L Iberian
Gedimino Prospekt, the main boulevard of Vilnius, is dedicated to Gediminas, Grand Duke philosopher who founded the city in 1323. At that time, according to Saulius Žukas, religious peace reigned in the cities and countries. The tradition of tolerance inherited from pagan times and the defense of religious minorities by the aristocracy made Lithuania a European center of liberalism. In 1563 was officially proclaimed for the first time in Europe, which recognized the privilege to all equal rights to profess and propagate their faith. The document became the law of the State and the community prospered Vilnius Calvinist and Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox. Press freedom was absolute and the city offered shelter to Ivan Fyodorov, the first Russian printer, forced to leave Moscow by the crowd, instigated by the monks orthodox scribes, had destroyed the printing press. The atmosphere of tolerance in the seventeenth century encouraged the development of Jewish culture, the expression of a community that Grand had invited to settle in the country in the fourteenth century. On the outskirts of Vilnius came too Caraimi, a people of Turkish origin who had embraced the Jewish religion of the most ancient tradition, before the introduction of the Talmud. An area of \u200b\u200bVilnius, then housed the Tartars and their mosques, in which they kept on display portraits of Grand Duke Vytautas, who had called them in Lithuania to serve in the cavalry regiments of his army.
On the avenue, at the height of Lukiškiy aikšte, a square a few years ago dominated by a statue of Lenin, is a palace, built in 1899, which has always been chosen as a residence by the invaders of Lithuania: headquarters of the Poles after World War I, then the Gestapo, and finally the KGB. Of the latter, in the basement, you can visit the prisons. Infernal is a torture chamber with water: at the center of the cell is a metal disk of even half a meter in diameter, raised above the floor and connected to an underlying engine, the detainee was placed on the disk, surrounded by icy water , and rotated about himself until he lost his balance and fell into the water and the procedure was repeated until failure of the prisoner. Now the building's ground floor houses the Museum of Genocide Victims, which has an exhibition on anti-Soviet resistance. The first reaction of the Lithuanian occupation by the Red Army was organized by its diplomatic serving abroad: 19 September 1940 they gathered in Rome and formed a National Committee Lithuanian (LTK), which was to coordinate efforts for the liberation of the country. Internal divisions between pro-German and pro-British, however, this embryo paralyzed government in exile. On November 17, in Berlin, was born, however, the Lithuanian Activist Front of (LAF), which organized the revolt of June 1941, in coordination with the German plans to invade the USSR. After three days of guerrilla insurgency, June 26 the German army came to Lithuania, welcomed by the people with tears of joy and throwing flowers. The Red Army reoccupied the country July 13, 1944 and began a methodical repression of any attempt at resistance. The partisans, then, sought refuge in the forests, which remained their base of operations until 1953.
In the period of Nazi occupation are not talking and to find some information I move to the Jewish Museum Vilna Gaon . At the beginning of the twentieth century Vilnius was one of the main Jewish centers in Europe and had given birth to many Zionists, experts and scholars of the Bible and Talmud to the painter Chaim Soutine. In 1941, anti-Semitism was widespread and insisted on the presence of some Jews among the Bolsheviks Lithuanians who collaborated with the occupying Soviets. The killings of Jewish citizens and the theft of their property began before the arrival of the German army and SS not struggled to find collaborators, some of whom called themselves "Freedom Fighters", exactly as they would have some anti-Soviet partisans years later. The museum's curators explain that "the Nazis were welcomed as liberators Lithuania, deserving of eternal gratitude of the country and the Catholic Church." A small number of members of the clergy condemned the behavior of Lithuanians, however, no member of the religious authorities did nothing to stop them. The attitude of the provisional government was benign neglect. In 1995, however, opened the Gallery of the Righteous in Lithuania, where they remembered the 2300 citizens who aided Jews during the Nazi occupation.
The Museum hosts an exhibition of Lithuanian Jews who fought against the Nazis, armed groups of resistance fighters were built, between December 1941 and January 1942, in the ghettos of Vilnius and Kaunas, devoted mainly to sabotage. In the next two years about 1,800 Jews fled from the ghettos and labor camps, fled into the woods and joined the partisans. Has become the legendary flight of 15 April 1944 by the extermination camp of Paneriai eighty prisoners escaped through a tunnel they had dug in the ground eight meters deep. Only eleven of them managed to reach the base of the partisans. Like other refugees, became part of Lithuanian resistance, organized into four detachments: The Avenger , Victory , Fight and Death to Fascism . Later, the partisans came together in the Lithuanian Division XVI dell'Arma Red. Four of these Vulf Vilenski, Kalman Shur, and Grigory Ushpol Berel Cindel, received the title "Hero of the Soviet" war on their own merits.
Even Napoleon, as explained by a temporary exhibition staged at the National Museum, had aroused the enthusiasm of the Lithuanians. Their state was formed in mid-thirteenth century, bringing together samogiziani, the Semigallia, the cure, the Suduva, and part of the iotvingi please, and, having assumed the form of the Grand Duchy, had become one of the largest states of ' Europe in 1398, in fact, had its southern borders in the Crimea and east extending to about one hundred kilometers from Moscow. In the eighteenth century, however, had been occupied by Russians, Austrians and Prussians. Since the French victories against Prussia in 1807, therefore, the Lithuanian nobility was in favor of military action in support of Bonaparte, but was held back by the peace agreement they signed with the Tsar and had to wait until 1812 to see Napoleon to attack the Russian Empire. The French army crossed the river Neman in Kaunas on June 24, 28, arrived in Vilnius, which became his administrative base, and July 1 Bonaparte created the Provisional Government of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, formed by a group of citizens that included the separatist rebels of 1794. On 8 December, after the disastrous defeat of the Berezina, Vilnius was crossed by the French in retreat, but expectations of freedom excited by Napoleon antizariste enliven even the rebellions of 1831 and 1863.
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