BISHOP VINCENTAS BORISEVIČIUS

Photo property of the Lithuanian Central Archives.
All rights reserved.
Telšiai Theological Seminary Rector Vincentas Borisevičius. Telšiai

He was born 23 November 1887 in Vilkaviškis County, Paežeriai Rural District, Bebrininkai Village. In 1909, he graduated from Seinai Seminary. He studied at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) from 1909 to 1913. In 1910, Borisevičius was ordained a priest, did pastoral work, and actively participated in public activities. Between 1922 and 1926 he taught at Gižai Seminary (Seinai Diocese). Between 1927 and 1940 he was a professor and rector at Telšiai Seminary. In 1940, he was ordained titular bishop of Lysia by Pope Pius XII and appointed auxiliary bishop to Telšiai Bishop Justinas Staugaitis. After the death of Bishop Staugaitis in 1944, Borisevičius became the diocesan bishop of Telšiai.

Photo property of the Lithuanian Central Archives. All rights reserved.
Group Seinai seminary students: The future bishop Vincas Borisevicius
(third row, second from left). About 1908.
Priest Juozas Montvila (second row, second from right) was a passenger on the Titanic.
He died in 1912 when the ship sank in the Atlantic Ocean.

After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, Borisevičius protested against the restrictions of the rights of the Church and the persecution of priests and believers. During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, the Bishop helped Jews hiding in the villages and parishes of Telšiai County. After the liquidation of the Telšiai Ghetto, he himself gave refuge and hid Jews who managed to escape from the ghetto. After the second Soviet occupation of Lithuania, on 18 December 1945, Borisevičius was arrested and detained in the internal prison of the NKGB–MGB. He was charged with anti-Soviet activities and contact with partisans. Attempts were made to recruit him to serve the Soviets.

Photo property of the Lithuanian Central Archives.
All rights reserved.
Theological Seminary Rector Monsignor Borisevičius (left)
and seminary professor of Canon George Galdikas (right). Telšiai.

After unsuccessful efforts to break him, he was released and given time to make up his mind. In the end the Bishop refused to cooperate with the Russians and on 3 January 1946 wrote the following letter to the leadership of the NKGB–MGB:

“I declare that to be an informer is incompatible with me as a person and as a bishop, it is incompatible with my conscience, so I categorically refuse to be the one,”

With this letter Borisevičius signed his own death sentence.

Photo Property of the Lithuanian Central            Photos property of the Lithuanian Special Archives. All rights reserved.
Archives. All rights reserved 

On 5 February 1946, he was arrested and on 28 August charged by the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR MVD Troops under Article 58-1a of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) with supporting participants of the armed resistance against the Soviets, preaching anti-Soviet sermons and being in possession of prohibited literature. His sentence was death by execution. The sentence was carried out on 18 November 1946 in the internal prison of the NKGB–MGB. The Bishop was shot in the head. The repressive structures of the Soviet occupational government kept the circumstances, place, and time of death of the Bishop hidden.

Photo property of the Lithuanian Central Archives. All rights reserved.
Theological Seminary Rector Vincas Borisevicius (center), seminary professors
Simaitis Anthony (left) and Peter Lygnugaris (right). Telšiai

In 1990, the re-establishment of independence in Lithuania provided an opportunity to investigate the documents of the former KGB archive. In 1994, the State Security Department of the Republic of Lithuania identified a mass grave of people that had been within the grounds of the former Tuskulėnai Manor. That same year, archaeological excavations and exhumation of the bodies began. The body of Bishop Borisevičius was found and identified in mass grave No. 26. On 27 September 1999, a formal reburial ceremony took place and the body was laid to rest in the crypt of Telšiai Cathedral.

Photo property of the Lithuanian Central Archives. All rights reserved.
Bishop Vincas Borisevicius with parishioners after a First Communion ceremony.
Telšiai in the twentieth century. 3-4 decade.

In 1991, the cause for the canonisation of the Bishop was initiated. By decree of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Borisevičius was posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of Commander of the Order of the Cross of Vytis in 1999, and in 2003, with the Life Saving Cross.

 
Order of the Cross of Vytis

Life Saving Cross

KGB – rus. 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]

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 State Security [of the USSR]

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

PRIBVO – rus. ПРИБВО, Прибалтийский военный округ – Lith. Pabaltijo karinė apygarda – Baltic Military District

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Part 4 of 6
THE EXECUTIONERS 

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 

The “PROCESS”

EXECUTIONS BETWEEN 1944 AND 1947

In Soviet-occupied Lithuania, Division A of the NKGB–MGB was in charge of the executions of people sentenced to death. When the documents containing information about the death sentences pronounced by the Military Tribunal and information on where the detained persons were held was received by Division A, the condemned people were moved from the various agencies of detention to Vilnius 1st prison of the NKVD–MVD (today– Lukiškių skg. 6) and from there to the Vilnius NKGB–MGB internal prison (today – Gedimino pr. 40 / Aukų g. 2A).

A special group consisting of the head of Division A, the head of the prison, deputy head of the prison, wardens, and a representative of the Military Prosecutor’s Office carried out the executions by shooting. Prior to execution, the head of Division A and the prosecutor verified the identity of the person sentenced to death and other documents. The convicts were shot in a special cell, which, in an attempt to mask its real purpose, was marked as a “kitchen” on the plan of the building. An executioner, who had gained experience in various regions of the Soviet Union, would carry out the sentence. Usually executions were carried out by the heads of internal prisons. According to the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) the only method of execution was by shooting. The majority of the convicts were shot in the back of the head. However, some of them died differently, as signs of stabbing and cuts were identified on some bodies. After execution, the head of Division A, the prosecutor, and the executioner signed the deed of execution of the death sentence. The head of the division informed the leadership of the Military Tribunal which had passed the sentence, and the leadership of the USSR NKGB–MGB in Moscow about the execution by issuing certificates.

Between 1944 and 5 January 1946, when Division A was managed by Lieutenant-Colonel Stepan Kharchenko, 535 executions were carried out and from 15 January 1946 and 16 April 1947, under the leadership of Major Pavel Grishin, there were a further 232 executions.

The surviving KGB archive documents specify the names of the executioners. In September–October 1944, Yegor Kuznetsov, Commandant Captain of the NKGB–MGB unit of the Lithuanian SSR, personally carried out the execution of 18 convicts. Between November 1944 and October 1946, the head of the prison Major Vasiliy Dolgirev lead 41 mass executions during which he personally executed 650 people. From November 1946 until March 1947, executions were carried out by Captain Boris Prikazchikov, the head of the prison. During 11 such executions, 99 lives were taken.

