A monument for Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, one of the leaders of Lithuania's anti-Soviet partisan resistance, will be unveiled in Chicago.
The monument, designed by the sculptor Jonas Jagėla, is to be inaugurated on May 4.
“Three organisations, the Lithuanians' World Center, the US Lithuanian community and the Lithuanian consulate in Chicago, have kindly agreed to erect the monument in Chicago, next to the Lithuanians' World Center building,” Austėja Sruoga, vice-chair of the US Lithuanian community, told the daily Lietuvos Žinios.
There are further plans to build a Freedom park around the monument, she added.
There were plans to build a monument for Ramanauskas-Vanagas in his native New Britain, Connecticut. However, the town decided against the initiative after the Lithuanian author Rūta Vanagaitė suggested that Ramanauskas-Vanagas could have collaborated with the KGB.
Vanagaitė later retracted her statements.
Adolfas Ramanauskas (1918-1958) was working as a teacher when Lithuania was recaptured by the Soviet Union from Nazi Germany in 1944. He joined the anti-Soviet resistance, advancing from a platoon commander to the chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters.
From 1952 he lived in hiding with fake papers. Betrayed, he was arrested, tortured, and eventually executed by the KGB, the last partisan commander to be captured.
Ramanauskas' remains were discovered and reburied in a state funeral in 2018.
