The beating of Jaugelis
The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, No. 15, carried an article concerning the beating of Virgilius Jaugelis at the Pravieniškiai camp. Here is additional information concerning this event: He was set upon while praying. After this serious beating about the head, he spent a week at the Pravieniškiai prison camp without any qualified medical attention, before being taken to the Lukiškiai prison hospital in Vilnius. En route, he was robbed by criminals.
A surgeon from the Vilnius Cancer Polyclinic, Kasparūnas, diagnosed that Jaugelis is suffering from cancer of the intestines (third stage) and that an immediate operation was indicated. When Jaugelis returns from the prison camp to freedom, in a year's time, the operation will be too late. Jaugelis refused the operation in writing.
Protest of (Mrs.) Jaugelienė
To the Prosecutor of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania Statement of Monica Jaugelienė, residing in Kaunas, Kalnų g. 7-4: My son, Virgilijus Jaugelis, was sentenced for production of the
Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. However, he was imprisoned together with criminals and recently was assaulted.
I protest against my son's imprisonment with criminals and I hold all those who sent him there responsible for all the consequences.
I ask the Prosecutor to arrange that when my son returns from the Vilnius prison hospital he will not be forced to live with murderers, rapists and thieves. If this is not done, I will consider the illegal incarceration of my son with criminals as a deliberate desire of the Prosecutor's office to destroy my son completely by weakening his already poor health or by conspiring to murder him.
March 7, 1974 M. Jaugelienė
The Prosecutor Ignores the Request of Monika Jaugelienė
I. Shishkov, Assistant Prosecutor of the Lithuanian SSR, overseer of the places of punishment, replied on March 30th that the place and manner of punishment is set by the court and that there is no basis for protest concerning the place and manner of the punishment set for Jaugelis.
Jaugelis Demands the Return of his Scapulars
To: the Prosecutor General of the Lithuanian SSR From: Citizen V. Jaugelis, son of Vincent, sentenced according to the SSRL Punishment Code 1991, with the denial of freedom for two years in a colony of ordinary punishment.
Complaint:
I, Virgilijus Jaugelis, because of a severe head injury and broken jaw, was taken from oc 12/8 to the Republican Hospital of Vilnius (oc 12/11) on February 16, 1975. At the sentry post before leaving, I was searched and religious items were taken from me (scapulars and their cord).
Even though the Constitution of the Soviet Union guarantees freedom of religion to all the citizens, I and these items were rudely mocked. This took place on February 16, 1975, at 7:30 A.M. in the sentry post of oc 12/8. This event was witnessed by four other convicted men who were being sent to the hospital on the same day.
The items taken are described as follows:
1) scapulars — two pieces of fabric (10 x 15 cm) tied with some thread;
2) a cord—a double piece of string (95 cm) tied with knots. After the trial, when I was taken from the Security Committee to the prison camp, these items were returned to me as harmless. The administration of the penal colony also allowed me to keep them. The overseers who insulted me and my faith, justified their behavior by declaring that I might use these items to hang myself.
However, there is no logic in this. First of all, my faith does not allow me to do this. Secondly, I was allowed to keep my belt and my shoelaces ... Therefore their logic is more than ridiculous and comic. Only a completely backward person is capable of such think-king, and these were wearing "little stars". [Officers' insignia — Transl. Note].
This was common mockery masquerading under foolish words. Since I take this behavior by uniformed officials to be an insult not only to me and my faith, but also to the Constitution of the USSR — I demand that the items taken from me be returned and that the persons who behaved so boorishly with me be punished so that similar events would not take place in Colony oc 12/8 not only with me, but with other persons.
If no action is taken within a month of my sending this complaint concerning the return of the religious items taken from me, and if I am not transferred to the political prisoners' camp, I will immediately begin a hunger strike and will not work at all. I demand this because I do not consider myself a criminal.
My actions as a free man, for which I was condemned, I do not consider crimes, but on the contrary, the duty of a conscientious and truth-loving Catholic man.
In my homeland as well as in the entire Soviet Union, all leadership positions are occupied by atheists, who use their freedom and power to do wrong to Catholics and citizens loving freedom of conscience and truth. They use physical and moral force in such a way, that my arrest, interrogation and this physical beating is only a common example of the use of atheistic terror against believers. I have sufficient evidence of this. I hope that this my demand will be fulfilled within a month.
Virgilijus Jaugelis
March 28, 1975
Two Months in Transit
At the beginning of April, 1975, it became clear that the sentenced Petras Plumpa (SeeChronicle of the Catholic Church No. 13) had been taken to his place of imprisonment. His current address is: District of Permė 618263, Cusovoj Kraj., Kuchino, vs 389/36-2. It took two months to bring him to the prison. Security in Lithuania wanted to keep Plumpa in Vilnius for a time as witness at the trial of Gražys; however, since he had nothing to say to the detriment of Gražys he was sent to Kuchino.
Plumpa will be able to receive packages with food products only after four years. He is allowed to write only two letters a month.
Plumpa accepts his imprisonment in a deeply Christian spirit. In his opinion, today's Christians must walk not with the triumphant but the suffering Christ; they must foster magnanimity, forgiving even those who persecute them and betray them. Plumpa asks only for prayers.