After each execution, the bodies were stripped, loaded onto a truck, covered with tarpaulin, and taken at night to be buried within the grounds of Tuskulėnai Manor which was guarded by NKGB–MGB. The bodies were thrown into an already prepared trench. Many trenches were used several times: new bodies were thrown on top of the corpses covered with lime and tar paper. When the trench filled up, it was covered with soil and stones. Executioners referred to this procedure cynically as ‘disposal of the contingent.’

The “PROCESS” – ARTICLE 58

Article 58 of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic) Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles and put in force on 8 June 1934.

This article introduced the formal notion of the “enemy of workers”. Penal codes of other republics of Soviet Union also had articles of similar nature.

58-1: Definition of counter-revolutionary activity:

"A counter-revolutionary action is any action aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening of the power of workers' and peasants' Soviets... and governments of the USSR and Soviet and autonomous republics, or at the undermining or weakening of the external security of the USSR and main economical, political and national achievements of the proletarian revolution"

58-1а. Treason: death sentence or 10 years of prison, both cases with property confiscation.

58-1в. In the case of flight of the offender of treason, his relatives were subject to 5–10 years of imprisonment with property confiscation or 5 years of Siberia exile, depending on the circumstances: either they helped or knew and didn't report or simply lived with the offender.

(Between 28 September 1944 and 16 April 1947, the death penalty was carried out on 767 people in Lithuania. 613 of them were sentenced under Articles 58-1а and 58-1в ‘For treason’ of the 1926 Criminal Code of the RSFSR)

58-1б. Treason by military personnel: death sentence with property confiscation.

58-1г. Non-reporting of a treason by a military man: 10 years of imprisonment. Non-reporting by others: offense by Article 58-12.

58-2. Armed uprising or intervention with the goal to seize the power: up to death with confiscation, including formal recognition as "enemy of workers".

58-3. Contacts with foreigners "with counter-revolutionary purposes" (as defined by 58-1) are subject to Article 58-2.

58-4. Any kind of help to "international bourgeoisie" which, not recognizing the equality of communist political system, strives to overthrow it: punishment similar to 58-2.

58-5. Urging any foreign entity to declaration of war, military intervention, blockade, capture of state property, breaking diplomatic relations, breaking international treaties, and other aggressive actions against USSR: similar to 58-2.

58-6. Espionage. Punishment: similar to 58-2.

58-7. Undermining of state industry, transport, monetary circulation or credit system, as well as of cooperative societies and organizations, with counter-revolutionary purpose (as defined by 58-1) by means of the corresponding usage of the state institutions, as well as by opposing their normal functioning: same as 58-2. Note: the offense according to this article was known as wrecking and the offenders were called "wreckers".

58-8. Terrorist acts against representatives of Soviet power or of workers and peasants organisations: same as 58-2.

58-9. Damage of transport, communication, water supply, warehouses and other buildings or state and communal property with counter-revolutionary purpose: same as 58-2.

58-10. Anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary propaganda and agitation: at least 6 months of imprisonment. In the conditions of unrest or war: same as 58.2.

58-11. Any kind of organisational or support actions related to the preparation or execution of the above crimes is equated to the corresponding offenses and prosecuted by the corresponding articles.

58-12. Non-reporting of a "counter-revolutionary activity": at least 6 months of imprisonment.

58-13. Active struggle against revolutionary movement of tsarist personnel and members of "counter-revolutionary governments" during the civil war, same as 58-2.

58-14 (added on June 6, 1937) "Counter-revolutionary sabotage", i.e., conscious non-execution or deliberately careless execution of "defined duties", aimed at the weakening of the power of the government and of the functioning of the state apparatus is subject to at least one year of freedom deprivation, and under especially aggravating circumstances, up to the highest measure of social protection: execution by shooting with confiscation of property.

Article 58 was used for the imprisonment and execution of many prominent people as well as multitudes of nonnotable innocents.

Sentences were long, up to 25 years, and frequently extended indefinitely without trial or consultation. Inmates under Article 58 were known as "politichesky" (полити́ческий), as opposed to common criminals, "ugolovnik" (уголо́вник). Upon release, the prisoner would typically be sent into an exile within Russia without the right to settle closer than 100 km/60 miles from large cities.

On 3 September 1944, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs arrested partisan signaler and teacher Jonas Tomėnas in Šiauliai. This is a translation of an excerpt from the letter of farewell he was able to secretly send to his family. Jonas Tomėnas was one of the many buried in the Mass Graves of Tuskulėnai.

“I do not know when I will return, it depends on various circumstances. Stay safe and strong.”

The “PROCESS”

The “PROCESS” consisted of four primary “STEPS”. It was required that these four steps be precisely documented so that everything was kept “legal” in accordance with the 1926 Criminal Code Article 58 of RSFSR.

Step 1 – Conviction and Death Sentence

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, carried out the instructions of Communist Party officials by surveilling, arresting, investigating, imprisoning, and sentencing to death “traitors of the motherland”.

The following is the English translation of the document which sentenced to death by shooting partisan Jonas Sliuževičius issued by the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR NKVD troops on 12 March 1946.

Step  2 – Giving the Instructions to Execute

When the documents containing information about the death sentences pronounced by the Military Tribunal or the Extraordinary Meeting of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR and information on where the detained persons were held was received by Division A, the condemned people were moved from the various agencies of detention to Vilnius 1st prison of the NKVD–MVD (today– Lukiškių gatvė 6) and from there to the Vilnius NKGB–MGB internal prison (today – Gedimino pr. 40 / Aukų g. 2A).

The following is the English translation of a strictly confidential notification dated 7 March 1946 from Lieutenant-Colonel of Justice Aleksey Khaliavin, chairman of the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR NKVD troops, to Lieutenant-Colonel Stepan Kharchenko, head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB, instructing him to execute five convicts, informing him of the detention agency in which the convicts are located, and asking for a report when the sentence has been carried out.

The following is the English translation of a strictly confidential notification dated 19 March 1946 from Major of Justice Afonin, deputy chairman of the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR NKVD troops, to Lieutenant-Colonel Stepan Kharchenko, head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB, instructing him to execute Leonas Virkietis and Jonas Starevičius, informing him of the detention agency in which the convicts are located, and asking for a report when the sentence has been carried out.

The following is the English translation of a strictly confidential letter of 14 May 1946 from Colonel-General of justice Vasilij Ulrich, chairman of the USSR Supreme Court Military Collegium, to the chairman of the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR MVD troops to carry out the death sentence on Jonas Sliuževičius without delay and to notify him of the execution.

