Terror unearthed in the heart of Vilnius
Rokas M. Tracevskis
VILNIUS – Until 1994, nobody other than the KGB knew that the center of Vilnius was a place where victims of mass killings lay under the soil.
For many, it was just a football-field size park with old trees on the right-hand bank of the Neris River. The place is known as Tuskulenai Manor.
The name Tuskulenai meant more than just a park after the Lithuanian Security Department discovered that this land hid the traces of Soviet genocide. Anti-Soviet partisans, priests and politicians of independent Lithuania were placed in trenches there. The executor was the NKVD, the former name of the notorious KGB.
In 1994, the security department discovered KGB files documenting the killing of 766 people by the Soviets in Vilnius’ KGB headquarters. The victims were later buried in secret at Tuskulenai Manor. Hundreds of skeletons laying together were found during excavations that started in the summer of that same year.
“Tuskulenai is just a fragment of the mosaic of Soviet genocide against the Lithuanian people. We expect to find up to 1,000 skeletons in Tuskulenai,” said director general of the security department, Jurgis Jurgelis, during a press conference at the Lithuanian Academy of Science on Jan. 23.
So far, during excavations in 1994-1997, archaeologists have found the remains of 706 people.
The remaining victims are thought to have been buried under large trees growing in the park of the Tuskulenai estate.
“We have documents that all orders for the killings and hiding of bodies in Tuskulenai came from Moscow. I can mention the names of several killers,” said Jurgelis.
For the time being, the Forensic Medicine Center has identified 43 bodies, including that of Bishop Vincentas Borisevicius.
Bodies have been identified with the help of survivors’ photos, witnesses, relatives, dental records and DNA tests.
The same methods of identification are used in Bosnia, Rwanda and other places of mass killings.
Most victims’ remains currently rest in banana boxes at the Forensic Medicine Center, Jurgelis said.
A wooden fence now surrounds the territory of the park, with a large padlock on the gates. A small, abandoned chapel stands covered with graffiti in one corner of the fenced territory.
Inside the fence are a big field, several lanterns and big trees with fat ravens on them. Nothing physically reminds one of the tragedy there, but the recent findings have raised eyebrows.
The government promised to build a memorial to the victims in Tuskulenai. On Jan.29, the government created a commission for the commemoration of the Tuskulenai victims. One of the members of the commission is Dalia Kuodyte, director general of the Center of Genocide and Resistance and editor of the journal Genocide and Resistance.
“Lithuania suffered from Soviet and Nazi occupations as did other countries,” Kuodyte said. “It lost one-third of its inhabitants due to killings, deportations and forced emigration. The Tuskulenai story is strongly tied with the Lithuanian partisans’ war against the Soviets. Mostly partisans are buried there.”
The occupation and annexation of Lithuania, and the repression and deportation of more than 300,000 Lithuanians to Siberia, gave rise to a resistance movement with the ultimate goal of independence. Guerrilla warfare involving some 50,000 freedom fighters took place from 1944 to 1953.
Leaders of the partisan units were officers of the Lithuanian army, and the partisans wore Lithuanian army uniforms. Usually they knew each other only by pseudonyms, because of the fear of infiltrators. Big cities were controlled by Soviets, but forests belonged to the partisans. Some 20,000 fighters were killed in battles with the Soviet regular army and NKVD units.
Small groups continued this fight up until 1956. The last partisans came out of their hideouts in the late 1980s.
Resistance to the Soviets was sustained by the hope of aid from the United States and other Western democratic countries.
“Elderly people still remember how they waited for the landing of American troops on the 1st and 15th of each month. But we are not Kuwait. There are carrots in our soil, not oil. Who will come to fight for carrots?” Kuodyte said.
The Vice Minister of National Defense Edmundas Simanaitis, then a high-school student, took an active part in the anti-Soviet resistance. He belonged to the “Tauras” military district of the partisans’ army in the southwestern town of Marijampole. He remembers blowing up railways and spreading underground literature. He also remembers spending years in Soviet concentration camps for it.
“The remains of many of my friends were found in Tuskulenai,” Simanaitis told TBT.
With a hint of doubt in his voice, Simanaitis said that Jurgelis told him that Lithuanian collaborators did not participate in the Tuskulenai case.
Gingerly holding the skulls of his fallen compatriots, Simanaitis said, “They are kept in banana boxes. It is a shame. They’ll be buried in a partisan cemetery in Marijampole soon.”
Archaeologist Vytautas Urbonavicius, who was chief of the Tuskulenai excavations in 1994-1997, also said that it is not good that the remains are kept in banana boxes. “Most of them must be buried in a columbarium [a wall in a cemetery where ashes or remains are placed but can be removed]. Then we’ll be able to take out the remains for identification, when we have more advanced technologies for it,” Urbonavicius said.
He said that a book has been prepared about the findings in Tuskulenai. On Jan. 20, the first copy was presented to President Algirdas Brazauskas.
According to Urbonavicius, the Forensic Medicine Center said the skeletons show marks that could be the results of torture. Some peoples’ hands and legs were cut off. Some skulls reveal that heads of living people were put into machines that slowly squeezed them. Some skulls were crushed. Others are scarred with knife and axe marks.
Usually victims were shot from a short distance, they said. Some skulls show the marks of up to six bullets.
Historian Arturas Dubonis told TBT, “Such tortures are rather gentle for the NKVD. For example, during a massacre of members of Lithuanian patriotic organizations on June 22, 1941, in the Rainiai forest of western Lithuania, Soviet soldiers cut men’s genitals and put them into the mouths of victims. Soviet activists cut tongues, ears, scalps, took out eyes, made belts from the skins of the victims and used for tying their hands – all that was done on living people. Pulling off fingernails was a common torture of NKVD.
“It is disgusting that Lithuania doesn’t decisively persecute NKVD genocide executors. Some former members of NKVD receive bigger pensions in Lithuania than their victims.”
“Nobody is punished for Soviet genocide,” said Kazimieras Kovarskas, chief prosecutor for the special investigations department. “A trial has been running since 1995 against three local collaborators, Kiril Kurakin, Petras Bartasevicius, Juozas Sakalys. However, they pretend to be ill and do not show up in the court. The nearest trial is planned for Feb. 13, but I’m not sure that they’ll come to the court.”
02/95/1998. The Baltic Times, 1997