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Museum of Genocide Victims

Auku str. 2a, Vilnius
Tel.: +370 5 2663282
E-Mail: muziejus@genocid.lt

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Collections

Armed anti-Soviet resistance

This collection has been started to form just after the foundation of the museum on the base of historic documents found in central KGB building in Vilnius. It consists of partisans' documents, photographs, publications that were confiscated by MGB from partisans or their supporters and not included into their criminal cases as exhibits.

Lately, this collection was supplemented with values presented by people or organizations, or found during the expeditions. The collection is still under inventory. Persons who signed by their pseudonyms and unknown partisans should be identified.

The collection has the following parts: documents, literature, photographs, objects.
Documents. This group consists of the orders, reports, official letters, also letters of thanks, awards etc. The documents are very informative, they provide much information about appointment of officers, forming or disbanding of organization units, struggles, killed or distinguished partisans, problems of partisans' everyday life and relations. The set of partisan documents formed by KGB and archives of partisan documents (Algimantas, Kestutis districts) kept in the museum are especially valuable.
Literature. This group consists of proclamations, newspapers, poetry collections, memoirs, and unpublished works of the partisans. Some notebooks of memoirs of an outstanding partisan leader Adolfas Ramanauskas, diary of Prisikelimas district partisan Andrius Zemaitis, partisans' descriptions of battles, killed friends are also kept at the museum. Collection group named the Press consists of the newspapers and magazines (over 30 titles), also non-periodicals.
Photographs. It is a big part of the collection. There are the photographs of the freedom fighters and their supporters in it. Most of them were found in former KGB building, in so-called "room of exhibits", and the library. KGB officers fought the partisan movement aggressively, so they had to know partisans' habits, behavior etc. Probably that was the case of making card index of the partisans' photographs. A part of this card index is still kept at the museum. The other photographs were not systematized. Some photographs are torn up; the other ones are shot through. They are also witnesses of the post war years. The fund of partisans' photographs includes over 600 photographs of killed freedom fighters. Maybe they were made by MGB, because no one else could take a photograph of outraged bodies thrown in the squares and watched by MGB officers.
Objects. This is not abundant part of the collection. The most valuable things are authentic stripes of partisans' uniforms, means of intercommunication, arms, ammunition, the necessaries of life found in former bunkers during the expeditions. Lately, the museum has received a can with partisan documents, which lay deep in the ground for 50 years.

Unarmed anti-Soviet resistance

The material about the unarmed resistance possessed by the museum is still not abundant; it is gradually supplemented and ordered. The base of it was formed from the material seized by the KGB during the Soviet period from the dissidents and citizens sympathizing with them: books, underground publications, documents.

Almost all issues of "Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church" are stored in set, as well as the underground magazines and newspapers "Ausra", "Vytis", "Alma Mater", "Laisves sauklys", "Dievas ir Tevyne", "Tautos kelias", etc. In resent years, interesting photos reflecting the dissident movement and the members of this movement were acquired. The contacts entered in with the former dissidents give us hope that the collection will be supplemented by valuable and interesting material.

		Lithuanian people in prisons and deportation
		This collection consists of the material brought to the museum by people themselves or collected during the expeditions. It contains the photographs, also some original documents and objects. This group of the said collection is supplemented permanently. People who had kept their or their relatives' things reminding of deportation or prison, brought those things to the museum lately.

This is the only way to restore them and to keep them properly.
Documents. There are not many original documents in the collection: decisions to deport or to arrest people, certificates of confiscation of property, letters to the relatives, etc. The museum also collects the memoirs of deportees and political prisoners, questionnaires about the imprisonment conditions.
Photographs. It was strictly forbidden to take pictures at the camps or deportation places and to send them to the friends or relatives in Lithuania till 1953 (i.e. till J.Stalin's death). Especially rare are the pictures of 1941, the most difficult year of deportation. The museum has just one such picture, made in the goods wagon on the way to Siberia. Nevertheless, the photographs are the main part of the said collection. They display prisoners' and deportees' life far away from the native land: their work, rare holidays, efforts not just to survive, but also to keep national, cultural, spiritual traditions.
Objects. This is not abundant group of the collection, but the exhibits are authentic and original, for example: suitcase made for the journey from deportation to Lithuania; album for the pictures made from the birch-bark, the cross from the mammoth fang, rosary from the dried bread, embroidery etc.

Activity of the Soviet repressive institutions

This collection contains objects found in the former KGB building in 1992. Valuable exhibits were found at the former museum of the "Chekist Fame", Operative technical department, special library, and photo laboratory.

The said collection is still supplemented: some interesting exhibits were acquired from Lithuanian Special Archive, private persons, and shops of antiquities.

The collection is divided into the following groups:
Documents, literature, video and audio records. There are many official KGB documents, permissions, certificates in this group. Some documents that usually are issued by the Civil Registrar's Office (for example, birth certificates) are still not filled in. Maybe they could be used to create a legend for KGB agents. A valuable part of this group is the archive of the questionnaires of killed Chekist and outstanding "Soviet citizens". Video records of investigations and confrontations of 1981-1989 are also kept here. One of the most interesting records - memoirs and biography by colonel A.Martavicius told by himself to the colleagues on the Chekist Day.
Photographs. There are the photographs of handwriting examples, various anti-Soviet proclamations, places where they were spread and found, the pictures of "suspicious" people who were photographed in secret. Many exhibits, such as pictures of former KGB leaders, schemes of armed underground movement structure, plans of operations against the partisan resistance, were found in the former "Chekist Fame" museum.
Objects. This group consists of the stock found in KGB building: equipment for listening into telephone conversations, viewing of microfilms, search of hidden microphones, etc. There is a big collection of metal stamps used for sealing premises, safes, and dispatches. Among other interesting objects, there also are uniforms of KGB officers and soldiers of eighties, including the uniform worn by KGB deputy minister general A.Gailevicius.
Special library. A part of the former special KGB library is kept in the museum. This is ideological literature (the works of Marx, Lenin, other works of marxist-leninist philosophy), decisions of Supreme Council and Council of Ministers of Lithuanian SSR and USSR, various legal acts and codes, KGB publications: instructions, special literature of reconnaissance, counter-espionage, also anti-Soviet literature published in Lithuania and abroad that was confiscated by KGB.