TV tower. Sausio 13-osios Street 10

By January 12, Soviet forces had already captured several buildings in Lithuania, including the Press House, so people from across the country were gathering around the TV tower in Vilnius.

At midnight, Soviet tanks and armoured cars left their base in the northern Vilnius. One of the lorries was transporting hitmen from the KGB’s Alfa group, flown into the city the previous day.

When the tanks arrived, the soldiers fired blank warning shots. A loudspeaker mounted on one of the cars then played an announcement by Juozas Jermalavičius, a historian of the Communist Party who was later tried for collaboration, alleging that Lithuania’s parliament had already fallen and all power was in the hands of the National Salvation Committee.

People refused to disperse, however, fencing the TV tower with their cars and blocking access roads with two snow plough trucks. They failed to stop the Soviet military equipment.

The troops kept rampaging for several hours. Blank shots gave way to real ones and the TV tower was taken after tanks drove into the crowd. International press was documenting the events.

Thirteen people were killed next to the TV tower, over 500 were wounded. One more, Vytautas Koncevičius, had doctors fight for his life for over a month, unsuccessfully.

Today, the TV tower houses an exhibition dedicated to the defenders of Lithuania’s freedom, there is a monument outside and streets in the neighbourhood are named after people who lost their lives on January 13. Granite columns mark the exact sites of the killings.