Please note - Military tribunals were subordinate to the USSR Supreme Court Military Collegium which was the highest instance of the legal system. After passing a death sentence, military tribunals had to notify the Military Collegium of it without delay and the Military Collegium, within 72 hours of the receipt of the notification by telegram, could suspend execution of the sentence. However, the Military Collegium usually confirmed decisions made by the military tribunals.

Step 3 – Verifying the Identity

The next step of the “Process” was that prior to an execution, the head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB–MGB and the prosecutor verified the identity of the person sentenced to death and other documents.

The following is the translation of a certificate issued by Major of Justice V. Barmin, assistant to the prosecutor of the Lithuanian SSR NKVD troops on 22 March 1946, confirming that the sentence on Jonas Starevičius can be carried out.

Step 4 – The Execution

Translation of The deed of execution of the death sentence on 7 February 1945, which states who carried out the execution: “Eiva was shot by Major Dolgirev, head of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB internal prison”. The deed was signed by Captain of Justice Fiodorov, deputy prosecutor of the Lithuanian SSR NKVD Troops Military Prosecutor’s Office, Major Stepan Kharchenko, head of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB Division A, and Major Vasiliy Dolgirev, head of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB internal prison.

Translation of the deed of execution of the death sentence dated 25 December 1946 and signed by Major Pavel Grishin, head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB, Lieutenant-Colonel of Justice Tugov, assistant to the prosecutor of the Baltic Military District, and the executioner Captain Boris Prikazchikov, head of the Lithuanian SSR MGB internal prison.

After the execution the body of the executed person would be stripped of clothing, loaded onto a truck and driven to Tuskulėnai for burial in a mass grave.

Step 4 – Confirming the Execution

Once the execution had been carried out the head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB–MGB informed the leadership of the Military Tribunal which had passed the sentence, and the leadership of the USSR NKGB–MGB in Moscow about the executions by issuing certificates.

Translation of a strictly confidential notification dated 31 December 1946 from Major Pavel Grishin, head of Division A of the Lithuanian SSR NKGB, to Colonel of Justice Aleksey Khaliavin, chairman of the Military Tribunal of the Lithuanian SSR MVD troops, informing him that the execution of Juozas Giedra-Bujanauskas was carried out on 25 December 1945.

Look for the next article

Part 3 of 6

BISHOP VINCENTAS BORISEVIČIUS

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 

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

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

Between 28 September 1944 and 16 April 1947, the death penalty was carried out on 767 people in the NKGB–MGB internal prison in Vilnius. It took forty seven years and the restitution of Lithuania’s freedom to finally find the secret location where the Soviets had buried the victims.

INTRODUCTION

The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania is a state institution which investigates all manifestations of genocide and crimes against humanity, the persecution during the Soviet and Nazi occupations and the armed and peaceful resistance to the occupations. It also gives juridical evaluations of the perpetrators of the reprisals and genocide, and immortalizes the memory of the freedom fighters and genocide victims.

The objectives of the centre are to establish historical truth and justice; to investigate the physical and spiritual genocide of Lithuanians carried out by the occupying regimes between 1939 and 1990, and the resistance to the regimes; to immortalize the memory of the freedom fighters and the genocide victims; and to initiate the juridical evaluation of the aftermath of the occupying regimes. The centre also researches into the policy of the occupying regime in the Vilnius district from 1920 to 1939 and the processes of resistance to it.

The Museum of Genocide Victims (often referred to as the KGB prison or KGB museum) is a part of The Memorial Department of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania and is located at Aukų gatvė 2A in Vilnius. It is located in the former KGB headquarters where plans for deportations and the arrests of peaceful inhabitants, the persecution of opponents and the suppression of the resistance were devised and carried out by Soviet institutions between 1940 and 1991. The main area of the museum is located in the area where the prisoners were detained, tortured and executed.

While the Museum of Genocide Victims at Aukų gatvė 2A is actually well known of around the world and is often a planned destination for people visiting Vilnius, many are not aware of the other part of the museum. Inside the museum at Aukų gatvė 2A is a room that was labelled as the “kitchen” on the Soviet’s floor plan diagram – Its actual purpose was an execution chamber. In this room more than 1,000 people were executed. The other part of the Museum of Genocide Victims which many do not know about is the site of the mass graves in which many of the victims that were executed in the KGB prison were buried. This is the Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park which is located at Žirmūnų gatvė 1F in Vilnius. Here is also located the museum exposition "The Secrets of Tuskulenai Manor" located at Žirmūnų gatvė 1N.

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. The territory of the Tuskulėnai Manor served as a secret mass grave until 26 May 1947. This area of the mass graves is now the Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park. The park and the museum exposition "The Secrets of Tuskulenai Manor" are a part of the Museum of Genocide Victims.

This story about the Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park all started on a warm sunny beautiful Lithuanian spring day. My intentions were to go to Tuskulėnai, take a few photos, get some information and then go home and write a story. Once I arrived and started to walk the grounds my immediate impression was how beautiful the park is. Since it was during the warmer months I greatly admired the finely manicured lawns, colorful flower gardens and made note of the many shady areas under the majestic trees. I also imagined what a spectacular site this place must be in autumn with all the trees sporting their colorful foliage. Using my imagination a little bit more I pictured how magical it must be in winter to walk here at night with a foot of shimmering snow on the ground. But as I walked more and started to get the details on what happened here during the Soviet occupation I soon felt my emotions peak as I felt the overpowering somber energy that exudes from this solemn site. It was then I realized that a few photos and a bit of information would by no means honor and give justice to the souls of the people that suffered and died and now are interned here as their final resting place.  

So what I thought would be a story I could complete in two or three days turned into three months of research, meetings, visits to various government offices, telephone conversations and emails back and forth. While much of the text for this article was prepared by the expert staff of the Tuskulėnai Memorial Complex, there are so many other government offices, organizations and people that are involved with the Tuskulėnai Memorial Complex and the information for this article. What took all the time to prepare this article was getting all the information together. I must give credit to where credit is due. In effect I only acted as the person that put all this together so that it could be published for you our readers. The real work and all the credit for this article goes to the dedicated professional staff of the Tuskulėnai Memorial Complex and all the other government offices, organizations and people that have done all the research and work to tell the story of what happened here and give a dignified final resting place for the victims.

