5/4 – Vilnius afternoon KGB tour

Back downstairs at our appointed time, we hop on the bus with most of the group (it is an optional tour, so not everyone is with us). it is a quick bus ride around the city, past some nice buildings, and Lukiskiu Square with the church of St. James in the background and the Lithuanian flag in the forefront.

Our destination is the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, which is located in the building where the German Security Police held and executed prisoners during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944, and where, afterward during the Soviet occupation, the KGB and other military and police organizations did the same.

We meet our tour guide, who has this great dramatic voice and is full of history and personal experiences as his grandparents were involved in the resistance. He squires us past the duty officers’ office, then through the basement level with all the prisoner cells and execution cells. Needless to say, it is a horrifyingly fascinating tour taking us through a very dark time in Lithuanian (and the whole Baltic states really) history.

As we progress through the tours, of course, the current situation in Ukraine is raised. Our guide had very strong thoughts and feelings about what is going on today in Ukraine. Being personally involved in the Lithuanian struggles along with his grandparents, and because he does research for the museum society, he is very outspoken as to the solidarity everyone here feels with Ukraine. People here all know, personally, the Soviet aggression and they want to stop it at any cost. It is heartwarming.

After the dark, dank hallways, the guide releases us into the upstairs exhibition rooms where we could have easily wandered for much more time than we were given. The displays are incredibly well done, with tons and tons of information about the occupation, the resistance, the fighters, the prisoners. Everything. There is old equipment used for spying, prisoner uniform numbers, even this really heartbreaking little piece of cloth tied with a string that contains a pinch of Lithuanian soil a prisoner kept with her during her imprisonment from 1950 to 1956.

And we got to learn a lot more about one of the most fascinating parts of the resistance, at least I find it terribly fascinating, The Forest Brothers. We had been introduced to them in Estonia, in the occupation museum there, but I didn’t fully get a grasp on the organization until reading all the information here, in Vilnius. Mostly young men, but definitely some women as well, left their homes and lived in the forest as this coordinated band of resistance fighters. the information about them is just captivating, how they lived out there, what they did. There was also this great miniature model of an underground living area that was built and completely hidden under a forest meadow. It just captivates me for some reason!

The last things we visited were the plaques on the cornerstone of the building with the names of all those who were Shot by Soviets in the prison from 1940 – 1947. Somber ending, but an important one nonetheless.

Then it is back to the bus for a beautiful, if not quiet, drive back to the hotel for more stunning views across the city and a lovely group dinner in the hotel restaurant of cream of mushroom soup, chicken and delicious chocolate cake.