Povilas Buzas was born on January 3,1919, in the village of Bačkininkai, Prienai Rayon, into a large Catholic family. Povilas was the ninth of ten children. His father died in 1920 and his mother in 1928. Povilas was, therefore, forced to work a great deal from childhood and had no opportunity for schooling. He barely completed four grades.
When the Soviets occupied Lithuania, Buzas joined the freedom fighters in battle against the occupiers. He was arrested in 1946 near Veiveriai and sentenced to a ten-year prison term. He served his term in Inta, Komi, ASSR.
He returned to Lithuania in 1956, married, and had two sons. He lived in Birštonas most recently.
Povilas Buzas is an outstanding Lithuanian and a zealous Catholic. His work and suffering in the labor camp will be a major input in the revival of the nation and the Church.
"To: The Head of the VS 389/35 Agency
"From: Citizen [Mrs.] Pliuiriene, Aldona, daughter of
Antanas, residing in the Lithuanian SSR, the rayon
of Kaunas at 23-2 Akacijos St., Kulautuva
"A Statement
"My husband, Petras Plumpa, is imprisoned in your institution. It has been over a year now that 1 have received no letters from him. In reply to my inquiry you recently stated that he has the right to write a limited number of letters. I am appealing to you once again because your reply was not to the point and was not satisfactory.
"I am not interested in my husband's rights, but ask why I receive no letters from him? Receipts for my letters to my husband are returned without his signature. They are signed, contrary to the law, by someone else. In other words, someone is using the unwritten law of 'might is right' to restrict my rights and those of my husband. This individual is in your agency, for the receipts come from there.
"Please let me know why I do not receive letters from my husband, and what you have done to assure that in the future my husband's letters will reach me.
"I have subscribed to the following Lithuanian magazines and newspapers in my husband's name and address: Pergalė (Victory), Mokslas ir gyrenimas (Science and life), Tiesa (Truth), and Literatūra ir menas (Literature and art). Please let me know whether he receives them.
"Please inform me when I will be permitted to have a public and a private visit with my husband.
April 14, 1980 A.
Pliuiriene"
* * *
The labor camp administration sent the following mocking reply: "Citizen Petras Plumpa is currently confined under conditions that permit him to write one letter every two months. From january 1979 to April 1980 citizen Petras Plumpa sent fourteen letters, nine of them to your address. He has sent you two letters since January 1980. He receives all the newspapers and magazines. He is not entitled to any kind of visit in 1980.
V. V. Kucnecov
Head of the VS 389/35 Agency"
* * *
On July 11,1980, [Miss] Jadvyga Stanelytė visited [Miss] Nijolė Sadūnaitė, who recently returned from exile in Siberia. That evening, wishing to attend services at St. Nicholas Church, she boarded a bus on Architektai Street, and a man slipped in behind her. Stanelyte disappeared.
On July 22 Jadvyga Stanelytė's family found her in the Lukiškės prison. At the direction of the KGB, a criminal case of "parasitism" is being fabricated against her. During an interrogation this year, one Chekist agent told Stanelytė, "We won't make a second Sadūnaitė out of you!"
Jadvyga-Gemma Stanelytė is well known throughout Lithuania. Wherever she may be, in Lukiskės prison, in a labor camp among murderers, or in other Gulag locations, the Catholics of Lithuania will closely follow every step of her suffering and sacrifice. She will rally many, especially Lithuania's youth, to the Eucharistic Christ, whom she especially loves, and everyone will, all the more, turn his back on the type of ideology that relies on hypocricy and violence. People like Sadūnaitė and Stanelytė can be annihilated, but they cannot be debased or conquered.
