Metadata: The Committee for State Security (KGB), Lithuanian SSR, 2nd Department
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- Special Archives of Lithuania
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos ypatingasis archyvas
- Postal address:
- Gedimino 40/1, LT-01110, Vilnius
- Phone number:
- +370 5 261 0004
- Web address:
- http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lya.html
- Email:
- lya@archyvai.lt
- Reference number:
- LYA f. K-41
- Title:
- The Committee for State Security (KGB), Lithuanian SSR, 2nd Department
- Title (official language):
- Lietuvos komunistų partijos (LKP) Vilniaus miesto komitetas
- Creator/accumulator:
- The Committee for State Security, Lithuanian SSR, 2nd Department
- Date(s):
- 1940/1985
- Language:
- Russian
- Lithuanian
- Extent:
- 1,994 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains the files of several units of the Soviet political police that functioned in Lithuania during Soviet occupation. A considerable number of files include Jewish-related material.
The materials document surveillance by the Soviet political police after the development of the Jewish national movement: a circular from 1944 discusses the necessity of suppressing Zionist-revisionist groups in the USSR, which were labelled "fascist" (the circular mentions a group of revisionists in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, allegedly headed by V. Jabotinsky's sister, and includes a short data sheet on the revisionist movement). Zionist and other Jewish groups are also mentioned in 1949-50 and subsequent years; the files include lists of names, surveillance materials and other data (including data on the Jewish community of Kaunas in 1959 – the synagogue, local communal activists and so on). Many files refer to the Jewish national movement in Lithuania in 1970s and 1980s, including lists of emigrants and those denied permission to emigrate, data on Zionist activities and materials on the secret services' activities, including names of agents, memos and correspondence.
Several files include data on Jewish-related activities of the Soviet secret services. These include surveillance of Israeli and other tourists, including detailed surveillance reports, transcriptions of phone calls, copies of private letters, personal histories, photographs and other data on the tourists and their friends and relatives (among the tourists mentioned are the American journalists Morris Lipson and B. Goldberg; a copy of an article by the latter, who was a son-in-law of Sh. Rabinovitz (Shalom Aleichem), is included in the file). Data on measures against Israeli espionage in Lithuania is also included. Several files reflect investigations from the last years of Stalin's rule, during the antisemitic and anti-western "Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaign.”
A file from 1958 includes a report on an antisemitic riot in the town of Plunge caused by rumours of a blood libel. Other files mention individuals suspected of war crimes and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers during World War II.
- Archival history:
- After the liberation of Lithuania from Soviet occupation the archives of the local Soviet secret services were integrated into the Special Archives of Lithuania.
- Access, restrictions:
- Stalinism; Gulag; Antisemitism; Anticosmopolitan campaign; Israel
- Finding aids:
- The collection comprises one inventory.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- A significant part of the Jewish-related materials was copied by the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem and is available there.
