In 2024 Lithuania’s Genocide Centre placed Kazys Braželis in a genocide-victims register without stating the offense behind his 1962 sentence. A 1961 witness said he boasted of a 150-ruble ‘first prize’ for shooting people.

In 2024, the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre published an updated edition of Volume VI of Lietuvos gyventojų genocidas. Its main biographical section is headed “1954–1989 m. genocido aukų vardynas” — the register of genocide victims. It contains “Braželis Kazys, Prano,” born in 1918, a craftsman living in Kaunas.

The entry records his August 24, 1961 arrest, his March 9, 1962 sentence by the Supreme Court of the Lithuanian SSR to fifteen years in a labor camp and five years of exile, transfer to Vladimir, later imprisonment in Dubravlag and the Perm region, his August 23, 1976 release and return to Lithuania. It gives no conduct line and does not state the offense. A witness deposed in 1961 that this man had boasted of receiving a 150-ruble “first prize” for shooting people.

The same register contains Jonas Bakanavičius, born in 1900 and living in Kaunas. Arrested July 12, 1961, he was sentenced by the same court on March 9, 1962, to twelve years in a labor camp and three years of exile, transferred to Vladimir and then Dubravlag, where he died on February 25, 1967. A 1962 trial report names Bakanavičius and Braželis among four defendants in the same Rokiškis proceeding. Neither register entry states the offense.

Nearby entries record participation in the 1941 uprising, singing the Lithuanian anthem, raising the tricolor and anti-Soviet activity. Braželis and Bakanavičius carry no conduct line. The 2024 preface describes the 1954–1989 subjects as repressed “už pasipriešinimą sovietų okupaciniam režimui” — for resistance to the Soviet occupying regime. This is the Genocide Equalization Doctrine applied to named individuals: Soviet repression is displayed while the conduct preceding it disappears.

Both entries end with “BBK KGB.” The Centre defines BBK as the criminal-case card index and KGB as Soviet security criminal cases held at the Lithuanian Special Archives, fond K-1, apyrašas 58. Its publication list dates Volume VI to 2022, but I have not obtained those entries. No entry matching a March 9, 1962 conviction was located under Paškauskas or Kukuška in the current Volume VI; no claim is made about the full series.

The Rokiškis municipal events portal specifies that on September 23 the museum will hold a civic lesson in Rokiškis and an hour of remembrance and respect at the Antanašė Holocaust memorial. The museum’s tourism branch also publishes the 100-ruble bonus claim.

On September 11, 1961, Vladas Kriukelis gave a statement published as Document No. 158 on printed page 211 of Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje 1941–1944: Dokumentų rinkinys, Part II, compiled by G. Erslavaitė and edited by B. Baranauskas and E. Rozauskas (Vilnius: Leidykla “Mintis,” 1973). It identifies Kriukelis as the son of Petras, born........

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