The old town's excellent 'KGB Museum' documents the dark side of Soviet occupation post world war two. It follows the path of the Lithuanian Partisans who fled to the vast forests refusing to recognize their occupiers and proclaiming their own free Lithuanian state. Thousands of young men and women fought a guerrilla war with the governing forces. A struggle that they could never win but felt had to be fought. It must be mentioned that many had faith that the powers of the west would offer assistance and help them get their country back but it was not to be. Thousands of bodies were displayed in town squares over the years to quell this mindset but it was ten years before the security forces could claim a victory over the partisans.
Once the Soviet installed government was in place, life changed greatly for the worse. Local customs and language were aggressively phased out as a thousand year old Lithuania became the Soviet Republic of Lithuania - just another province of the great worker's bloc.
Censorship of written correspondence, eavesdropping on conversations and telephone calls were part of life. Agents were a covert presence in many communities using disguises to blend in. There are some textbook photographs of these on display, 'surveillance agent disguised as rural peasant, gardener, drunk etc'.
Informants of political critics of the authorities were given medals from the state and proclaimed heroes. This includes children ratting out their parents for making some anti soviet joke for example. They would have been indoctrinated during their schooling and forced to attend large backslapping rallies proclaiming the virtues of communism and the greatness of it's leaders. It must have been a crazy time to live.
The consequences of disagreement with the governing powers were harsh.
They ranged from imprisonment, exile in Siberia or even immediate execution.
The KGB museum were actually NKVD/ KGB headquarters post WW2 until independence in 1991. Visiting the prison cells was harrowing. They included torture rooms with just enough room to stand in. Other novel ideas like the ice chamber where the stripped prisoner would be forced to balance on a small rounded platform until
eventually he would drop into the icewater in the pool below. Don't forget also this is a freezing country 8 months of the year anyway.
The Siberian Gulag was essentially a slow death sentence. Some 90% of those exiled are said to have died being worked to death in a vast inhospitable land. They were made to do hard physical work around 16 hours a day and given the equivalent of a fist sized hunk of bread and watery soup. You can imagine it wouldn't take long for the body to break down under these conditions. Especially with the filthy crowded conditions the prisoners were forced to endure. It was one of the great deterrents used in the USSR for so-called dissident behaviour.
Below the prison was the execution chamber. This was the place where the ministry's recommendations would be carried out on enemies of the state, 'without delay'. The museum has papers which show the trial content, decision and then rubber-stamping of the execution by three different ministries all carried out with ruthless efficiency.
It should be noted I was one of half a dozen people in the entire museum that day. Its on about four levels and I ended up wandering alone through the eerie deserted cells left much as they must have been ten years ago. I made my way through the exercise yard into the depths of an underground bunker or cave like space. The only sound being the tap of my footsteps on the stone and a mysterious low buzzing from below. It turned out to be sound of a video playing on a loop which recreated an execution.
A prisoner would be bundled down those same steps by two guards. There would be a man waiting on the other side of the desk as if this was just another interrogation. Then startlingly a man would shoot out from behind the doorway and put a bullet through the back of his head. The two guards holding him would seamlessly change position one taking head and the other legs and hoist him through a
man sized slot in the wall, like a laundry chute. Another guard would be waiting outside to load him onto a truck headed to a mass grave. The whole process would take about two minutes. It was brutally efficient, businesslike and completely repugnant. It actually made me really angry as much as sad. I think I involuntarily bellowed a few choice curses at the shades of the evil bastards who carried it all out. At least a thousand were killed in Vilnius prison alone in this way. I garnered as much information as I could in this little hellhole before I could take no more of the sounds of struggle and gunshots on the damn video. Of course it takes a minute or so for it to sink in that it all actually happened where you are standing and you feel a bit giddy. I would say the atmosphere in that room had a bonafide heavy, dark feel. And being the only person in there was pretty terrifying.
I got out of there as quickly as I could really.
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