About us

Lithuanian Special Archives preserve records of the former Lithuanian SSR division of KGB, USSR, dating 1940-1991, records of the Lithuanian SSR Ministry of Interior dating 1944-1990 and records of communist and socialist organizations, dating from the 19th c. until 1991, that witness the genocide of the Lithuanian people.

Documents preserved in the Archives comprise several large sets:

• Documents of the State Security Committee of the Lithuanian SSR (NKGB-MGB-KGB): documents on the operational activities of the headquarters and its territorial divisions of 1940–1941 and 1944–1991, criminal files of the persons sentenced for their political convictions;
• Documents of the Ministry of Interior of the Lithuanian SSR (NKVD-MVD): fonds of the headquarters, municipal and regional departments of militia; the subordinate – imprisonment, fire and security, non-departmental security, departmental health care and education – institutions, camps of prisoners of war, selective check-up stations. There are also files of the deportees’ registers of 1940–1941 and 1944–1991;
• Documents of Lithuanian Communist Party (LKP) and Lithuanian Lenin Communist Youth Union (LLKJS): Social Democrats Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, Bundas (Organization of Jewish Workers Social Democrats of Russia and Poland), Polish Socialist Party (PPS), Lithuanian Social Democrats Party, Lithuanian socialist organizations abroad, as well as other public organizations of workers, social democrats or communists that functioned in Lithuania and abroad. The fond also includes personal collections, dated end of the 19th c.–1991;
• Documents of the military commissariats of the Lithuanian SSR under the Ministry of Defence of the USSR referring to their activities in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991;
• Document collections of Lithuanian Partisans;
• Collections of microfilm, xerographic and digital copies of documents related to Lithuania – the ones preserved in the archives of the Russian Federation, Republic of Poland, and Republic of Kazakhstan.

There are more than 1,350,000 files occupying over 17,000 linear metres of shelving space in the Lithuanian Special Archives.