselves from this burden they carried inside and told some one.

If you have any information at all, any information of any kind – Please tell us.

It is not important to us how you know, who it was, what they did or who told you.

None of this is important.

The only thing that is important is that we find where the executed people are buried.

This is all we care about.

What we want to do is best explained in the words from Bronius Eiva’s farewell letter he wrote to his wife while waiting his execution while in the prison of Ukmergės Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs.

“Please find out when I was shot or hanged and where they bury me.
Dig me up and take me to Šeta cemetary.”

This is all we want to do – Find where they are buried, dig them up and then give them a proper burial but we can only do this with your help.

All information will be kept strictly confidential

We are not concerned with who or what

We are only concerned with where these people are buried

If you have any information of any kind please contact:
The Memorial Complex of Tuskulenai Peace Park
Žirmūnų Gatvė 1F,
LT-09239, Vilnius
Lithuania

Telephone: +370 5 275 1223
E-mail. tuskulenai@genocid.lt

You can also contact me at vkvilnius-tuskulenai@yahoo.com
We sincerely thank you for your help.

Su pagarbe
Vincas Karnila