Lithuanian dissident Balys Gajauskas spent 37 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps

The Lithuanian parliament has declared 2026 the Year of Balys Gajauskas, a prominent dissident who endured 37 years of imprisonment under Soviet rule and was considered an extreme threat to the occupying regime, LRT reports.

Gajauskas, a symbol of Lithuanian resistance, was first sentenced in 1948 to 25 years in a labor camp. Unlike many political prisoners who abandoned anti-Soviet activities after release, he continued his struggle for Lithuania’s freedom. Historian Arvydas Gelžinis of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center noted that Gajauskas was an exception: “Hundreds of political prisoners, after experiencing the horrors of the camps, withdrew from anti-Soviet activities. But Gajauskas persisted in his fight for Lithuania’s independence.”

After returning to Lithuania in 1988, Gajauskas played a key role in the country’s independence movement. He became a signatory of the Act of March 11, served as director of the Lithuanian National Security Service, and led a parliamentary commission investigating KGB activities in Lithuania. Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas recalled meeting Gajauskas after his return: “For a young man like me, it was remarkable how calmly and firmly he spoke, despite everything he had endured. He never raised his voice.”

Gajauskas’ daughter, Gražina Gajauskaitė, described how her father maintained contact with his family even from thousands of kilometers away. “I never felt he wasn’t there. He wrote many letters, asked if I had prepared for school, and even explained that Santa Claus didn’t exist—only Grandfather Frost,” she said. Gajauskas died in 2017, but his legacy as a relentless fighter for freedom endures.

The Seimas marked his 100th birth anniversary with a conference, honoring his unyielding resistance. In a past interview, Gajauskas himself stated: “We must live and fight always, never sitting with our hands folded.”