Building of former KGB headquarters. Photo: Vilma Juozevičiūtė

Monument to Soviet Occupation Victims in Aukų str. Photo:  Vilma Juozevičiūtė

Monument to the deportees. Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

Entrance to the museum. Photo: Vilma Juozevičiūtė

The museum lobby. Photo: Sigitas Platūkis

The exposition "The KGB prison". Photo: Vilma Juozevičiūtė

The exposition "The execution chamber". Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

The exposition "Lithuania in 1940 and 1941: the persecutions start..". Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

New! The exhibition dedicated to the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust in Lithuania. Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

The exposition "The partisan war between 1944 and 1953". Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

The exposition "An unequal fight (suppression of the armed resistance)". Photo: Jonas Vaitkus

The exposition "Lithuanian people in Soviet prisons and hard labour camps: 1944–1956". Photo: Skirmantė Vaitkevičiūtė

The exposition "Deportations: 1944–1953". Photo: Skirmantė Vaitkevičiūtė

The exposition "The KGB 1954–1991". Photo:  Skirmantė Vaitkevičiūtė

The exposition "The Popular Anti-Soviet Resistance: 1954–1991". Photo: Vilma Juozevičiūtė

The Museum of Genocide Victims

Contacts
Address: Aukų g. 2a, LT-01113, Vilnius.
Tel.: (+370 ~ 5) 249 81 56, (+370 ~ 5) 249 62 64.
Fax (+370 ~ 5) 249 74 27.
E-mail: muziejusgenocid.lt
http://www.genocid.lt/muziejus/
Director Eugenijus Peikštenis.

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Wednesday to Saturday 10–18;
Sunday 10–17.

Admission:
adults – 2 €;
pupils, students and retired people (with presentation of the appropriate document) – 1 €.
Free admission for museums professionals, disabled persons, children under 7 years, teachers and guides leading organized groups.

Guided tours:
Survey guided tour in Lithuanian language – 9 €, 
Survey guided tour in another language – 15 €.
Thematic guided tour in Lithuanian language – 6 €.
Thematic guided tour in another language – 12 €.
Review of a documentary – 6 €.
Hire of headphones and recorded tour in English – 2,50 €.

Additional services:
Copying and photographing of the exhibits of the museum;
Consultations for visitors and institutions;
The museum bookshop sells publications by the Genocide and Resistance Centre of Lithuania

Branch museum
Memorial Complex of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park 
Address: Žirmūnų g. 1F, LT-09239 Vilnius.
Tel.: (+370 ~ 5) 275 07 04, (+370 ~ 5) 275 12 23.
E-mail: tuskulenaigenocid.lt
More information >

Collection
This is a historical-memorial museum forming its collections following thematic principle. Historical-documentary material reflecting repression taken against the inhabitants of Lithuania by occupational regimes (1940-1990), material on the anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi resistance, information about participants of struggles for freedom and victims of genocide are accumulated.
More information >

Expositions

The KGB prison
The most important part of the exhibition put on by the museum is the old NKVD/MGB/KGB prison that was established in the basement of the building in the autumn of 1940 after Lithuania‘s occupation by the Soviet Union. At that time, the prison contained 50 cells. Only at the beginning of the 1960s, when the anti-Soviet resistance was broken, were most of the cells used to house the KGB archives. The remaining 23 cells (later on, 19) were still used for the imprisonment of dissidents and fighters for human rights.
The prison is now as it was when the KGB left it in August 1991. Visitors can see 19 common wards, the rooms of the duty officer and the guards, the search and fingerprinting rooms, a padded cell where prisoners were tortured, solitery confinement cells and courtyards where prisoners were taken for exercise. Small thematic exhibitions are put on in some cells (about the persecution of priests and etc).

The execution chamber
On display in glass stands is material which shows the procedures of sentencing people to death, and the inhuman treatment of dead bodies. Under a glass floor some objects discovered in the burial ground in Tuskulėnai are displayed: shoes, buttons, glasses, etc.

Lithuania in 1940 and 1941: the persecutions start...
This exhibition reflects the situation of Lithuania in the late 1930s and shows how Moscow, with the help of local collaborators, destroyed gradually the sovereignty of the state, ruined the system of state power and administration, implemented communist ideology, and deported and imprisoned people.
This was the room of the deputy chief of the prison during the last decades of the existence of the repressive Soviet aparatus. On display are genuine furniture and other objects from the 1950s. Some details of the room‘s interior have been recreated.

