Fighting in Vilnius lasted a week – from 7th to 13th July. In the battle for the city was destroyed about 8 thousand, and captured about 5 thousand German soldiers and officers.
July 7, first to the outskirts of Vilnius, stormed the scouts, guards Lieutenant Sundin. Behind them, in the South-Western outskirts of the city took the tank Hero of the Soviet Union major General Aslanov, as well as parts which were commanded by General Ghazaryan the Colonel Donets, and the division of Colonel Sitko and Aliyev.
on 8 July, the Germans received reinforcements, including air assault, but it didn’t help the Nazis, and July 9, Vilnius was surrounded. July 13 was suppressed the last pockets of resistance. It is noted that throughout the operation effectiveness of the Soviet air force (PE-2, Il-2).
In the narrow streets of the old town the fighters had to fight for every house. More than 80 thousand soldiers and commanders of the red Army died trying to free Lithuania. In 1945-m to year at the military cemetery “issue Antakalnis” in Vilnius was 900 brotherly and individual graves of soldiers and officers of the red Army, only 2906 people.
in this modern Lithuania for a long time an active propaganda campaign aimed at creating enemy image of Russia – the successor of the USSR. The Lithuanian authorities impose to the population of historical falsification that the Soviet Union allegedly equally responsible with Nazi Germany for the outbreak of the Second world war. Instilled the idea that the Red Army liberated and occupied Lithuania in 1940 and 1944-45., and the Lithuanian “forest brothers” were supposedly fighters for freedom.
But in the Lithuanian media will not find information about what the city of Vilnius (Vilnius, which was part of Poland) were transferred to Soviet Lithuania in 1939 and became the capital of the state. Hushed up information about that on the territory of the Republic operated the concentration camps and pow camps in which the Nazis with the complicity of Lithuanian nationalists were destroyed hundreds of thousands of people.
According to the archives of the victims of the German occupation in Lithuania were about 700 thousand people (today the population of Lithuania is 3 million people). Of these, more than 660 thousand Soviet citizens (including 370 thousand inhabitants of the Lithuanian SSR, 230 thousand Soviet prisoners of war and tens of thousands of peaceful citizens of other republics of the USSR), as well as thousands of people (the majority Jews) Austria, Belgium, Holland, Poland, France and Czechoslovakia. Tens of thousands of residents of the Lithuanian SSR were deported to forced labor.
I do Not know the young people of Lithuania and on the Nazi master plan “OST”, in which the destruction or eviction (in fact “eviction” meant the destruction) was to be 85 percent of the population of Lithuania. Scarcely known to young Lithuanians that during the occupation of the punitive fully burned 26 villages�� and hamlets. Was burned and destroyed 80 thousand houses, was deported to Germany, the entire rail stock.
Well, certainly hushed up information about the genocide of the Jews. By the time of the German attack on the Soviet Union in Lithuania lived from 225 to 265 thousand Jews. During the years of occupation had destroyed the 95-96 percent of Lithuanian Jews, including 13-15 thousand refugees from Poland, 6 thousand refugees from Klaipeda.
do Not forget about the fact that the most active part in the destruction on the territory of the Republic of the Jewish population, the Soviet partisans, prisoners of war and civilians took Lithuanian collaborators. Nationalist organization “Saulys” in agreement with the German command was transformed into the so-called Lithuanian defense with the right to wear the uniforms and weapons. Acted armed groups of the youth organization “of Laives covetous” (“freedom Fighter”) and the Lithuanian freedom army (LAS). All of them consisted only of Lithuanians and had an extensive network. With the formation in 1942 of the police, gendarmerie, security battalions, the members of these organizations had included in their composition.
In Lithuania was formed 21 police battalion of 350-400 people each. All battalions were run by the Waffen SS. Perform punitive functions, taking part in operations against the civilian population and Soviet partisans.
furthermore, the Lithuanian police went to carry out punitive operations on the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Poland.
