Partisan leader’s niece Aušra Marija Vilkienė dies at 90

Aušra Marija Vilkienė, a deportee and niece of Lithuanian partisan leader Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas, has died aged 90, LRT reports. Her death was announced by MP Angelė Jakavonytė.

Vilkienė was also Žemaitis-Vytautas’s goddaughter. Jakavonytė said she was among the few people who had preserved close memories of him and had urged the public to remember his sacrifice for Lithuania’s freedom and honour him and his fellow partisans.

Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas expressed his condolences, saying Vilkienė had experienced deportation, loss and persecution in childhood but retained her concern for Lithuania and her warmth towards others. He said her accounts of her family and her uncle helped people understand the history of the freedom struggle through personal experience and family memories.

Žemaitis-Vytautas was the leader of the Lithuanian partisans, chairman of the Presidium of the Council of the Lithuanian Freedom Fight Movement and was proclaimed president of Lithuania.