Žarėnai-Latveliai (Šiauliai Rayon)
On January 9, 1988, Šakynai Chairman Valdemaras Meiliulis and a KGB agent called on Mrs. Barystienė, a resident of Žarėnai-Latveliai. The KGB agent would not give his name. Mrs. Barystienė was warned that her daughter, Rasa Barystaitė, was associating with church washerwoman Regina Teresiūtė, and the latter, in the words of the officials, is a "foreign spy". They tried to frighten the woman, accusing the pastor of the parish, A. Pakamanis, of distributing poisoned candy to children coming to church.
After a brief questioning, Mrs. Barystienė was told to sign a vague official report. On January 13, a similar government delegation again showed up at the Barystis home. Explaining that they were from the newspaper and had come to gather material concerning Father Pakamanis and Miss Teresiūtė, they repeatedly ordered the parents not to allow the children to associate with them. They kept calling Miss Teresiūtė "a spy".
Žarėnai-Latveliai
On February 2,1988, student Algirdas Gricius was summoned to see Principal Pustienė in the teachers' room. He was told not to associate with Miss Teresiūtė, who could get him involved in criminal anti-state activity. On February 3, Teacher Narutavičius, the class leader, again "instructed" Gricius on the same subject. During those days, the following pupils of the Žarėnai-Latveliai school were called in to the office of Principal Pustienė: Diana and Roma Samoška, Dalia Stropaitė and Raimunda Griciūtė. The principal was interested in knowing which of the pupils participated in a little Christmas program arranged at the rectory January 3, what roles they played, who invited them, and who organized them.
Žarėnai-Latveliai
On January 11,1988, Mrs. Grytienė, a teacher at the nine-year school of Žarėnai-Latveliai, came to the home of her pupil Robertas Gedaminskas, and warned the mother to forbid her son from serving at Mass. After the teacher left, two men and two women showed up at the Gedaminskas home. Without identifying themselves and without even telling where they were from, they began berating Mrs. Gedaminskienė for allowing her son to associate with the pastor of the parish, Father Pakamanis. The strangers were displeased also with the fact that the son goes to other parishes and participates in religious events. The uninvited guests acted quite rudely. They examined items without asking, handled the crucifix and a little statue of Mary. To the owners' warning, they retorted, "What can happen to them? They're only pieces of plaster."
Mrs. Gedaminskienė, annoyed by such arbitrariness, wrote a complaint to the Šiauliai Party Committee.
Kruopiai (Šiauliai Rayon)
On January 11, 1988, at the Kruopiai Middle School, pupil Arūnas Gedaminskas was called into the principal's office. The pupil was asked why he went to church and was warned that his mother would have to pay a fine for him. That same day, tenth-grader A. Raustys was summoned to see the principal. Arūnas had to explain why he had not been in school over Christmas
Saldutiškis (Utena Rayon)
In his article "The Chronicle is Shot Through with Calumnies", in The Peasants' Newspaper, February 6,1988, No. 16, Journalist Arnold Chaikovsky gives as an example of calumny the case of the school in Saldutiškis mentioned in the Chronicle, in which at the funeral of the local pastor, Father J. Masalskis, the teachers locked the doors so that pupils would not run over to church — which is right next to the school - during recess, and would not see the bishop. Then the pupils started jumping through the windows.
According to Chaikovsky, the incident was checked and denied by O. Žukaitė, organizer of extracurricular work, Assistant Principal V. Laurinavičienė, Teacher V. Lapinskienė, and students.
The beginning of February, this year, Utena Rayon Executive Committee Vice Chairman Simanavičius came to Saldutiškis. "Who jumped through the windows?" Simanavičus asked.
"I," replied eleventh-class Vytautas Štaras.
"How could you have jumped?" The principal did not want to believe it.
"I just opened the window and jumped," Štaras explained.
Alytus
At the beginning of February, 1988, the Principal of Professional and Technical School 57, summoning pupil Gintas Baciuska to his office, grilled him about where his brother Algis Baciuska, and his sister-in-law Monika Bacius-kienė-Gražulytė worked. He inquired where he plans to go February 16. The principal telephoned KGB agent Algis Gylys, who came and interrogated the pupil, asking whether the Gražulises did not urge him to go to Vilnius February 16.
They tried to recruit him as a KGB informer. He would only have to stop by Father Gražulis's more often, and inform Gylys what he had heard there. For that purpose, the KGB agent gave him his telephone numbers, at work and at home: 51-530 and 52-083. When necessary, he would invite him through the school for a more thorough talk, Gylys explained.
When Gintas Baciuska came to church February 16, Teacher Berlickas came to see him, and told him to go keep vigil with officials to be honor guard at the grave of Juozapavičius, an officer in Independent Lithuania.
Lithuanian, rmember that:
Father Alfonsas Svarinskas
Father Sigitas Tamkevičius
Balys Gajauskas
Petras Gražulis
Gintautas Iešmantas
Viktoras Petkus
and others wear the chains of imprisonment so that you might be able to live and believe in freedom! (See Translators' Note above.)
Lithuania, 1988
