In the center of the Lithuanian capital, at a memorial cemetery martial Antakalnis gathered hundreds of its citizens and guests to commemorate the fallen in battles for the liberation of Vilna. The town was finally cleared of German troops 67 years ago, on July 13, 1944, in Vilnius offensive by the Red Army, said today, July 13, correspondent BakuToday from Vilnius.
By long-standing tradition, the memorial to the soldiers-liberators, the eternal flame on granite slabs and tombstones of war veterans, citizens, leaders of some political parties and movements and social movements, representatives of diplomatic missions accredited in Lithuania, laid wreaths and flowers. Among the wreaths was mourning and white-blue-red, and on behalf of Russia and its people lay employees of the Russian embassy in Lithuania.
During a brief meeting to speak once again reminded how and who released the Lithuanian capital of the German Wehrmacht troops. The participants noted that historical memory can not be silenced or distorted, and the crucial role of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in the liberation of Vilnius should not be challenged on any level. Even more so – interpreted by politicians in favor of their own partisan interests.
The same day the municipality Vilnius district and the Union of Poles in Lithuania intends to honor the soldiers and officers of the Home Army, which in July 1944 committed a separate attempt to seize Vilnius, trying to knock out the German garrison town. From a military standpoint the operation was originally destined to fail, because the forces were advancing disproportionately small compared with the German garrison in Vilnius. Only the crossing of the river in the area and Nemencine break to Vilnius the Red Army units of the Home Army allowed to stand and take part in street battles.
The fate of management units of the Home Army was sad: it was disarmed and arrested.
As he said in a telephone conversation with a reporter BakuToday Executive Secretary of the Union of Poles in Lithuania Edward Trusevich, “The story can be interpreted, but can not forget about it.”
“Every year in the village of Lithuanian Poles Kryauchyunay spend a memorable event on the Home Army, to which hundreds of people” – said Trusevich.
Home Army – the main organization of resistance to German occupation of Poland during World War II. Soldiers and officers, guided by the Polish Government in exile during the German occupation of Vilna region struggled with the occupiers as well as the Lithuanian Soviet partisans and forces for “Polish land”, believing the Vilnius region and part of Poland again trying to bring him back to Poland.
