History

Around 1903–1904 his father Juozapas Vitkus left for America. In 1906 his mother Marijona tried to join him with the children, but they were all detained in England: the mother was put to work in a laundry and the children were placed in a shelter. When his family did not arrive, the father went looking for them and found them in England. In 1907 the Vitkus family returned to Lithuania and bought a small house in Tirkšliai. Juozas grew up with his elder sister Jadvyga and younger brother Valerijonas.

Juozas attended the Tirkšliai primary school, and in 1913 entered the six-year commercial school in Mažeikiai, where he studied French and German. As a teenager he fell in love with music, made himself a violin from a spruce board and played it. At the end of 1918, after Lithuania declared independence, he began working as clerk and secretary of the Tirkšliai district council. In 1919 he entered the fourth form of the Telšiai gymnasium, having taught himself the third-form course. Over the summer he also mastered the fifth-form course, and in autumn 1920 passed the exams for the sixth form. At the gymnasium he was active in the Catholic youth movement Ateitis.

In November 1924 he was sent to the construction department of the Higher Military Technical Courses in Kaunas. In 1926 he was promoted to first lieutenant; on 30 October he completed the courses and returned to the regiment as senior officer of the 1st Company, and two months later was transferred to the training company of the Technical Regiment in Kaunas. On 5 June 1927 he married Genovaitė in Panevėžys. His division commander wrote of him:

“A gifted officer with organisational ability, moderately strict, of high morals…”Assessment by the division commander, c. 1927

In March 1928 their first son, Vitolis, was born. He died sixteen days later. On 15 May 1928 J. Vitkus was awarded the Lithuanian Independence Medal.

He failed the exams the first time. “The first exams I have ever failed in my life. Only you, my dearest, can comfort me…” he wrote on 1 December 1928. A year later he tried again, and in November 1929 entered the Engineering Department of the École Militaire.

In summer 1930 Genovaitė came to Brussels with their six-month-old son Vytautas, and later his grandmother joined them. Their son Rimgaudas was born and baptised in Brussels. During his studies Juozas was promoted to captain. In July 1934 he passed his final exams and was ranked second in his class, after Prince Albert of Belgium. His Belgian certificate states that he was “very hard-working and very conscientious, suitable for all technical services of his arm”.

During the German occupation he worked as head of the housing and real estate department of the Vilnius city municipality, which allowed him to avoid service in the police. In 1942–1944 he took part in the anti-Nazi resistance: he was a member of the Vilnius staff of the Lithuanian Front, helped found the underground military organisation “Kęstutis” and was chief of staff of its Vilnius district. From autumn 1942 to spring 1944 he taught military engineering at the underground war school of the Lithuanian Freedom Army. In April 1944 he declined the post of assistant commandant in the Local Detachment.

His wife later recalled that on All Souls’ Day 1943, in a Vilnius cemetery, he told her he had a premonition that his family would never have a grave of his.

On 28 October 1944 his youngest son, Liudas, was born. That autumn J. Vitkus took a job as bookkeeper at the Kabeliai forestry office, got to know the local men and chose the code name Kazimieraitis – in his son’s view, hoping for the protection of St Casimir.

On 4 April 1945 Bijūnas, commander of the Kabeliai fighters, invited him to take command. In May it was decided to unite the partisans of Dzūkija into the Dzūkai Group. Kazimieraitis drafted the oath, the disciplinary statute and an order to keep diaries:

“The purpose of the diaries: to leave a true picture of the fight for freedom as material for history, and to help later find those quiet heroes known to few…”Order No. 1, 7 May 1945

In June the NKVD detained him in Kabeliai but let him go: with a bandaged head, he pretended to be ill. On 17 June 1945 Bijūnas was killed, and the next day Kazimieraitis left legal life for good. He told the liaison Jonas Grigas: “But we took an oath! We must show the whole world that the Lithuanian nation is alive…”

On 12 January 1946 troops attacked the staff’s winter bunker by the Skroblus: his right-hand man Ėglis was killed and the staff diary was seized. Kazimieraitis was with Vanagas at the time. Vanagas recalled his words: “Such is God’s will. All that remains is to pray for the fallen and set to work with even more energy.” That winter he lived in Vanagas’s hideout in Kasčiūnai.

He saw the centralisation of the underground as his main goal and tried to form a supreme staff of the Lithuanian partisans. On 23 April 1946 he was elected commander of the Southern Lithuania partisan region. On the same day the regional staff under his command issued the first political declaration of the Lithuanian partisan commanders: the state would be free and democratic, and in an independent Lithuania power would belong to the nation. Its main principles were later repeated in the Declaration of the Council of the Movement of the Struggle for the Freedom of Lithuania of 16 February 1949.

He drafted the key documents of the partisan struggle: “Partisan Tactics and Command”, “Formation and Command of Partisan Units”, regulations for the field court-martial and for awards, the text of the oath and the partisan training programme, and he kept a war diary.

On 2 July 1946 at Žaliamiškis, near the villages of Guobiniai and Janavas, he ran into a squad of MGB border troops. He returned fire with his pistol, was severely wounded by grenade fragments and bullets and was taken alive. The wounded man was taken to Kostas Bulavas’s farmstead in Guobiniai, where the troops had their field headquarters. He died there at about 8 p.m. According to the farmstead’s mistress, before he died he said he believed Lithuania would be free, and looked at the cross standing in the yard.

His body was taken to Leipalingis and left in the market square next to the church; the Chekists then buried it in the yard of the Leipalingis MGB headquarters at Dzūkų g. 15. To confirm his identity, the arrested editor of “Laisvės varpas”, Jonas Ivavičius, was brought from Vilnius; the body was dug up and buried again. Sergei Kruglov, the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, reported his death to Stalin and other Soviet leaders. The news reached his family only on 23 July.

His children provided samples for DNA testing. On 28 November 2022 it was announced that the test had confirmed his identity with 99.9% probability.

On 20 October 2023 his family said farewell to him in the chapel of the Tuskulėnai Peace Park. The coffin was then taken to the Church of St Johns at Vilnius University. Soldiers of the engineering battalion named after him and members of the Riflemen’s Union stood guard of honour. In the evening Mass was celebrated by Bishop Arūnas Poniškaitis and his grandson Fr Gintaras Vitkus SJ.

On 21 October Mass was led by Kęstutis Kėvalas, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kaunas. At 2 p.m. a procession accompanied the coffin to Antakalnis Cemetery, to the burial section for soldiers of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. Three volleys were fired, the national anthem was sung, and the folded flag was presented to his son Rimgaudas. Flags on state buildings were lowered to half-mast. His grave lies near that of Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas.

On All Souls’ Day 1943 he told his wife he had a premonition that his family would never have a grave of his. Seventy-seven years later, there is a grave. And on 21 October 2026 the Vitkus family bought the building at Dzūkų g. 15, in whose yard he was buried. Here we are creating the Kazimieraitis Museum.