On June 23, 1979—midsummer's eve—a group of young people gathered at the tiny church of Paveisninkai which had been vandalized at the hands of the godless. At sunset, the group of youngsters, carrying a cross on their backs, singing hymns and saying the rosary aloud, headed for the spot where it had once been planned to build a church. Prayer rang out with hope on that quiet night, like a call to awaken the nation.
Several minutes later a beautiful cross bearing the inscription "Lord, renew the face of our Nation!" was erected.
Shortly, the security police and militia of Lazdijai stirred into action, searching for the youths who had erected the cross. The militia never displays such zeal in catching hoodlums.
On July 2nd, Vice Chairman VI. Kavaliukas took 10th-grader Antanas Tamanauskas from his home to the Kapčiamiestis militia department. The student was interrogated, threatened with dire consequences if he remains silent. At the militia, the Vice Chairman asked who organized the evening, who made, who blessed and who erected the cross, from where so much youth had come. The boy claimed he knew nothing.
"You won't graduate middle school and will be taken to a children's colony," threatened Inspector Kavaliukas. When he released him to go home, the agent ordered the boy to tell no one, not even his parents, about the interrogation.
At 2:00 P.M. on July 5th, security agent J. Zinkevičius came drunk in a security police vehicle to the home of the Žibūda family (village of Menciškė) along with the same militiaman Kavaliukas. They first assailed the mother for improperly raising her children because they attend church and erected a cross on the 23rd. Zinkevičius demanded that her son Romas and daughter be called. When the mother asked whether it was such a great crime to erect a cross that even the militia searches for the offenders, Zinkvičius retorted:
Tt is worse than murder!"
Romas was locked in a room and the threats began:
"You wrote the inscription on the cross!" shouted the enraged security agent and swinging his briefcase threatened:
"When I smack your mouth, I'll renew your face!"
The interrogators used their worst threats: to expel him from school, prevent him seeking higher education, send him to the reformatory, imprison him, beat him up. When they failed to achieve anything with their threats, they shoved the boy into their car and took him to Kapčiamiestis. As they drove through the woods, they threatened to beat him up and leave him in the woods, but Romas prayed and completely ignored them.
The interrogation at the Kapčiamiestis militia department lasted a few hours. Upon releasing him, they warned him not to tell anyone of the interrogation.
The following day, Romas Žibūda was also summoned to the Lazdijai security police. There, he was ridiculed for serving at Mass, asked what school he plans to attend upon graduating from middle school, ordered him to tell the names of other boys who serve at Mass. As they released him, they said they would meet again many more times.
