In the spring of 1986, after completing his sentence in the isolation prison of the Vilnius KGB and exile in Parabel, Julius Sasnauskas returned to freedom. After confinement lasting 6.5 years, Sasnauskas returned to Lithuania unbroken, and is presently living and working in Vilnius.
On November 3, after finishing a four-year sentence in the strict regime women's camp of Mordovia, Jadvyga Bieliauskienė returned. On account of bad health and a request for clemency which her son Žilvinas Bieliauskas wrote, the three-year exile handed down to her by the court was abrogated. Upon her return, Mrs. Bieliauskienė settled in Vilnius.
On November 12, Romas Žemaitis was released from the Chashkan Camp in the Region of Orienburg, after finishing a two-year sentence. He carried out his sentence among criminal convicts in especially difficult circumstances and at a very young age, being 18-20 at the time.
The faithful met with great joy and thanksgiving the prisoners of conscience returned from Soviet camps to their homeland.
The sacrifices of Jadvyga Bieliauskienė, Julius Sasnauskas and Romas Žemaitis, placed on the altar of God and country, are proof that even in the nightmare of prison, it is possible not to break in spirit, not to sell one's soul, that the spirit can and must not bend to violence; it is a guarantee that the Church and the nation are unconquerable as long as they have sons and daughters determined to sacrifice.
