So many freedom fighters will be buried at once in Lithuania for the first time, the local municipality announced earlier.
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The remains will be buried on July 26 in the cemetery of Jūžintai town.
According to the data of the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre, 12 remains were found last year near the old Jūžintai cemetery, next to the former NKVD (KGB) headquarters, in pits intended for storing potatoes. This year, three more remains were discovered there.
Nine remains found last year have been identified, and the identification process for the remains found this year is still ongoing.
In one pit, the remains of four partisans from Tranas’ squad, who died on August 23, 1945, in Dauliūnai forest, were unearthed: 35-year-old squad leader Edvardas Tranas, his wife’s brother 22-year-old Vytautas Dičius, and two as yet unidentified partisans. It is believed that one of them might be Jonas Tijūnėlis, but due to the lack of closer relatives, this could not be proven by DNA tests.
In another pit, five remains were found: four partisans who were hiding in a bunker on the shore of Lake Vazajus – 16-year-old Leonas and his 23-year-old brother Bronius Pajedas, 19-year-old Napalis Kušlys, and 23-year-old Albinas Kilas, as well as 19-year-old Stanislovas Vanagas from Pūškonys village. All five of them died on the morning of June 26, 1945.
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In the third pit, the remains of two students from Norkūnai village were discovered. They were killed on July 10, 1945, because they were hiding from forced conscription into the occupying army. It was determined that these were 18-year-old Jonas Matuzonis and 21-year-old Pranas Staškevičius.
The four remains found in other pits have not yet been identified; their DNA is stored in a database.
The partisan war against the Soviet occupation in Lithuania took place from 1944 to 1953. No less than 50 thousand people participated in it, and about 100 thousand Lithuanian residents participated in the entire resistance movement as members of underground organizations and supporters. Over 20 thousand partisans and their supporters died in this war.
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