The next time you are in Vilnius I would highly recommend that you visit the Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park at Žirmūnų gatvė 1F and the museum exposition "The Secrets of Tuskulenai Manor” at Žirmūnų gatvė 1N. The personel at both museums highly recommend and I strongly agree that you first visit the Museum of Genocide Victims and then the Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park and the museum exposition "The Secrets of Tuskulenai Manor" to get a clearer and more complete view of the Soviet’s process of the arrest to the ultimate execution of prisoners during this time period. It is very easy to get to using public transport. If you want to drive there it is easy to find and there is plenty of free parking. It is also a very pleasant walk along the Neris River from Cathedral Square. Here you will begin to feel the emotion that exudes from this very special place. The staff of the Tuskulėnai Memorial Complex are absolutely great. They are not only extremely knowledgeable they are also very warm and friendly. They are a pleasure to talk with and they will provide you with much information. Most importantly, while you are there you can pay your respects to the hundreds of souls that lost their lives in such a tragic and brutal manner and are interned here in their final resting place.

It is my hope that this information we share with you will provide some insight as to the tragic events that were taking place at the KGB prison and Tuskulėnai during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania. I hope that it will also give you some idea as to all the diligent effort that so many people have put in and are still putting in to honor the victims and try to bring some closure for their families and relatives.

My greatest hope is that this story will bring out the information that still to this day is unknown 
Where are the people that were executed after 1950 buried?

Look for the first part of our six part story which will be out in a few days

CONSEQUENCES OF THE TOTALITARIAN REGIME

IN LITHUANIA 1940–1953

Su pagarbe
Vincas Karnila
Associate editor

Visit Žagarė,
northern Lithuania,
this weekend

Former Žagarė synagogue.

INVITATION TO A VERY SPECIAL EVENT IN ŽAGARĖ

Under the initiative and leadership of a Lithuanian activist Valdas Balčiūnas, A MEMORIAL PLAQUE TO COMMEMORATE THE ZAGARE JEWISH COMMUNITY will be unveiled. The ceremony coincides and may be considered to be taking place in the context of ZAGARE CHERRY FESTIVAL which will be held in July 12-15. The plaque will be in English, Lithuanian, and Yiddish. Here is what the English version will say:

The festival begins on July 12, 2012.  Here are some highlights of Jewish interest:

• Dedication of the memorial plaque -- Friday July 13 at 1600 in the Zagare Town Square

• "From the History of the Shtetl"– a presentation, exhibition, and concert organized by the Joniskis Municipality Museum -- Friday July 13 at 1700 at the Zagare Culture Centre

• Baltic senior football (soccer) competition including the Makabi team from Vilnius – Saturday July 14 at 1300.

Please let us know if you are planning to attend.   We look forward to seeing a strong representation of descendants of the former Jewish community of Zagare.  After the official events there will be a FRIDAY EVENING GATHERING AND 'KABBALAT SHABBAT' FOR VISITORS.  If you wish to be invited to this please let us know.

For more information please contact any of the following:

UK - Joy Hall (joy@joymaynard.myzen.co.uk        

LITHUANIA -Valdas Balciunas (valdas@me.com)

U.S. - Cliff Marks (c.v.marks@att.net)

ISRAEL - Sara Manobla (manobla@netvision.net.il)  

The first time I heard
the name of Žagarė

Žilvinas Beliauskas

By Žilvinas Beliauskas
Manager of Cultural Projects
Vilnius Jewish Public Library

The first time I heard the name of Zhagare (Žagarė) it was probably like for many Lithuanian kids related to cherries – Zhagre cherrys. Big and juicy ones. There were some of such trees in my parents’ orchard. Zhagare liqeuer came later. Maybe even later than mom‘s notice about St. Barbara of Zhagare (Barbora Žagarietė) from 17^th century, though not beatified yet but very revered in Samogitia (Žemaitija) as a real saint in charge of many miraculous healings. And that was it for many years until it turned out that the family of my wife comes from Zhagare. During the first walking tour with her I enjoyed marvelous streets of wooden houses along river Shvete, radiating strange and sadly atractive kind of romantic atmosphere of brick houses around the Central Square. The architecture prompted straightforwardly that they used to belong to Jews and association with the direction sign by the road at the entrance to Zhagre showing the way to the Graveyard of the Jewish Genocide Victims made this atmosphere still blurry ghostly, not quite tangibly yet but bringing a distant smell of its “echos and absences” to use Roger Cohen phrase in his letter to the forthcoming event this Friday. Later I asked my wife’s grandmother, who is 84, weather it had been difficult during the Second World War. She said, - ouch, we did not see much of the war here; we were made to work of course for the war and got some food supplies but the most terrible thing was about Jews that they were killed. She remebers a German officer commanding from the balcony for the collaborators in the Central Square to start the massacre of the crowd herded into the central area. She was just waving her hands – oh oh oh… Layers of silence or surpressed whispers with heavy locks on wording went afterwards. Maybe or hopefully, or at least some “dutiful nod to shadows” was made by some (R. Cohen again). It’s a riddle for  the younger generations. Perhaps to the older ones too.

It’s a long story and let those who know better to do the healing practice for everybody to speak the truth. Say for Rose Zwi, a writer, who has her ancestors in that mass grave. Her book the “Last walk in Naryshkin Park” to my mind had to be translated immediately after it was published in 1997. Today she is back to Lithuania to celebrate a sign of memory awakening little by little – a special plaque to be unveiled on July 13, 2012 in Zhagare Central Square. There are many other coming to the event from all over the world. R. Zwi made it from Australia. High guests will range from the Ambassador of Israel to film producer and director from Australia Rod Freedman, who made a documentary “Uncle Chatzkel“, „International Herald Tribune“ and “New York Times” columnist Roger Cohen (see his letter below), Joy Hall, the creator of the Lithuanian Link, Cliff Marks, the creator of ShtetLinks and to many others. Rose’s friend Sara Manobla came from Israel, her family has roots in Zhagare. And she she is one of those lucky few surviving Zhagare Jewish offsprings but not the only one to be present on that day.

There were very pleasant moments when on her way to Zhagare Rose Zwi and her friend Sara Manobla in companion of Rose’s local cousin Fryda visited the Vilnius Jewish Public Library on July 09, 2012. Her two presented books, “Last Walk in Naryshkin Park” and “Once Were Slaves” (about the Perlov family fate in Soviet gulags), with authors signatures will be of very high value for the library. The guests were very fond to find out the story of this new library to appear in Vilnius, its initator Wyman Brent and the role it is seeking to play in complex cutural polylog. Luckily, Fryda immediately came accross a book on the shelves “Life of the Jews of Joniškis region during the inter-war period (1918-1940)” where they found many familiar names and faces in the photos.  It seemed the conversation could have lasted for hours and hours and many touched upon and vividly started stories remained to be continued. Everything was possible due to their friend and host Julius Bieliauskas who made all the linking, introducing and provided safe transportation. See more of these moments and see everybody in Zhagare.

