Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas – Commander of the Defense Forces of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement

Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas was the commander of the South Lithuanian partisan region, the commander of the Defense Forces of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement. The future partisan leader was born on March 6, 1918 in the USA. In 1921, the Ramanauskas family returned to Lithuania. A. Ramanauskas graduated from the Lazdijai “Žiburis” Gymnasium in 1936, later from the Panevėžys Pedagogical Institute and the Kaunas Military School. In 1940–1945, he taught at the Alytus Teachers’ Seminary. After the second Soviet occupation began, in April 1945, he became a partisan.

Having become a partisan, A. Ramanauskas-Vanagas led the Nemunaitis district partisan detachment. In the summer of 1945, he became the commander of the Dzūkai group, the Merkinė battalion, and in 1946, the commander of the Merkinė detachment. In 1947, he took over the leadership of the Dainava district, and in 1948 was elected the commander of the South Lithuanian partisan region.

In February 1949, A. Ramanauskas-Vanagas participated in the All-Lithuanian Partisan Commanders' Congress in Minaičiai, where on February 16 the Declaration of the Council of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement was adopted. He was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of the Lithuanian Freedom Struggle Movement, Jonas Žemaitis, and in early 1950, Commander of the Defence Forces of the Movement. From the end of 1952, after the loss of contact with the high command, A. Ramanauskas and his family went into hiding. The KGB paid particular attention to his search and liquidation. A permanent operational group was formed from KGB employees. In 1956, 30 agents were recruited, and contact was re-established with 20 agents previously removed from the agency lists. The search for A. Ramanauskas-Vanagas was led by the head of the 4th Directorate of the KGB Petras Raslanas and the head of the 2nd Department of the same Directorate Nachmanas Dušanskis. On October 12, 1956, A. Ramanauskas and his wife Birutė Mažeikaitė were betrayed and arrested in Kaunas and immediately taken to the KGB prison of the LSSR. From the very first hours of interrogation, the partisan leader was brutally tortured. After several hours of torture, A. Ramanauskas was taken to the prison hospital in an extremely serious condition - the security officers feared that the interrogated person would not survive. The report submitted by the prison doctors reads: “He does not respond to questions, is unconscious, has periodic muscle spasms in the face and limbs of the whole body. The pulse is barely perceptible, soft, blood pressure 60/40. The patient is covered in blood…” A. Ramanauskas-Vanagas was tortured physically and morally for almost a year.

On September 24–25, 1957, the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR, sitting in Vilnius, sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on November 29 of the same year in Vilnius. The place of burial is unknown. A. Ramanauskas' wife, B. Mažeikaitė, was sentenced to 8 years in prison.