Metadata: Second Department of the Committee for State Security (KGB) under the Council of Ministers 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-43
- Title:
- Second Department of the Committee for State Security (KGB) under the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR
- Title (official language):
- Valstybės saugumo komiteto (KGB) prie Lietuvos TSR Ministrų Tarybos 2-asis
- Creator/accumulator:
- Second Department of the Committee for State Security (MGB/KGB) LSSR
- Date(s):
- 1941/1955
- Date note:
- Predominantly 1946/1955
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 39 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains records of the Second Department of the Committee for State Security (MGB/KGB) LSSR, of the 3rd Department of the Directorate of State Security of the LSSR NKVD, and of the 1st Department of the LSSR MVD. These records relate to work with repatriates, exposure of different organisations that were considered anti-Soviet, exposure of agents of foreign intelligence and individuals that were labeled as "traitors to the Motherland". The collection includes minutes of interrogation of arrested persons and witnesses; reports regarding counterintelligence operations; special reports of local KGB agencies and of agents; correspondence of citizens with persons abroad; lists of repatriates, re-émigrés, persons without citizenship; and lists of suspects, convicted and wanted for anti-Soviet activities.
The collection includes Jewish-related materials which relate to the MGB's effort to uncover Jewish anti-Soviet organisations and Jewish nationalists. Such records are parts of the reports of the MGB for 1950-1951 (inventory 1, file 16). The reports contain, for example, data on the arrest of a group of five Jews who were accused of creating an illegal Jewish committee in the city of Šiauliai. They were accused of having nationalist and Zionist conversations, promoting betrayal of the Soviet motherland, slandering the Soviet system, maintaining links with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, conducting speculative frauds, introducing enemy elements from among the Jews to Soviet enterprises in Lithuania, and operating clandestine Jewish prayer houses. False Jewish special agents were involved in this MGB effort. Materials from 1950-1951 that shed light on the methods of work of the MGB towards the Jewish population are contained in the work plans of the 2nd Department of the MGB LSSR (inventory 1, file 17). In addition, documentation of the actions of the MGB from 1950-1951 which exposes Jewish organisations of the “anti-Soviet underground” is contained in the correspondence of the 2nd MGB LSSR Department with other departments of the MGB including its local units in Lithuania (inventory 1, files 29, 30). These materials include papers relating to the arrest in Klaipeda of three Jews who were accused of creating a Jewish nationalist organisation in the city. The allegations related to gathering Jewish nationalists, running bourgeois nationalist conversations, raising money, providing material assistance to the families of arrested Zionists and promoting anti-Soviet agitation. The records also include interrogation reports and materials delivered by the MGB agents.
- 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. 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.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The second Department of the MGB/KGB LSSR operated from 1944 to 1960 and coordinated the work of political counterintelligence. It was particularly responsible for work with repatriates, exposure of Lithuanian, Polish, and Jewish anti-Soviet organisations, agents of foreign intelligence and the so-called "traitors to the Motherland”.
- 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