"Two tickets for the KGB museum, please."Two attendants look at us without facial expression, while they accept our Litas and give us the tickets.
"From the Netherlands, are you," the youngest one says.
"How do you know?" i ask, quite surprised.
"We have our information," the senior one replies. Not one muscle in his face moves.
I understand. "What is my name?" i try to challenge them.
"We may not say," senior says . "State secret," junior adds.
At last we get a wink from senior. Warned by this miniature intelligence service show off, we enter the cellars. And got horrified during the following one and a half hour.
In the first cellar (see picture above) freshly arrived arrested were hold for the three hours it took the officer of duty filling in all of the forms. The sitting facility has been added just after 1953 (Jozef Stalin's death).
The Lithuanians having the longest tradition of indepency from the three Baltic states, were able to resist Soviet occupiers even so. But, of course, after a couple of years they had to withdraw to the woods and go underground.
Arrested partisans were squeezed out for information and then either sent to Siberia, or, if their lifes could be too risky for the occupier, executed.
Some were kept in prison here for years, being allowed to visit the toilet once a day, to take some fresh air 10 minutes a day and to take a shower once every fortnight. It wasn't very rare that 10 arrestants were kept in a cellar from 12 square meter.
And all this being held in position until 1989.
We left the building in unbelief about the cruelty of one man surpressing and torturing the other. It took some time to find back faith in humanity, and thus ourselves, again.
Comments
»