The exhibition dedicated to the Nazi occupation and the Holocaust in Lithuania
The new exhibition has been mounted in ward No 3 of the former KGB inner prison wherein there still remain inscriptions of people imprisoned by the Gestapo during the years of the Nazi occupation dated 1942–1944. Placed in a narrow space, the exposition displays the material on the Nazi occupation in Lithuania, the Gestapo prison and its inmates, the history of the Vilnius ghetto, mass murder site in Paneriai, recent explorative studies carried out in 2008 in the territory of the Paneriai Forest Park, as commissioned by the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, as well as the names of the non-Jewish residents of Lithuania that have been granted the title of the Righteous among the Nations for rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.
The exposition was made of the photographs, documents and items from the collections of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, Kaunas IX Fort Museum, the Lithuanian Central State Archive, and private persons.

The partisan war between 1944 and 1953
In July 1944, after the three-year-long occupation by Nazi Germany, the Soviet army marched into Lithuania again. It was the start of the nine-year-long partisan war for the reestablishment of the independent state.
This exhibition presents the territorial structure and the military organisation of the partisan units,the goals of the freedom fighters, and their daily life. There are genuine documents from the partisan movement, periodicals and other publications, manuscripts, personal belongings, and photographs which immortalise the faces of the freedom fighters, rare celebrations, and moments of tribute to their brothers-in-arms.

An unequal fight (suppression of the armed resistance)
The exhibition shows who was in charge of implementing Soviet power in Lithuania, and the organisations responsible for suppressing the armed anti-Soviet resistance. Documents and other visual material demonstrate the methods of Soviet repression – the interior army, special reprisal battalions and groups of shock troops.

Lithuanian people in Soviet prisons and hard labour camps: 1944–1956
In the second half of 1944, after the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania again, the repression of peaceful inhabitants of the country was immediately renewed.
This hall is devoted to political prisoners. Documentary material showing the scale and methods of the repression is on display. It demonstrates the Soviet penal system and the appaling working and living conditions of the prisoners. There is an exhibition of clothes and footwear worn in labour camps, homemade crosses, prayer books and greeting cards...

Deportations: 1944–1953
Deportations, the mass evictions of people from their places of residence to the remotest regions of the Soviet Union, were one of the most brutal measures taken by the Soviet regime against civilians.
The documentary material displayed acquaints visitors with the procedures of organising and carrying out deportations, the legal status and living conditions of the deportees, and statistical documents about the deportations. Documentary and feature films, and photographs of burial grounds in Siberia, supplemet the factual information, and show the fate and missery of the people who suffered humiliation and injustice.

The KGB: 1954–1991
By using documents regulating KGB activities, equipment that has survived, methodological material, forms used and other documentary material, attempts have been made to show the methods of the KGB as a department which fulfilled the functions of the political police in the Soviet Union, and to show its exceptional place in the Soviet political system.
Listening equipment and furniture that has survived is on display in the eavesdropping room, and some of the interiors have been reproduced.

The Popular Anti-Soviet Resistance: 1954–1991
The visual material, original proclamations and documents, periodicals and other samizdat publications on display show the popular national resistance, trends in the movement which formed in the 1960s and 1970s, and the organisations which developed them. The National Revival Movement, called the “Singing Revolution”, which resulted in the reestablishment of the independent state, is also reflected in the exhibition.
During the years of the existence of the Soviet repressive agencies, this room served as a darkroom. Behind the partition, surviving furniture and equipment are on display. Some interior details have been recreated.

Exhibitions
Historical exhibitions are organized in the museum constantly and its travelling exhibitions are taken to the country‘s cities and towns, and to other countries too.

Cultural, educational activity
Excursions for school-children;
Supplying information material for exhibitions arranged in schools;
Seminars, film showings and meetings with former political prisoners, deportees and partisans are held here.

Departments

Department of History
The division systematizes studies, describes and registers valuables of the museum, takes care of the replenishment of the collections, arranges expositions and exhibitions, prepares publications, arranges topical events, provides visitor service, implements educational activities.

Department of Registration and Regulation of the Stock
The division fulfills the primary registration of the displays, takes care of valuables of the museum accepted and transferred for permanent, long-term and short-term keeping, is in charge of the proper conditions for keeping the displays and restoring them.

Economic Department
The division takes care of economic and financial affairs of the museum.

Other news
The museum was established on October 14, 1992. At that time founders of the museum were the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Republic of Lithuania and the Union of Political Prisoners and Exiles.
In 1997 the museum was re-organized.
Following decision No. 263 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania of March 24, 1997 "On the transfer of the Center of the Investigation of Repression in Lithuania and the Museum of Victims of Genocide to the Research Center of Genocide and Resistance of the Inhabitants of Lithuania" the functions of a founder were transferred to the Center.
Since June 1997 the Genocide Victims' Museum is a part of the Memorial Department of the Research Center of Genocide and Resistance of the Inhabitants of Lithuania.
Founder of the museum – the Research Center of Genocide and Resistance of the Inhabitants of Lithuania.