The remains of Jonas Polovinskas-Budrys, one of the organisers of the Klaipėda Region’s incorporation into Lithuania in 1923, as well as of his wife Regina Kašubaitė-Budrienė, were reburied in the Lithuanian port city on Friday.
Budrys, a counterintelligence officer and diplomat, was the commander of the Lithuanian force during the so-called Klaipėda Revolt in January 1923 and served as the region’s first governor.
“Jonas Budrys dreamed of being buried in a free Lithuania, in the land of Klaipeda. Although he was born and raised in Kaunas, Klaipėda became the place of his most important struggle and his greatest victory,” Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaite said during the ceremony at the Old Cemetery of Klaipėda Sculpture Park.
“From now on, the remains of Jonas and his comrade and beloved wife will rest next to their fellow fighters, participants of the January 15, 1923, uprising,” she added.
The 1923 operation led by Budrys transformed Lithuania into a maritime state, altering the country’s history, according to the minister.
The Budrys family members and close relatives came to Lithuania for the ceremony.
“I feel honoured that ashes of Jonas and Regina are returning to their homeland, which they were forced to flee,” said Timothy Budrys, the diplomat’s grandson who lives in the US.
A government task group responsible for the reburial arrangements decided to leave in place the gravestone marking the eternal resting place of Budrys and his wife in the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Chicago.
Budrys’ relatives who stayed back in the US are preparing for the reburial of some of their ashes in the Chicago cemetery on Saturday.
The urns with the ashes of Budrys and his wife were flown to Vilnius Airport on Thursday and then transported to Kaunas, the diplomat’s hometown, for a tribute and commemoration ceremony. The urns were later brought to Klaipėda for Friday’s reburial ceremony.
The status of the old cemetery was temporarily changed from inactive to limited use to allow the reburial.
According to the government, Budrys was entrusted with commanding the Special Purpose Detachment, a unit of nearly 1,100 people composed of Lithuanian military personnel, members of the paramilitary Riflemen’s Union, and volunteers, in executing the operation to incorporate the Klaipėda Region into Lithuania.
The region, an undefined status territory administered by the Allied Powers under the Treaty of Versailles until 1923, was eventually recognised as part of Lithuania through cession.
Kašubaitė, who later married Budrys, also participated in historically significant events in Klaipeda. At the turn of 1922-1923, she worked in the Counterintelligence Section of the Intelligence Division of the General Staff.
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