Echos and absences 

Roger Cohen

By Roger Cohen,
Columnist, International Herald Tribune and New York Times

            I look forward with considerable emotion to returning to Zagare for the unveiling of a plaque that will commemorate the slaughter of more than 2,250 Jews in the town on October 2, 1941. More than three score years and ten have gone by since that mass murder without full acknowledgment of its scope. The men, women and children taken from the main square into the woods to be killed have remained anonymous, mere shadows, their fates at first concealed by Soviet political calculation and taboos, and then only falteringly recognized after Lithuania gained independence in 1990. I do not know the Jews who were killed but I know that each of them valued life and its joys as we do, and I know that my grandmother, Pauline (“Polly”) Soloveychik would have been among them had she not left Zagare for South Africa in the early 20^th Century. For me, the fate of the Zagare Jews is personal.

When I visited the village for the first time in November last year, as I began research on a family memoir, the last Jew in Zagare, Isaac Mendelson, has just died. So ended a presence that began in the 16^th century. In 1897, three years after my grandmother’s birth, there were 5,443 Jews in Zagare. Mendelson, a community of one, used to stand on the corner of the market square with his dachshund, Chipa. He would recall the times after the war when he was a goalkeeper for the local soccer team. Never did he talk about the day Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered the Jews, including members of his own family.

            Zagare is a place of echoes and absences, my grandmother’s being but one. It hovers over loss, a void that whispers. I came back to see what might have been. Next to a bridge on the Svete I noticed a plaque commemorating the death on June 29, 1941, of Jonas Bavanauskas, who was “killed defending his homeland.” He died a few days after the Nazis invaded Lithuania and embarked on one of the swiftest mass murders of a nation’s Jews in the entire European I extermination program, one largely completed before the gassing facilities of industrialized Jewish annihilation were in place.

Bavanauskas, who merits a plaque, was not a Jew. Yet he alone is identified in Zagare. He is thereby accorded a presence that feels like more than a dutiful nod to shadows. He lived, he felt, he resisted, he died. His name is there, legible. It is there at the center of a town that lies between two disused Jewish cemeteries, one in the “new” and one in the “old” district. In the cemeteries gravestones lurch, lichen advances and Hebrew inscriptions crumble or fade into illegibility. Fragments of letters recall Anna Akhmatova’s words in Requiem, “I’d like to call you all by name, but the list has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.”

The plaque to be unveiled on July 13, 2012, will go some way toward giving the people of Zagare a place to look to understand the history of their town. It is past time for that.

Message to all U.S.-Lithuanians:

Come home, your

country needs you!

www.travel.lt

By Aage Myhre
Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com 

Our series on US-Lithuanians and their contact with the home country Lithuania has come to an end. Through nearly two months we have brought stories and articles in which the goal has been to shed light on both issues and individual cases, and it shall not be denied that many of the articles have revealed major differences, different mindsets and sometimes bitterness between today's Lithuanians and various emigrant groups in United States. There is still no doubt in my mind that there is much genuine love for the homeland in many diaspora groups, even among the descendants of people who came to America more than 100 years ago when the first major exodus from Lithuania took place.

My thinking is that today’s Lithuanian leaders should do whatever they could to invite and facilitate for as many emigrants as possible to return home, preferably for permanent living but at least for more frequent visits. There should be spared no effort to create more attractive conditions for the return of the fellow-countrymen to Lithuania. The US-Lithuanians’ wisdom, experience, knowledge and investments is still very much needed here.

Thousands of exiles spent half a century in America since WWII, waiting to come home, dreaming of a Lithuania as it was in its pre-communist days. But relatively few did move home despite the newfound freedom for their home country in 1990-1991.  The contrast between living in the United States and in a country where the understanding of democracy and 

Western-style leadership that still today is quite deficient has probably appeared too dramatic for many. Had liberation 

come in the 1960s this would probably have been completely different.

Despite controversy, Adamkus continued to believe that importing Lithuanian-Americans was good for his country. "You know that when you need experience you can get it," he said. And even some of Adamkus' political rivals agreed. Vytautas Landsbergis, the fiery parliament speaker who led the Sajudis movement that won Lithuania's independence, welcomed the Americans. He said they had brought "a feeling of hope that helped Lithuania overcome the danger of depression.

Suspicion, however, does hang in the air, still today. One of Adamkus' goals was to deal with some of the dark corners of Lithuanian history, bringing to justice those who too eagerly aided foreign occupiers-first the Nazis, then the Soviets. In the late 1990s the Seimas passed a "lustration" law banning former officers of the Soviet KGB from holding jobs in the judiciary, security forces, diplomatic corps, banks and even in some private sector industries. To many Lithuanians Adamkus, was the man to heal his homeland's wounds, but the challenge was huge and the old ‘nomenklatura’ continued to play main roles in a society that desperately needed a total clean up.

We have through this series sought to identify younger US-Lithuanians and other people who have ties and feelings towards their homeland even though they have never lived here. I think we have succeeded relatively well with regard to these efforts, and I hope that our goals of building new bridges with the help of communication has sown some small seeds that may lead to renewed contacts and more mutual understanding.

I hope to see many of our U.S. readers move here to actively take part in the further development of the tiny but amazing country called Lithuania! Thank you for following us!

Movie Star Charles Bronson (1921-2003)
Son of a Lithuanian
coal miner

Charles Bronson (1921-2003), son of a Lithuanian-Pennsylvanian
coal miner, was born in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, USA

