To commemorate the restoration of Lithuanian Independence, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Museum in Washington, DC, is hosting a new temporary exhibit, the first exhibit in the United States from the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Vilnius, entitled “From the Soviet Red Flag to the Lithuanian Tricolor: 50 Years of Struggle for Freedom”.
The opening on March 15 included welcome speeches from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Ambassador of Lithuania to the U.S. Audra Plepytė, and the curator of the exhibit from the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. A panel discussion explored the Lithuanian fight for freedom and its relation to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The exhibit depicts the most important events in Lithuania’s struggle for freedom from the occupation, and the massive efforts of the Lithuanian people to oppose the regime and not submit to it, to unite and not compromise, to take risks and organize an underground movement, to protest and peacefully remind the world that it was once an independent country and has the right and the political will to maintain its freedom.
Together with the historical material highlighting its road to freedom, the exhibit includes the Lithuanian Museum’s gift of nine works by artist Henrikas Ciparis portraying the Agony of Lithuania.
