The remains of 15 Lithuanian partisans and their relatives killed by Soviet repressive forces were buried Sunday in Jūžintai, in Lithuania’s Rokiškis district.
A farewell ceremony was held at the Church of St Michael the Archangel in Jūžintai before the remains were buried in state and family graves. Lithuanian national flags were presented to relatives of the victims, the Lithuanian Armed Forces said.
“Lithuanian partisans acted as an organised Lithuanian army and the only legitimate authority in occupied Lithuania during the occupation. By contributing to the search for partisan remains, the current Lithuanian Armed Forces honours its own predecessors, as the Lithuanian partisans are our soldiers,” Col Darius Vaicikauskas, deputy commander of the Land Forces, said.
The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania said 12 sets of remains were discovered last year near the old Jūžintai cemetery, close to the former headquarters of the Soviet security service NKVD, while three additional sets were found this year.
Nine of those discovered have been identified, while identification efforts for the remains found this year are continuing. The identified victims include partisans and two students killed in 1945 during the Soviet occupation. The identities of four others remain unknown, and their DNA samples have been stored in a database.
