Chambers of horror
TANUSHREE PODDER
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Vilnius is a beautiful city and the capital of Lithuania. The beauty hides the awfulness of its past.
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Photo: Tanushree Podder
The memorial : Remembering the past.
When I entered the seemingly innocent looking KGB (the Russian abbreviation for Committee for State Security) Headquarter building in Vilnius, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Vilnius is a beautiful city and the capital of Lithuania. Here stands the erstwhile KGB headquarters, now a museum.
Vilnius has a history of violence. This tiny Baltic country was coveted by the Poles, Germans, and Russians due to its strategic location. From the 1200s when the Teutonic Knights tried to conquer Lithuania to the occupation by Germany during World War I and thereafter by Soviets in the 1940s, the country saw many invasions.
The beginning
In the autumn of 1940 the soviets established an NKVD prison with 50 cells in the basement of a building and so began the horror story. from 1940 to 1991, various agencies of the Soviets (NKVD, later KGB) arrested people who resisted the Soviet occupants. These freedom fighters were tortured, killed or deported to Siberia.
The outer walls of the huge building are engraved with hundreds of names of those who died in the dark cells. We saw people placing flowers in memory of the loved ones they had lost. Almost all families had lost a member or more, during those terrible years.
The ground floor of the museum depicts the struggle of Lithuanians for freedom. On display are many black and white photographs of the partisans, their personal belongings as well as original papers that led to their arrest. The exhibition on the first floor displays striking photographs portraying the inhuman working and living conditions of the people sent to the labour camps in Siberia.
Many of those sentenced to death or deportation were women. A large number of priests also suffered for publishing and distributing anti-establishment and revolutionary papers.
Starting from the tiny cells, which were called boxes and didn’t allow a person to sit or lie down, to the execution chamber, we journeyed into the history of Lithuania and the black deeds of KGB.
The hushed group was led through the corridor where cells were used for solitary confinement. This were to break down the prisoners physically and emotionally, and make them confess.
Then there was the horrifying padded cell. The walls were padded and soundproofed, so that they would muffle the cries of the tortured prisoners. A straitjacket, now placed on the wall, was used for those who resisted torture.
A small courtyard with high walls and barbed wires where the prisoners were taken for fresh air and exercise at the back of the building looks like a scene from the German concentration camps.
As we made our way to the underground execution chamber our hearts were heavy with grief. No one spoke except in whispers. Walking back to the street and reality, we heaved a sigh of relief. The thought that not many prisoners had walked out of the building alive, made me utter a silent prayer for their soul.
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