Partisan bunker (underground) in the Šilau-Girėnai forest
Bunker

A restored partisan bunker is located in the Šilų-Girėnai forest.

The history of the Šilų-Girėnai forest bunker has several stages: the underground bunker of the Jonas Rūtenis-Lukštas partisan unit of the Šalna homeland of the Butigeidis team had to be rebuilt three times. The underground bunker is somewhat different from most partisan fighting bunkers, since the structure is partly above ground, the living conditions in it must have been better than in an underground hideout.

The squad leader J. Kentra-Rūtenis-Lukštas was nicknamed Vytautas the Great by the liaison officers, fought in the partisans for seven years, was wounded seventeen times, and had difficulty using his right hand. The unit resisting the occupiers led by Jonas Kentra-Rūtenis was the largest remaining partisan structure in Lithuania: the partisan units he led controlled the territory from the Baltic Sea to Raseiniai.

The entire Kentra family decided to choose the path of partisanship in 1944. Ona Šerpytaitė-Kentriėnė-Motinėlė and her children Jonas Kentra-Rūtenis-Lukštas, Juozas Kentra-Tauras, Leonas Kentra-Sakalas, Ona Kentraitė-Rasa, Albinas Kentra-Aušra and the youngest Elena Kentraitė-Snaigė went to fight for Lithuania's independence. Elena Kentraitė-Snaigė became famous for saving the entire partisan unit of Kazys Bagdonas-Ūdra from the encirclement, showing the way through the swamps.

Jonas Rūtenis died on 18 October 1950 during a clash at B. Racevičienė's homestead in Dvarviečiai, his brothers Juozas Tauras and Leonas Sakalas died on 21 October 1949 at P. Katauskas' homestead in Lentinė during a military operation by the security forces. Sisters Ona and Elena and brother Albinas were arrested, tortured and did not betray other partisans, convicted and exiled. They returned to Lithuania in the 1950s. Ona Šerpytaitė-Kentriėnė-Motinėlė was in hiding until her death in 1961.

The fateful battle near the Šilų-Girėnai forest bunker took place on February 18, 1952, when the partisans, fearing betrayal, were already preparing to abandon the mainland. The MGB, together with soldiers of the security forces, officers of the Rietavas division and Tver stribas, surrounded the 67th block of the Šilų-Girėnai forest and the bunker in three lines, where there were 13 partisans at the time. The battle began around noon and lasted until evening. Seven partisans were killed, their bodies were mutilated, lying dumped in the town of Rietavas, and later buried in a lime pit there.

After documents and photographs of correspondence between the Lukštas unit and the Šalna homeland were found in the Šilų-Girėnai forest, the security forces used them to further eliminate participants in the Freedom Struggle.

The partisan bunker of the Jonas Rūtenis-Lukštas unit was restored in 1996, but over time it deteriorated. The bunker was rebuilt in 2013 by the Šilalė and Rietavas branches of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Exiles and the Šilalė and Rietavas municipalities, but it is suspected that it was burned down. In 2017, the bunker was rebuilt for the third time.