American actor Charles Bronson claimed to have spoken no English at home during his childhood in Pennsylvania. Though he managed to complete high school, it was expected that Bronson would go into the mines like his father and many brothers. Experiencing the world outside Pennsylvania during World War II service, however, Bronson came back to America determined to pursue an art career. While working as a set designer for a Philadelphia theater troupe, Bronson played a few small roles and almost immediately switched his allegiance from the production end of theater to acting. After a few scattered acting jobs in New York, Bronson enrolled in the Pasadena Playhouse in 1949. By 1951, he was in films, playing uncredited bits in such pictures as The People Against O'Hara (1951); You're in the Navy Now (1952), which also featured a young bit actor named Lee Marvin; Diplomatic Courier (1952); Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), as a waiter(!); and The Clown (1953). When he finally achieved billing, it was under his own name, Charles Buchinsky (sometimes spelled Buchinski). His first role of importance was as Igor, the mute granite-faced henchman of deranged sculptor Vincent Price in House of Wax (1953). The actor was billed as Charles Bronson for the first time in Drum Beat (1954), although he was still consigned to character roles as Slavs, American Indians, hoodlums, and convicts. Most sources claim that Bronson's first starring role was in Machine Gun Kelly (1958), but, in fact, he had the lead in 1958's Gang War, playing an embryonic version of his later Death Wish persona as a mild-mannered man who turned vengeful after the death of his wife. Bronson achieved his first fan following with the TV series Man With a Camera (1959), in which he played adventurous photojournalist Mike Kovac (and did double duty promoting the sponsor's camera products in the commercials). His best film role up until 1960 was as one of The Magnificent Seven (1960), dominating several scenes despite the co-star competition of Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, and others. Most of Bronson's film roles after Seven remained in the "supporting-villainy category," however, so, in 1968, the actor packed himself off to Europe, where American action players like Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef were given bigger and better opportunities. Multiplying his international box-office appeal tenfold with such films as Guns for San Sebastian (1967), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Cold Sweat (1970), and The Valachi Papers (1971), Bronson returned to Hollywood a full-fledged star at last. His most successful films of the 1970s were Death Wish (1974) and its sequels, a series of brutal "vigilante" pictures which suggested not so subliminally that honest people would ultimately have to dole out their own terminal justice to criminals. In many of his '70s films, Bronson co-starred with second wife Jill Ireland, with whom he remained married until she lost her fight against cancer in 1990. Bronson's bankability subsequently fell off, due in part to younger action stars doing what he used to do twice as vigorously, and because of his truculent attitude toward fans. He did little but television work after 1991's The Indian Runner (Sean Penn's directorial debut), with Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (1994) his only feature since. Bronson's onscreen career would soon draw to a close with his role as law enforcing family patriarch Paul Fein in the made-for-cable Family of Cops series.On August 30, 2003 Charles Bronson died of pneumonia in Los Angeles. He was 81. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This week in the U.S.
Lithuanian ‘egg art’ on the Martha Stewart Show

From Christine Lushas’ blog: http://www.lithuanianeggart.blogspot.com/

Christine Luschas, a young American-Lithuanian from Pennsylvania, USA, was this week featured on the famous Martha Stewart Show, demonstrating how to make traditional Lithuanian "marguciai" eggs. It’s amazing to see such a young woman continuing this old and beautiful tradition from her ancestors homeland, nicely showing to Americans how to prepare and paint the typical Lithuanian Easter eggs. We recommend you to watch the clip. It might even be helpful for your own Easter preparations…

VIDEO: Christine Luschas on the Martha Stewart Show

http://www.marthastewart.com/898384/egg-show#ooid=lwcXViNDr8t6rXvGm3F0Ldym-Xg3Rz7q,MzZDhjNDq4WtSuHk4f1VvMpyiBIUH4_d

TODAY’S COMMENT:

Evaldas Zvinys

“There are significant cultural differences
between LT-Americans and Lithuanians
that grew up in the Soviet Lithuania”

Just a couple of short notes to your article
“Healing the wounds between LT-Americans and the homeland”

Item 2. There are significant cultural differences between LT-Americans and Lithuanians that grew up in the Soviet Lithuania. In my opinion there is not enough appreciation of the lifetime dedication and work of some of the people outside of Lithuania. In my opinion press likes to focus on negative experiences (e.g. events with LT-Australian Petraitis) while ignoring genuine contributions to Lithuania. My own Alma Mater - Vytautas Magnus University is there in big part because of Lithuanians who grew up outside of Lithuania. IMHO Grybauskaite's comments of course miss the point and are rude. 

Item 5. <"...ending the noxious practice of the Uzgavenes holiday when people dress as Jews and beg on the street.” > In my life I have not seen a person dressed up as a Jew and begging on the street. I would be really surprised if I would see this. On the other hand, during the Uzgavenes people go from house to house and ask for pancakes, coffee or money (similar to Halloween tradition in the US?). I guess the idea was that the person who knocks on the door is not known - and you share what you have with a stranger (the stranger could be a Jew, Roma, or a generic stranger). Is that offensive and should be eradicated? In the Soviet times I've heard the following chant in my Samogitian hometown Telsiai "mes Zydukai is Maskvos (Rygos), duokit blynu ir kavos" - "we are the Jews from Moscow (Riga), please give us pancakes and coffee" - not sure why Moscow/Riga is there, perhaps to indicate that the person came from afar? I am not certain how it was during the Interbellum - but as I said - in my opinion the old traditions are going away - be it good, bad or indifferent. 

Evaldas Zvinys
http://tautietis.blogspot.com/

A native American who loves Lithuania!

It is the 30th of March today. It is exactly 22 years since American Marie Sandler (pictured) married Lithuanian Jonas. He passed away in 1996, but Marie was already completely in love with Lithuania. It's a love she maintains to this day. Below you can read her love letter to her deceased husband's home country.

Dear Lithuania,

Ever since I got connected to you, my love for the culture and people of Lithuania has been on a daily increase.

I was born into a Christian family in Urbandale Iowa in United States and grew up as a normal American girl with good parental upbringing. One day, I met a man and for the first time hearing about a country called Lithuania.

I fell in love with this man, followed him to his home country to see and learn the beautiful culture of Lithuania. After some time my love for the man became wider, something more than an ordinary feeling – and I soon felt I became part of a hidden history of a country that once was the symbol of Europe, with an extremely well developed diplomacy and intelligent wisdom long before today's famous European nations came to such ideas. Through recognizing this small Baltic country, I felt that the background of my new love also got me into an older knowledge, something hard to define, but something that still today represents the mystery of Lithuania, a country like no other country.

I married him, but to a certain degree also Lithuania, the soil of ancient wisdom...

I, as an American, got into something I still today cannot fully explain. When he passed away, I could have forgotten Lithuania, but I didn't because his soul, and his country's soul still bells in my ears.

The smell of the Lithuanian soil makes me cry and smile and then I look up to the sky and realized that home is truly where the mind is.

Lithuania is a home. I love Lithuania.

Marie Sandler
Director, Bulldogs Petroleum Corporation (BPC)
Email: mariesandler@bulldogspetroleum.com
www.bulldogspetroleum.com

By: Dr. Boris Vytautas Bakunas, M. A., M. Ed., Ph. D.

"The vast majority of people who commit suicide are severely depressed. Only a few kill themselves for rational reasons such as avoiding the final stages of an extremely painful and fatal illness. Depression may be triggered by adverse events, but they are not the direct cause of most depressions. Many people face extreme adversity without succumbing to depression.

