#Šešiapūdis

[hjmarseille]

As a means to subdue the resistance, the Soviets for some years dumped the bodies of killed partisans on the square in the nearest town. This was done in part to create fear among the population, but also to identify the bodies by perceiving how by-passers reacted when looking at the corpses. If somebody showed remorse, they were interrogated as to whether they knew the identity of the dead. The pictures are taken by the Soviet security, as a mean of identifying the dead. No written instructions, however, to use this mean are available from archives. On the picture there are three dead partisans from the Vytis militarydistrict, with their weapons dumped on top of the bodies. The three are: Vytautas Kadžys—codename Šešiapūdis (Six pounder); Antanas Valikonis—codename Grietinėlė (Cream); and Jonas Kalvanaitis—codename Pažistamas (Acquaintance).

* * *

On some rare occasions partisans actually survived. On this picture to the left we see Petras Gumauskas—codename Pipiras (Pepper)—photographed together with his dead comrades in 1952.

Photos and caption featured in Forest Brothers: The Account of an Anti-Soviet Lithuanian Freedom Fighter 1944-1948 by Juozas Lukša