Museum of Genocide Victims

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Exterior wall of the building with the engraved names of victims of the KGB
The execution room
An isolation cell with a straitjacket and padded walls.

The Museum of Genocide Victims ( lit. Genocido aukų muziejus ) is a museum on modern history in Vilnius , the capital of Lithuania . It is located in the building that the German Gestapo and the Soviet KGB used for interrogation, torture and executions of political opponents. It opened on October 14, 1992. Colloquially it is also commonly known as the KGB Museum .

history

The building was built in 1888 and initially served as a court. It is centrally located on Gedimino prospektas between Seimas , the Parliament and the Gediminas Tower of the castle. In 1940 the KGB first moved in, with the German occupation of the country from 1941 to 1941 the Gestapo and then the KGB again.

For half a century, from 1940 to the 1980s, preparations were made here for the deportations of Lithuanian citizens to the Gulag camps and political opponents imprisoned. For many Lithuanians, the building symbolizes the 50 years of Soviet occupation of the country and the oppression of opposition members. It exemplifies the continuity of the struggle of a small people for independence and the continuity of the oppression by the occupying powers. Alongside the Hungarian House of Terror, it forms one of the few history museums at the historical site of oppression.

In September 2018, Pope Francis visited the memorial, accompanied by Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius SJ. As the Pope said, it was the most moving moment of his visit to the three Baltic states .

Building the museum

The fully bilingual (lit./engl.) Exhibition was opened in 1992 and reorganized in 1997. The museum has an inventory of 100,000 exhibits. The ground floor of the museum is dedicated to the Lithuanian resistance fighters during the Second World War and the Soviet occupation with historical photographs and exhibits . Around 140,000 were deported and 22,000 were killed.

One room documents the persecution of priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania .

A small part of the exhibition also reports on the German occupation of Lithuania under the command of Horst Wulff and the fate of 240,000 dead, including 200,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust , and the 60,000 deported to Germany for forced labor under the Nazis .

In the basement you can visit the former cell blocks, guard rooms, a soundproof torture cell, shower rooms and the prison library. A former room for executions is also accessible to visitors and has been restored in an exemplary manner.

The fate of deportees and the establishment of the KGB in Lithuania are documented on the upper floor. There is also a telecommunications monitoring room there.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Virginija Rudiene, Vilma Juozeviciute: The Museum of Genocide Victims. Vilnius n.d. , ISBN 9986-757-72-X (museum brochure , English), p. 3.
  2. ↑ page of the museum on building history , accessed on August 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ Painful impressions . Catholic News Agency , October 2, 2018 information service.
  4. ↑ a b Virginija Rudiene, Vilma Juozeviciute: The Museum of Genocide Victims. Vilnius undated , ISBN 9986-757-72-X (museum brochure , English), p. 79.

Coordinates: 54 ° 41 ′ 16.4 "  N , 25 ° 16 ′ 14.1"  E