Museum of Genocide Victims

The Museum of Genocide Victims (Lithuanian: Genocido aukų muziejus) in Vilnius, Lithuania was established in 1992 by order of the Minister of Culture and Education and the President of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees. In 1997 it was transferred to the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. The museum is located in the former KGB headquarters across from the Lukiškės Square, therefore it is informally referred to as the KGB Museum.

The museum is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting documents relating to the 50-year occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian resistance, and the victims of the arrests, deportations, and executions that took place during this period.

The museum describes the human rights abuses of the Soviets as the “genocide”, while the actions of Nazis are described as “repression against Jewish and other populations of Lithuania.” The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre uses a broadened definition of the term "genocide" to include social groups, such as Lithuanian national intelligentsia deliberately targeted by the Soviets.

During the 19th century, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. The building, completed in 1890, originally housed the court of the Vilna Governorate. The German Empire used it during its World War I occupation of the country. After independence was declared, it served as a conscription center for the newly formed Lithuanian army and as the Vilnius commander's headquarters. During the Lithuanian Wars of Independence, the city was briefly taken by the Bolsheviks, and the building housed commissariats and a revolutionary tribunal. Following Żeligowski's Mutiny of 1920, Vilnius and its surroundings were incorporated into Poland, and the building housed the courts of justice for the Wilno Voivodship.

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