Searches in Vilnius
On 24 November three more searches were carried out in connection with Case 58 (CCE 54.18; also this issue CCE 55.2-4 [8]).
A group of KGB officials, under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Liniauskas, carried out a search at the flat of Povilas Peceliunas, a Lithuanian Language teacher. They confiscated his personal papers, correspondence, manuscripts, copies of the samizdat journals Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church [LCC Chronicle], Alma Mater, Perspectives and Lithuanian Archive.
A typewriter, paper and carbon paper were confiscated from Danute Kersiute, an employee of the Ministry of Culture. Kersiute was also subjected to a body-search.
At the same time a search was being carried out at the home of Vytautas Skuodis. an assistant professor at Vilnius State University. The following were discovered and confiscated: the manuscript of a book about atheist propaganda Spiritual Genocide in Lithuania, and copies of Ausra, Rupintojelis, Perspectives and Postage (Shelter), Then the interrogations began. Peceliunas was accused of being an editor of Alma Mater (//CCE 52) and working on two illegal journals. He was asked about Skuodis and the writer R. Lankauskas; attempts were made to persuade him to ‘help’ the KGB.
Skuodis was interrogated three times: he stated that he was the author of the book Spiritual Genocide in Lithuania and refused to give any further evidence.
Kersiute refused to answer questions about other people. After the search she was asked to hand in her resignation at work ‘at her own request’. She refused.
*
The Arrest of Sasnauskas
On 11 December, after a routine search in Vilnius in connection with Case 58, KGB officials arrested Julius Sasnauskas [1]. During the search copies of the Chronicle of Current Events and Tiesos Kelias (The Way of Truth), letters and notebooks were confiscated.
***
On 30 November the Catholic Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights appealed ‘To the Bishops and Priests of the Lithuanian Catholic Church’ (Document No. 26), calling on them not to answer questions put in atheist questionnaires.
In November 35 Catholic priests of Lithuania sent a protest to Brezhnev about the arrest of Tatyana Velikanova, Fatherr Gleb Yakunin and Antanas Terleckas.
148,149 signatures have been collected on a petition demanding that the church built by the believers of Klaipeda should be returned to them (CCE 54.18). The signatures made up a book of 1,589 pages, copies of which have been sent to Brezhnev, the Council of Ministers, the Council for Religious Affairs, all the Lithuanian bishops and also to the Catholic Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights.
At the end of August leaflets summarizing an article on the situation of students (from the samizdat journal Rupintojelis) were distributed at the Kaunas Polytechnic.
===================================
NOTES
- On Sasnauskas, see CCE 47.5, CCE 52.10, CCE 54.18 and Name Index.
↩︎
========================
A Chronicle of Current Events 