A visit to the heart of darkness of Soviet occupation in Lithuania. The Dalia Grinkevičiūtė House Museum.
Laukuva, a village in western Lithuania surrounded by rolling hills and a few lakes. In this village lies a house that embodies the history of a people: the Lithuanians. A people oppressed for decades, first by the Tsarist empire and then by the Soviet Union, which occupied Lithuania in 1940 and reclaimed it at the end of World War II. Only in March 1990 did the Baltic country regain its independence.
WATCH THE VIDEO
In that house lived Dalia Grinkevičiūtė, one of the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians deported to Siberia by the Soviets. Their crime? Being Lithuanian. She was a teenager, just 13, when she was deported with her family to Trofimovsk. An uninhabited, inhospitable island, where permafrost reigns supreme. Dalia was a survivor. She managed to return to her homeland only in 1956 (see her story)
THE HOUSE MUSEUM
That house now hosted a museum dedicated to her story and that of other residents of Laukuva. As Saulius Valius, who curated the project, explains: “This exhibition not only tells Dalia’s story, but an entire historical period.” The dark moments of the Soviet occupation.
The documents, photos, and testimonies recount the persecution and oppression Lithuanians endured during the Soviet era. The hardships each Siberian survivor faced in their homeland after fifteen or twenty years of suffering in exile.
Thanks to Loreta Kalnikaitė, who lives in Silalė, a town a few kilometers from Laukuva, and who for years has promoted the Dalia Grinkevičiūtė’s Museum project, we were able to visit the house in 2018, before it was restored and transformed into a museum. Dalia’s personal belongings, the small details scattered throughout the bare rooms, and the kitchen of the time, spoke of a life of hardship, despite Dalia being a doctor who had graduated with honors.
A LIFE WITHOUT COMPROMISE
Those rooms echoed the story of a person, of a people who never surrendered to the occupier and who fought. Even through the smallest everyday things, for freedom. Dalia never compromised with the Soviet government, never sparing a word in defending her rights and helping the struggling people living in that rural area of Lithuania.
Today, that house has become a museum with photos and documents from that time, along with videos that tell the story of Dalia and the people of Laukuva. A journey that encompasses history, but also feelings, emotions, and the harsh life under occupation.
THE LOST EMPIRE
Her story, like that of many others who lived through that period, should be known to everyone. Even more so today, with war returning to Europe. The same country responsible for the suffering of Dalia and her compatriots once again aspires to rebuild the lost empire, to occupy not only Ukraine, devastated by a full-scale war unleashed by the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, but even Baltic countries and other nations occupied during Soviet time.
Our suggestion is to visit Lithuania and not only to linger in the capital Vilnius, but to explore places like Laukuva, such as the museum dedicated to Dalia Grinkevičiūtė.
WATCH THE VIDEO