Metadata: Records of city departments of the Committee of State Security (KGB) of the Lithuanian SSR
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Lithuanian Special Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos ypatingasis archyvas
- Postal address:
- Gedimino pr. 40/1, 01110 Vilnius
- Phone number:
- +370 5 264 9024
- Web address:
- http://www.archyvai.lt/en/news.html
- Email:
- lya@archyvai.lt
- Reference number:
- K-18
- Title:
- Records of city departments of the Committee of State Security (KGB) of the Lithuanian SSR
- Title (official language):
- Lietuvos TSR valstybės saugumo komiteto (KGB) miestų skyriai
- Creator/accumulator:
- City departments of the LSSR NKVD-MGB-KGB in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Panevėžys
- Date(s):
- 1944/1991
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 1,983 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The records of city departments of the Committee of State Security (KGB) of the Lithuanian SSR contain their operational working plans, financial documents, reports to the leadership of the MGB/KGB, correspondence with other different MGB/KGB agencies and local party units, complaints and petitions submitted by citizens and more.
The collection contains valuable Jewish-related materials, which refer to the KGB effort to reveal so-called “Jewish national anti-Soviet activists”. The collection includes reports from 1958 and 1982 on operations of KGB secret agents among Jews (inventory 1, files 121, 621). For example, a file from 1958 includes documents in which Jews are accused of sending forged documents back to Poland.
Other materials in this file note the actions of KGB secret agents against Jews who had returned from the Soviet labour camps and were identified as Jewish nationalists. To take another example, there is material on KGB actions in relation to suspicions against Naum Meisel that he belonged to the Israeli intelligence community. A file from 1982 contains a list of Jewish KGB agents in Panevėžys with detailed information about them and the KGB's plans for their work in the Jewish community. Materials from 1989 contain a detailed report of Jewish cultural activities in Lithuania and the operations of KGB agents (inventory 2, file 553). The report includes information on the activities of Israeli diplomats, on the Jewish cultural organisation “Tkuma” and on other Jewish organisations. It contains, for example, information on the actions of KGB agents inside the “Lithuanian Jewish Culture Society” (OKEL). The records also contain a detailed report on the travel of a KGB agent to Israel in 1989 with a description of the places and cities he visited and the situation on Israel's borders (inventory 2, file 553). In addition, materials of 1982 and 1987 contain a detailed report of the KGB on Jewish cultural activities in Kaunas and on the working plans of KGB operations inside local Jewish circles (inventory 2, file 554). The collection also contains personal statements of Jews asking permission to emigrate to Israel in the 1960s (inventory 2, file 688). These include information about their relatives in the USSR and Israel. The collection includes questionnaires of citizens asking to emigrate to Israel (inventory 2, files 689-692), lists of Jewish families making aliyah in 1971-1972, and a list from 1976 of Jewish teachers teaching in Kaunas schools (inventory 2, file 695).
- Archival history:
- In 1990, following the collapse of the USSR, the KGB of the Lithuanian SSR exported massive amounts of archival materials for destruction in Russia. Many of the materials were sent to the archives of the KGB Administration in the Omsk Region and were partially destroyed at the Omsk Cardboard Factory. Consequently, by the autumn of 1990 only a small number of the files remained in the Archives of the KGB of the LSSR. The Lithuanian Special Archive in Vilnius was established in 1995 and the preserved records of the former Lithuanian SSR division of KGB, dating from 1940 to 1991, were transferred to this newly created archive. This archives renamed many of the fonds and the inventories (opisi) and assigned them new fonds and inventory numbers, including materials that were part of the archival fonds K-1, Lietuvos SSR Valstybės Saugumo Komitetas (Committee of State Security of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, LSSR KGB), 1926-1991, inventory (opis) 14.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Shortly after the annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union in 1940, the Lithuanian MGB/KGB was established in Kaunas in order to carry out missions of the secret police and political persecution. From 1944 the main headquarters of the Lithuanian SSR MGB/KGB was based in Vilnius. Local city KGB departments operated in various Lithuanian cities including Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, and Panevėžys. The key functions of the MGB/KGB were: a) to clarify, prevent and terminate anti-Soviet activities of the population in Lithuania ("political counter-intelligence"); b) to control all the social and cultural activities of intellectuals, the youth and religious believers ("ideological counter-intelligence”); c) espionage and activity among the Lithuanian diaspora abroad (“foreign intelligence”); d) management and supervision of the activities of the Lithuanian Communist Party units.
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of two inventories.
- Finding aids:
- Detailed inventories are available for free online access on the website of the Lithuanian Chief Archivist Service.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Ilya Vovshin, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2019
