Exposition „Freedom fights in Šilavotas region“
Kontaktai
17 A. Radušio St, Šilavotas, Prienai Distric Manucipality | Business hours
Tue to Fri between 9.00 to 18.00 (Lunch break 13.00 to 14.00)
Before arrival, please call: +370 687 24394 The museum is closed during the following holidays
If you wish to visit the museum at any other time, call +370 687 24394 |
In 1938, a one-and-a-half-storey hospital-ambulatory building of red brickwork was built in Šilavotas.
When Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets for the second time in 1944-1953, it housed a sanitary centre for military units stationed in the Šilavotas area. The ambulatory was left with only a doctor’s office and a small room for a procedure room. The doctor himself had to abandon his flat in the hospital and moved into the rectory.
In 1944-1953, the first floor was occupied by the office of the chief of staff of the NKVD-MVD-MGB, offices of militia officers, and interrogation rooms. On the second floor there were temporary detention rooms and an isolation cell. In the basement, partisans and people from the Šilavotas area were imprisoned before the exile. In 2017, records of prisoners were discovered on the walls. |
The exhibition is located on the ground floor, in the former interrogation rooms. Underneath the rooms, there is a preserved cellar, where partisans, supporters, contact persons and the inhabitants of the Šilavotas area were kept after interrogation and torture before the exile.
- The interactive map of the Iron Wolf Detachment of the Tauras District marks places related to the partisan resistance – partisans’ birthplaces, supporters’ homesteads, places of battles, deaths and burial places.
- The photo laboratory presents photographs of partisans, exiles and political prisoners from the Šilavotas area, as well as images from Šilavotas from 1944-1953.
- On the walls and ceiling of the basement, there are inscriptions of imprisoned partisans, their liaisons, supporters and other people in upper and lower case letters.
- Some of them are easy to read, others are fragmented and difficult to decipher.
- The exhibition features partisan memorials. A sculpture of Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, which belonged to the commander of the Iron Wolf’s Detachment, Juozas Stravinskas-Ziedas, Kadras. A jacket and a weapon belonging to partisan non-commissioned officer Liudvikas Dabrišius-Soldier.
- Finds from the renovation of the exhibition rooms.
- Memorial items of the partisan priest Antanas Mieldaitis of the Iron Wolf Brigade, as well as his relatives’ belongings brought back from exile.