Metadata: Lithuanian SSR Committee for State Security (KGB) permanent records management files
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-30
- Title:
- Lithuanian SSR Committee for State Security (KGB) permanent records management files
- Title (official language):
- Lietuvos TSR valstybės saugumo komiteto (KGB) operatyvinės įskaitos bylos
- Creator/accumulator:
- Lithuanian SSR Committee for State Security (KGB)
- Date(s):
- 1926/1991
- Language:
- Russian
- Lithuanian
- Extent:
- 1,904 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The Lithuanian MGB/KGB management files collection contains records concerning activities against Lithuanian, Polish and Jewish anti-Soviet organisations, activists and other perceived state criminals in different areas of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic. The collection includes materials on cultural, political, and public figures of the former independent Lithuania, post-war local guerrilla fighters, persons suspected of collaboration with forces and authorities of Nazi Germany, Lithuanian nationalists, individuals who tried to flee abroad, and elders of the Lithuanian Catholic Church.
The collection contains valuable Jewish-related materials, which illustrate the MGB/KGB effort to reveal Jewish anti-Soviet organisations and to find Zionist activists. For instance, the collection includes a file from 1949 regarding the search for Osheris Meerovichus (inventory 1, file 105). Before the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in 1940 he was the head of Beitar in Jurbarkas. In 1941 Meerovichus was arrested and sent to five years at a labour camp. After his release he returned to Jurbarkas and in 1949 he escaped from the town.
The collection also includes special personal files that were opened by the MGB following information in which Jewish individuals were suspected of activities directed against the Soviet regime. These materials include, for example, a file of Samuil Shapiro, who was identified as a member of the Zionist underground, and in 1946 was one of the organisers of the illegal emigration of Jews from Soviet Lithuania (Bricha). He was arrested and was forced to agree to serve as an MGB agent (inventory 1, file 110). Another example is the file from December 1952 of Adolf Fridman from Klaipeda (inventory 1, file 677). The case against him was opened because he was identified as a Zionist. He was charged with spreading slander against the Soviet system, praising other Zionists who were seen as "enemies of the people" and praising Western countries, distorting the historical past of the Russian people, and writing anti-Soviet poetry. Fridman was the manager of a confectionery factory in Klaipeda and was also charged with bankrupting state property.
Generally, documents in the personal files are divided into two parts. The first part consists of decisions relating to the progress of the case, lists of MGB personnel who conducted the case, pseudonyms of agents, lists of the suspect's relatives, friends, employees, etc. This part also includes plans for operational activities, the secret agents' reports and special messages. The second part consists of correspondence, investigation reports, minutes of interrogations, surveillance reports (outdoors, on public transport, etc.), photographs and more.
Similar Jewish-related materials include files that were opened by the MGB authorities in order to clarify, prevent and suppress the anti-Soviet activities of the community. For example, in 1952, the head of the MGB in Panevezys ordered the surveillance and investigation of three local Jews, who were members of the Zionist Socialist Party prior to the establishment of Soviet rule in Lithuania (inventory 1, file 755). They were suspected and accused of contacting relatives abroad, of holding illegal meetings of Jews in Panevezys and of expressing Zionist anti-Soviet views, including defaming the Soviet system. This case was given the code name "The Bankrupt". Similar materials are included in the collection in relation to members of the Jewish Committee in Šiauliai, members of the "Union of Jewish Warriors" in the former Lithuanian Republic, members of the Bund party and more.
- 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. Previously the materials of this collection 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. They are now found in fonds K-1, inventory (opis) 45.
- 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.
- 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. Edited by Aaron Lasaine, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2019