Dark tourism? / The Museum of Genocide Victims, Vilnius
The Museum of Genocide Victims, also known as the KGB Museum was established in Vilnius in 1992. In 1997 was transferred to the Genocide ad Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania.This museum is one of the only museums of this kind in the former Soviet empire. The prison cells in the basement of the former KGB building where thousands of Lithuanians were interrogated before departure to Siberia have been left almost as they were when prisoners were packed into them 20 to a cell. Visitors can tour actual cells where prisoners were held and tortured. On weekends one can enter the room where up until 1963 the executions of prisoners took place.
The museum describes the human rights abuses of the Soviets as the “genocide”, while the actions of Nazis are described as “repression against Jewish and other populations of Lithuania.”
The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre uses a broadened definition of the term "genocide" to include social groups, such as Lithuanian national intelligentsia deliberately targeted by the Soviets.
