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14 of 18 · · Kalesninkai forest, Alytus district
Kalesninkai forest: the staff bunker of the Partisan Kazimieraitis Brigade
Here, on 7 March 1949, Vaclovas Voveris-Žaibas, commander of the brigade named after Kazimieraitis, and three of his comrades were killed. On our 2014 expedition we called this place the bunker of Žaibas and Dzūkas.
What happened here
On 25 September 1947, at a gathering of Dainava District commanders, the Merkys Brigade was renamed the Partisan Kazimieraitis Brigade at Vanagas’s suggestion. It was led by Vaclovas Voveris-Žaibas (1922–1949), one of eight partisans awarded the title of Hero of the Freedom Fighters. The brigade staff was based in a bunker in the Kalesninkai (Kalesnykai) forest.
The bunker was betrayed by the MGB agents Kostas Kubilinskas-Varnas and Algirdas Skinkys-Rytas. On 7 March 1949 soldiers of the 34th Rifle Regiment of the MGB internal troops surrounded it in several rings. The partisans mentioned about 40 lorries. Žaibas and the unit commander Jonas Kazlauskas-Šermukšnis were killed trying to break out. The chief of staff Viktoras Kazlauskas-Vanagas and Petras Šilanskas-Labutis are believed to have blown themselves up in the bunker. That same day, in another bunker in this forest, the Dainava District commander Benediktas Labėnas-Kariūnas was shot while asleep. The bodies of the dead were desecrated in Alytus, in the yard of the MGB headquarters. Where they were buried is unknown.
We used the name “the bunker of Žaibas and Dzūkas” on the expedition “Visiting partisan bunkers” on 30 October 2014. The Dainava District commander Lionginas Baliukevičius-Dzūkas mentions Žaibas’s bunker in his diary. Dzūkas himself died elsewhere – on 24 June 1950, in a bunker in the Žaliamiškis forest, Varėna district. Our 2014 photo shows a fieldstone obelisk with a cross and the Vytis. Such a monument stands precisely on the site of this bunker in the Kalesninkai forest.
What you will see
- The pit of the staff bunker.
- A cross blessed on 23 August 1992 (by A. Liaukus).
- A fieldstone obelisk (by K. Savičius and V. Žilionis, 2003).
- Nearby is the site of B. Labėnas-Kariūnas’s bunker, with a metal cross (1991) and a memorial sign (1999).
- Every year around 7 March the anniversary of the death of Žaibas and his comrades is commemorated here.
Sources (in Lithuanian)
Sources (in Lithuanian): partizanulietuva.lt route “Žaibas”; LGGRTC; “Mūsų savaitė”. Photo: A. Zalanskaitė archive, 2014.