Photo: Marker commemorating Juozas Krikštaponis. Though the city was ordered to remove the bas-relief and inscription, they didn’t do so. Photo by Gediminas Nemunaitis
Ukmergės žinios, April 5, 2025
The Lithuanian administrative court for regions handed down a decision in the case of commemorative markers honoring Juozas Krikštaponis in Ukmergė (Vilkomir).
The cort found partially in favor of the plaintiffs and annulled a decision issued by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (Genocide Center) on August 23, 2023, calling for the removal from the marker stone of the image of the Lithuanian partisan and accompanying inscriptions.
Relatives of Krikštaponis, the Lithuanian Union of Freedom Fighters and the Lithuanian Association of Political Prisoners and Deportees opposed the decision by the director of the Genocide Center and took their complaint to the administrative courts.
The administrative court for regions found the Genocide Center’s decision to remove the bas-relief of Krikštaponis was made without adhering to the law, and that the Center failed to provide clear, specific and reliable evidence that Krikštaponis was complicit in crimes of genocide against Jews.
The court said Genocide Center vaguely alluded to “studies” but failed publicly and during the hearings to present any documents in evidence of Krikštaponis’s guilt.
The administrative court also noted the same people at Genocide Center prepared, assessed and confirmed the decision, ant that this violated administrative law principles of disinterest, objectivity and good administration, and that this was in violation of transparency requirements in Lithuania’s Law on Public Administration.
Back in August of 2023 Genocide proposed their solution after continuing controversy regarding the monument to Krikštaponis in Ukmergė. They called for leaving the stone in place but removing the profile of the man and the inscription. They recommended installing a new commemorative plaque dedicating the stone to the memory of all fallen partisans of the Vytis military district.
“We think this solution is the very best in the current situation,” Genocide Center director Arūnas Bubnys said then.
The changes approved by Genocide and sent to the Ukmergė regional administration were supped to have been put in place within several months.
The regional administration was in no hurry to do so and countered they had plans to renovate the square, and might move the commemorative marker to another location.
Asked to comment on the regional administration’s plans, regional administration mayor Darius Varnas said there were ideas for renovating the square and removing the statue to a more appropriate location, but that there would have to be consultation with the people who had erected the statue, namely, the Lithuanian Union of Freedom Fighters and the Lithuanian Association of Political Prisoners and Deportees.
“But before that, we must first wait 20 days within which the Genocide Center can appeal the court’s decision,” Varnas said.
He said the municipality had not implemented the Genocide Center’s order because it was not a court order. He said they had been waiting for an order from the court.
Regarding plans for the square, the regional administration mayor said so far there were no specific projects, although a general vision had been proposed. He said they wanted to make the space more attractive for young people, to set up an outdoor reading room with comfortable spaces for recreation, and that the Krikštaponis monument wouldn’t really fit in with that. He noted the square was associated with the Soviet KGB in the past, and was known as Red Square by some, and commented that made it an inappropriate venue for honoring Lithuanian partisans such as Krikštaponis.
Full story in Lithuanian here.