As a vast amount of empirical research has shown, the belief systems that people hold have a profound effect on their moods. People who suffer from depression generally believe several of the following things : (a) their lives are terrible, (b) they are guilty for having brought on the bad conditions they face, (c) they are powerless to change their lives, and (d) their lives will never improve. When you're depressed you tell yourself that a horrible tragedy has struck your life, you are worthless and overwhelmed by the difficulties you face, and since there is nothing you can do to solve your problems, your life is not worth living.

A vast body of research also shows that the most effective ways of overcoming depression help people change their underlying attitudes and improve their abilities to cope with the inevitable frustrations of life. Two extremely effective -- and closely related -- forms of psychotherapy are Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy developed by Dr. Ellis and Cognitive Behavior Therapy developed by Dr. Aaron T. Beck.

Research conducted by Dr. Forrest Scogin and his colleagues from the University of Alabama Medical Center found that two thirds of the subjects given a book by Dr. David D. Burns called "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" and encouraged to read it as well as do the simple exercises described either experienced a substantial reduction in their depression or recovered entirely within four weeks, while those from whom the book was withheld failed to improve. No medications or psychotherapy were used with either of the two groups.

"Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" was first published in the early 1980s and is still imprint. In a survey of 1,000 mental health professionals, it was selected as the best self-help book ever written. I have benefited enormously from it myself, and I have recommended it to many others. A typical response is "This book changed my life."

Of course, anyone with suicidal thoughts had better seek professional treatment immediately. Nevertheless, bibliotherapy has been shown to be extremely helpful. Read some of the reviews of "Feeling Good" on Amazon.com. In Europe, it can be purchased from Amazon.com UK.

http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380810336/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332863886&sr=1-1"

Boris wrote: ""Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) methods can be beneficially directed toward addressing both irrationalities in depressive thinking but also conditions that commonly coexist with depression such as anxiety, anger, panic, and an inappropriately low tolerance for frustration. Effectively dealing with depressive thinking and these coexisting conditions can open opportunities for fulfillment as well as for preventing depression from coming back. Among the various cognitive methods for arresting depression, the REBT method would seem to be the more comprehensive approach for defeating both depressive thinking and the sort of negative thoughts that are part of those conditions of mind that so often coexist with depression.

Fascinating new brain scan research shows that applying cognitive procedures to reduce depressive thinking commonly results in measurable changes in the brain that are associated with a significantly lower relapse rate. Following the use of cognitive methods, brain wave studies show more normalized wave patterns. Following cognitive interventions, brain imaging shows a shift from the color of a depressed brain toward the color of a “normal” brain. These physical measures, coupled with reports of feeling better, make a compelling case for using cognitively oriented methods for defeating depressive thinking." Dr. Bill Knauss

http://www.rebtnetwork.org/essays/depression2.html"

Dr. Boris Vytautas Bakunas, M. A., M. Ed., Ph. D.
Chicaho, USA

New series of articles – starting today!

Healing the wounds between LT-Americans and the homeland

Photo: National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame

Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com

The relationship between Lithuania’s diaspora groups in the U.S. and the home country Lithuania is not always the best. Many here in Lithuania still believe that those who left, whether for economic or political reasons, had very comfortable lives compared to those who stayed behind and had to fight through several decades of inhuman oppression and abuse by the Soviet occupiers.

Many Lithuanians in the United States believe in turn that the mother country does not welcome them to return or collaborate on improving the development of the nation called Lithuania, and have been critical about ongoing corruption, that rule of law is still not working effectively, etc.

VilNews will through much of April focus on this topic, and we hereby invite all with views to prepare posts; in the form of blogs, comment articles or information you think might shed light or be of benefit to the relationship. The goal is to build bridges and contribute to reconciliation!

These are some of the challenges and opportunities we face:

1.
Lithuanian-Americans played a significant role in the post-war years, until Lithuania's recovered independence in 1990-1991, by constantly exerting pressure on the U.S. President and leaders in other Western countries so that they would pressure the Soviet Union to allow the Baltic countries freedom after the Soviet occupation that took place during World War II. Now, as more than 20 years have passed since the freedom bells rang, the question is whether the Lithuanian-Americans have a role to play also today? See our article 
https://vilnews.com/?p=8899

2.
“The majority, I believe, are disappointed and discouraged with the present president’s seemingly unfriendly view toward Lithuanian-Americans and others abroad.” This said Regina Narusiene, President of the World Lithuanian 
Community, in a recent interview (see https://vilnews.com/?p=6704), based on a comment referred to in The Baltic Times, where President Grybauskaite should have said that most prominent U.S. Lithuanian émigrés, instead of focusing on developing U.S. - Lithuanian business ties, prefer providing political advice to the Lithuanian authorities, which may not be that necessary nowadays. She was supposedly “disappointed by Lithuanian émigrés’ inability to attract U.S.-based investments to Lithuania.” Here in VilNews we often hear Lithuanian-Americans say they do not feel welcome to their  home country, and that Lithuania's current president seems to antagonize them. What are our readers’ comments to this?

3.
In a VilNews interview Regina Narusiene told about her youth in Chicago, after she and her family had settled there after escaping from Lithuania in 1944. One of the things she said, was: “I realized that my father was afraid of informers who could make life difficult for us, for our relatives who remained in Lithuania, and for the Lithuanian partisans who kept on fighting against the Soviet occupants well into the 1950s. The KGB had their own spies within the Lithuanian communities in the U.S., so we were extremely careful with what we said outside the home."  Now, when the KGB archives have been made public, are there new traces of KGB post-war activities to be found also in the U.S.?

4.
In a meeting at the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington last year, representatives of LAC (Lithuanian American Council) expressed their concern on a wide range of topics including Lithuania's developing energy policy, the country’s image in the international community, emigration issues and their demographic impact, the prospect of maintaining citizenship rights of recent immigrants, ongoing cooperation between organizations of the Diaspora and Lithuania, and minority issues in Lithuania. LAC representatives suggested that Lithuania would benefit significantly by availing itself of the expertise and knowledge found in the Diaspora communities in developing energy and security policies and a host of other areas such as environmental issues, ecology, medicine, economic development, and the promotion of improved interactions between the government and the people through non-governmental organizations (ref. https://vilnews.com/?p=5031). Has there been any official Lithuanian response to this?

5.
In November 2011, the Jewish Lithuanian Heritage Project hosted a roundtable “Think Tank” at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington. The theme of the discussion was, "A comprehensive Five Year plan to improve Lithuanian-Jewish relations: Cultivating Sunflowers." (ref. https://vilnews.com/?p=9949). In a response, one of our readers wrote: “Is this about the establishment of a new Judenrat to apologize for Lithuanian anti-Semitism? “If truth be told” having a holiday party at Lithuania’s D.C. Embassy is not revolutionary. What would be revolutionary would have been, and would be, is the prosecution of Lithuanian collaborators and SS members, the prosecution of today’s neo-Nazi youth groups, reinstatement of the ban against the display of the swastika and ending the noxious practice of the Uzgavenes holiday when people dress as Jews and beg on the street.” Harsh words?

