Vilnius marks 85th anniversary of June Uprising

Vilnius on Tuesday commemorated the 85th anniversary of the June Uprising against Soviet occupation, with ceremonies held on Gediminas Avenue and at Rasu Cemetery, the Lithuanian Armed Forces reported.

Lithuania was occupied by two of the 20th century’s most brutal totalitarian regimes—Soviet communism and Nazism—bringing mass deportations, repression, imprisonment, the Holocaust, and the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Lithuanians, said Chief of Defence General Raimundas Vaikšnoras in a statement. He noted that while the June Uprising was brief, it served as a clear declaration to the world that Lithuania did not voluntarily relinquish its freedom and refused to accept occupation.

A commemorative plaque was unveiled near the house at Gediminas Avenue 29, which served as the headquarters of the anti-Soviet June Uprising organisers in 1941. Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas and Commander of the Lithuanian Land Forces Brigadier General Nerijus Stankevičius laid a wreath in honour of the uprising’s participants.

Historian Dainius Noreika briefed gathered soldiers from the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ professional and initial mandatory military service on the events of the June 23 Uprising, its significance in Lithuania’s resistance path, and national identity.

At Rasu Cemetery, where 34 known uprising participants are buried, soldiers from the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ Gediminas Staff Battalion Honour Guard laid a wreath. Through the efforts of the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union, the remaining graves of June Uprising participants were restored by 2013, and a memorial plaque reading “To the Partisans Who Died for the Homeland in 1941” was installed, with the names of 17 rebels engraved on a stone slab.