The Museum of Genocide

First, it's 11pm here. Are you proud? This whole work until 8pm and then eat dinner is really throwing me off! 

Alrighty, today we went to the Genocide Museum. Yes, it was as dark and depressing as the title sounds. The museum focuses on the wars for freedom that Lithuania has been through and man they have been through a lot. 

It starts with the Soviet Union and Germany, discusses communisim, deportation, freedom fighters, and the many pains and terrible things the country went through. 

What is crazy is that many of these things were very recent. I wonder if any of you saw the human chain they made lining the Baltic states in the late 80's? They held hands in a demonstration all the way from Vilnius to Tallinn! 

The basement of this place was morbid. It was a KGB prison. The first thing you see after descending the steps is the solitary confinement.

They kept political prisoners in this jail as well as Jews during WWII.

In this cell you could actually see writing on the walls that they left. The paint is 18 layers thick because prisoners would write and carve on the walls and then rather than try and remove it they would just paint over it. 

This room scared me. Legit. That cape dress looking thing is a straight jacket. Look closely at this room. Those walls are all extremely padded and sound proof. This is where they tortured people and put people who had lost their kinda because of torture and treatment so they wouldn't have to listen to their screams. It was incredibly disturbing.

Here is one of the torture rooms. Prisoners had to stand on that platform and the divet around it was filled with ice water or actual ice. They were left here for hours and days.

This is the execution chamber. It is underground and cavelike. A thousand people were killed here for "resisting" soviet rule. They never did find all the bodies and they think there are mass graves near Vilnius. They have found a few but expect more.

It was a pretty morbid and sad museum but a great tribute to history and remembering the struggles and sacrifices lithuania went through.