Aug 23-Lithuanian Fighter Under Soviet Repression- Never Again
A thread by NAFO Fellah- Juozapas Streikus-Strumbras's last words
Under Soviet Occupation
Stories of extraordinary-ordinary people who make their stand are inspirational. I’d like to thank Nafo Fellah for composing this thread on the last words of Juozapas Streikus-Strumbas, a Lithuanian guerrilla fighter.
It’s about repression, violence, and death under Soviet occupation, and I shudder to think this is happening today, in 2022, in the Russian occupied territories of Ukraine.
NAFO FELLA Thread Part 1—Juozapas Streikus-Strumbras
These are the final words of Lithuanian guerrilla fighter Juozapas Streikus-Stumbras (1923-1962) at the USSR "court" where he was sentenced to death for resisting the occupation. Very important in the light of current war. 80 years of history didn't change anything.
When the last word was given, one of the last Lithuanian partisans, Juozas Streikus, spoke for two hours. He blamed. He didn't defend himself, he didn't deny anything, not even the obviously fabricated accusations. To the judge's question "Why did you kill Soviet citizens?"
Joozas answered: "- I didn't kill anyone. We executed the death penalty based on our martial law and we didn't punish Soviet citizens, but traitors. We didn't shoot anyone who didn't serve the security, didn't betray the partisans, didn't kill their families, didn't burn our houses and didn't deport our countrymen to Siberia. You dare blame us? For what? Was it me and my men who invaded the expanses of Russia, maybe we, the Lithuanians, exiled the Russians to the uninhabited northern glaciers?
Maybe we attacked you, robbed your house? It was you who came to our land, seized our homesteads, turned many houses into ashes, it was you who shot at us. We only resisted, defended our land, our freedom, we were forced to take up arms. And what did you expect?
You will kill us and we must be silent like lambs? We earn our bread with our own hands, we do not take it from the weaker ones. And while we work, without stretching our backs, - you make weapons, rob entire countries, take away from people the goods they have created.
Yes, you enslaved us, whom you didn't manage to kill and exile to Siberia, my brother and I were the last ones left... in the forest. (J. Streikus on the right)
Others have already been killed, even their bodies desecrated... And you still dare to judge us? By what right? Tell me, who gave you the right to condemn us to death for the fact that we defended our home, the customs of the nation?
I know you will deal with me, but I tell you - Lithuania will be free. Our sacrifices, our struggle will not be in vain and Lenin's paintings will not hang forever on the walls of Lithuanian homes. And our tricolour will still fade.
Today you are powerful, armed, you have already issued a death sentence to the entire Lithuanian nation, but you will never succeed in killing our love for Lithuania, our faith and hope to survive the red plague, to stay alive.
Your Bolshevism is alien to us, and you will not be able to subjugate the Lithuanian spirit by any force. People will suffer, maybe even follow your orders, obey your instructions and order, but they will never accept your ideology, the people will curse you,no one will address you with a word of respect. It is possible to forcibly turn an entire nation into a dumb labor force, but not for your forces to enslave our souls. You are killing us, mocking everything that is sacred to us.
We are defending ourselves, and that fight is not over yet and will not end with the death of the last partisan of the Ažvinčiai forest. We had the right to defend ourselves by all possible means.
An occupied, enslaved, murdered nation will always be right, no matter what defences it has to choose. You dare accuse me of fighting with a gun? Apparently I shot too few, apparently too few occupiers died in foreign lands, if you judge those who defend themselves.
Your truth is based on lies: even the promises of your generals are lies. How free was I? For two years?.. Was it freedom, when your every step is followed, every word is heard?
But even during those two years, I built houses, power stations, and you killed at that time and are still killing. Even those who have already laid down their weapons, even when defeated, you kill. who are you Shut up? Don't have anything to answer?
Then I will answer: you will be killed by your own lies, the coercion you created, and the day will come when Lithuania will once again live as it can and wants to. Such a day will come, even though you have already killed half of the Lithuanian nation.
This is the freedom you brought... This is the moral you brought: look at your soldiers. Drunk robbers! How do they treat our innocent people? Count how many families, how many houses have been destroyed by your hands.
The hour will come when you will be cursed by all the nations you have enslaved! The time will come when you will be judged, when you will have to answer to humanity and history for the crimes you have committed against the enslaved small nations.
Where will you put your weapons and laziness when the whole world condemns wars, destroys weapons? I believe - there will be such a day on earth. How will you face justice then?
Yes, today you judge me, I am condemned... But you will be judged by the whole world in the future. With all your idols and strongholds of communism. Even the word communism will become a swear word.
Maybe there will be a day when you yourself will be horrified at the sight of your soiled fields and dehumanized generals, and you will be horrified to have created the terrible war machine that you are so proud of.
And if at least one of you is still alive, maybe you will remember the words of the last Lithuanian partisan heard here. Therefore, I say to you once again: Lithuania will not die with my death- I fought honourably: you don't beat someone lying down, as our folk wisdom says. We still believed that your fight would be more honourable... It's a pity, we understand honour differently.
Now I see: we should have acted differently, we all rose up against you, with all our strength: with reason, endurance, hatred and weapons.
Part 2
Perhaps I would not be judged today, and my people would not be enslaved. We did not need to defend, but to chase you, shoot without any rules of honourable combat, and we only defended. And when Lithuania understands this, it will be free.
I don't ask the occupiers for mercy and I don't regret anything myself, maybe only one... We only taught our children to make bread, plant a tree, and we had to teach them to shoot more accurately, without mercy, because the occupiers didn't spare any of us.
And they will not spare, and they will rob, and they will wear down our nation until it learns to defend itself as bees defend their hive, until they all meet the enemy with a weapon in hand as one.
I am not asking for mercy - I defended what was sacred to me and my Lithuania and will remain forever. And now - kill, you know how to kill better. Just don't forget - the blood we spilled in the nation will return, it will knock on the heart of every Lithuanian, and then you - the bearers of coercion and violence - will lose.
You will lose because you have done nothing good with your hands, your labour and your love, since the beginning of your bloody revolution you have created nothing good, only destroyed.
The wealth of plundered nations will not make you richer or more powerful. I despise you. And when I die, I do not regret having lived my short life in this way: I defended the Motherland, I loved Lithuania and I die free - you will not be able to kill these feelings.