COMMENT 1:

Rimantas Aukstuolis

“I am very pleased to see this intra-Lithuanian forum open up and give vent to these prejudices we have about each other”

I am very pleased to see this intra -Lithuanian forum open up and give vent to these prejudices we have about each other. VilNews is perhaps the best and only such place I am familiar with, with a broad enough readership to bring disparate but, hopefully responsible discussion to bear on this topic.

I am the American born son of a post WW2 DP father and a US born and raised, second generation Lithuanian mother. The DP's and old immigration Lithuanians never did mix very much and we all have a similar disconnect with the new "third wave". So it's not surprising to see a gap between the Lithuanian diaspora (of whatever immigration) and modern Lithuanian-Lithuanians.

My wife Vita and I, together with our four (at the time) young children lived in Vilnius while I worked as an adviser from the US Treasury in the early 90's. We sure did experience the cultural differences but, on balance, came away, humbled and culturally enriched by the experience.

Yes, I have seen the dark prejudice and defensive suspicion held by some native Lithuanians, some of whom would, on balance, be more comfortable in a Russian dominated, Soviet style environment than a capitalist, democratic society. I have also seen the "successful" overseas Lithuanian who, of course, knows everything better than his native cousins and isn't bashful about letting them know. I hope I wasn't one! I think each of these extremes are embarrassing for people of good will on either side of the divide, of which there are many.

We do need to reach out, however. Lithuania can benefit by the skills of the diaspora which should not be turned away as help from any quarter is needed (President Grybauskaite notwithstanding). Likewise, in spite of our active Lithuanian cultural lives in the diaspora, our Lithuanian language and ethnic identities are fading, our children assimilating. Lithuania, for all its issues is our living, modern cultural cradle.

Rimantas Aukstuolis
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Rimantas Aukstuolis:
I was born 1952 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Mother (Genevieve Jesonis) was born in Omaha to old immigration (1906) parents. Father (Mecys Aukstuolis) was born in Lithuania and DP, post war immigrant. Married to Vita (Musonis), daughter of post war immigrant parents (Vytautas and Genovaite). Vita is a clinical psychologist. We have four children; Kestutis, Algirdas, Lina and Vytautas who is youngest and studying at Ohio State University.

Currently living in Cleveland Ohio area where we have spent most of our lives although Vita was born and raised in the Chicago area.

I have been an international and commercial banker since 1976 and have worked for several large regional US banks. Currently working at Fifth Third Bank in Structured Trade Finance which involves export financing. In 1993 I moved with my family to Lithuania where I worked for the US Treasury Department as an advisor to the then fledgling Bank of Lithuania. We lived in Lithuania for two and a half years.

All members of the family have been involved in Lithuanian activities all their lives and the children all speak Lithuanian. Currently I belong to the Exultate Lithuanian choir in Cleveland and Vita is active with Ateitininkai.

Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania

Regina Narusiene, President of the World Lithuanian Community

REGINA NARUSIENE: “The majority, I believe, are disappointed and discouraged with the present president’s seemingly unfriendly view toward Lithuanian-Americans and others abroad.”

The Baltic Times writes that Lithuanian President Grybauskaite is supposedly “disappointed by Lithuanian émigrés’ inability to attract U.S.-based investments to Lithuania.”  The newspaper refers to a WikiLeaks document.

According to WikiLeaks, Grybauskaite emphasizes that most prominent U.S. Lithuanian émigrés, instead of focusing on developing U.S.- Lithuanian business ties, prefer providing political advice to the Lithuanian authorities, which may not be that necessary nowadays.

In a response to The Baltic Times, Regina Narusiene, President of the World Lithuanian Community, says that “The majority of Lithuanian-Americans are disappointed with Grybauskaite.”

“How do Lithuanian-Americans’ views generally differ on the former U.S.-much-linked President Valdas Adamkus and his successor, Dalia Grybauskaite? Which is favored?,” the newspaper asks Narusiene.

And she answers: “There are different points of view. Some favor President Adamkus, but the majority, I believe, are disappointed and discouraged with the present president’s seemingly unfriendly view toward Lithuanian Americans and others abroad.”

“There is the tendency of some Lithuanian politicians to think that “Lithuania belongs to the Lithuanians.” By that they mean those living in Lithuania only. The people of Lithuania have a more favorable view of Lithuanians living abroad.” 

“The Lithuanians abroad have brought many investments to Lithuania. However, I want to emphasize, Lithuania has been having a difficult time setting an investment climate competitive with other countries.”

“Collaboration can have different meanings. Our private ties with the country after independence never diminished, but, in fact, intensified. Economic ties are different. A great deal of money is sent to Lithuania by Lithuanians abroad, especially to their family and friends. I believe an amount equal to about 20 percent of Lithuania’s annual national budget. Some firms have located in Lithuania, but Lithuania has to maintain an inviting environment for investment, which they are developing. Cultural collaboration, however, I admit, has been weak. There is a Lithuanian opera in Chicago that has been collaborating with the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater. We have participated in the Dance Festivals in Lithuania and sent works of art to Lithuania. Some of the entertainers from Lithuania have come to us to entertain, but working out joint programs has been difficult.”

“Can you think of any cases when Lithuanian émigrés cut off their ties with the Motherland because of the lack of the political will to adopt a dual-citizenship law?,” Baltic Times asks.

“There are a number of new émigrés who have simply said, “I can do better and live more securely abroad. If they do not want us, then why bother.” Unfortunately, these are well educated young people that Lithuania cannot afford to lose. In several instances, the taking away of Lithuanian citizenship has forced some to keep foreign citizenship so as not to lose their means of support, their pension.”

Ref: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/28875/

* * *

Aroundhalf of allLithuaniansin the worldlive outsidetheir home country. They represent a humanresourceLithuaniadesperately needstoget the country back on its feet again after 50 years of bloody wars, genocides,deportations, Soviet oppressionand now two decadeswithmuchmuddle and confusion instead of professional focuson collaboration and team work amongitsown populations here and abroad.

I suggestthat thepresidentreaches outandinvitesallLithuanians,and friends of this countryaround theworld,toa close and constructive cooperation.A continued conflictis truly meaningless and devastating.  

Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief

Lithuania would benefit significantly by availing
itself of the expertise and knowledge found
in the Diaspora communities…