On Friday, she applied for a posthumous award of the Order of Vytautas the Great with a gold chain to J. Žemaičius-Vytautas, Chairman of the Presidium of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement (LLKS).
The politician also asks the ardent Defense Minister Arvydas Anušauskas, Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas and the Lithuanian Military Academy of General Jonas Žemaitis to take care of perpetuating the memory of J. Žemaichis-Vytautas by installing a cenotaph for him in the Antakalnis cemetery, and to arrange the existing monument and the square near the Ministry of National Defense.
“It was J. Žemaičius-Vytautas who successfully succeeded in uniting the partisans during the Soviet occupation, uniting the freedom fighters operating underground. These initiatives and his personal merits were appreciated by the commanders of the Lithuanian partisans, who elected him the chairman of the LLKS council, as well as by the restored state of Lithuania, which recognized him as the military and political leader of the fighting Lithuania”, said P. Kuzmickienė.
In 1997, J. Žemaitis-Vytautas was posthumously awarded the Order of Vytis Cross, 1st degree (now the Grand Cross of the Order of Vytis Cross), as well as the status of a volunteer soldier, and in 1998 he was awarded the rank of Brigadier General. In 2009, the Seimas recognized him as the head of the state of Lithuania, having actually performed the duties of the president.
“We don’t have the grave of the partisan general, because J. Žemaitis-Vytautas was sentenced to death in a closed court in June 1954 and shot on November 26 in Moscow, in Butyrkai prison. His body was cremated, and his ashes were placed in a mass grave for the victims of the Soviet regime. However, the time has come to install a cenotaph for the president in the Pantheon of Heads of State, in Vilnius, in the Antakalnis cemetery,” said P. Kuzmickienė.
Next year, the 115th anniversary of the birth and 70th anniversary of the death of J. Žemaitis-Vytautas will be celebrated.
J. Žemaitis-Vytautas served in the Lithuanian army between the wars, and after the Second World War he joined the Lithuanian partisans and eventually became their commander.
On February 16, 1949, under the leadership of J. Žemaičius, the Council of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle adopted a declaration that the highest legal authority in Lithuania is the leadership of the partisans, and the goal of their struggle is to restore the independent parliamentary Republic of Lithuania.
Guerrilla war against the occupation of the Soviet Union took place in Lithuania in 1944-1953.
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2024-08-12 06:06:37
