Svetlana Mortensen and Professor Thom Kent Edlund, History Department
As it was planned I went to Lithuania in November 2005. Few days after my arrival I went to the Lithuanian Central State Archive and met the Archive Assistant Director Valerija Juseviciute with whom I communicated beforehand. Upon this meeting I made a rather unpleasant discovery. In my prior communication with Ms Juseviciute I was assured that I was welcome to come and conduct my research using the records I needed. However, I discovered that the archive was not going to allow any access to the records unless I had a permit from the Personal Data Control Inspection. Of this I was not informed despite specifically asking whether or not the access to the records was restricted.
On the same day I visited the inspection intending to apply for the permit. At the inspection I was told that I did not qualify for the permit. The prison file data was considered to be too sensitive to be taken outside of Lithuania. However, if this research would have a local partner such as a Lithuanian University or some Lithuanian institution conducting academic research, than I could apply and perhaps get what I wanted.
I left the inspection with an idea of finding a local research partner. I contacted a staff member of Vilnius State University, but she was not able to help as she experienced difficulties in getting the same permit herself. My other contact was with the Jewish Museum in Vilnius. They have been closely working with the National archives for many years and had access to the repositories. While in Lithuania I got an impression that the museum was going to assist our research and I was making arrangements for an extractor who would get the data from the prison files. It was going to take about a month for the Inspection to process the paperwork for the permit. I would not be able to stay in Lithuania this long, thus, I had to find a person who could do my work.
By the beginning of January the Jewish museum felt that there was nothing they could help me with as they had difficulties in obtaining permits themselves. I did everything I could think of to amend the situation but had no success. As a result I was not able to complete the project I came to do.
I do not consider this trip a failure. Though I was not able to obtain the data needed for the study I did not return to Utah empty-handed. Pr. Edlund and I did not expect not to be able to access the records, but in case something went wrong I was to get a project from the archive and learn more about the archive operations. This would have been a valuable experience for me as I intended to continue working with East European archives in future.
The project that the archive offered me was related to my original project. Back in the 1960s the prisoner’s case files were under scrutiny by the archive. To better preserve the photographs of the prisoners it was decided to move them to the Lithuanian Image and Sound Archive as somewhat different storing conditions were needed for paper and photograph documents. The archive created a twelve volume index naming each individual in the mug shots. To locate a mug shot of interest researcher would have to go through the index page by page and volume by volume as the names were not entered in the alphabetical order. Because the index books are not considered to have personal information I could access them without any permit.
Today the Central archive is trying to make searchable on line databases of its holdings. I was offered to take a part in this project and prepare the index to the mug shots to be put online. I would have to enter the index data into an Excel file. After looking at the index books I thought the offer over and decided to take it.
Though the archive was preparing to launch an online database in future the lack of funding was going to make that future somewhat distant. Meanwhile the index I was preparing was to be available to the public in the archive reading room in a paper form. I decided that making it available online on some genealogical website was a great idea that the genealogical community would benefit from. Currently, it is being prepared to become available through the FEEFHS (The Federation of East European Family History Societies) website.
Despite the fact that the information about each individual was rather brief it was enough to allow researchers an easier access to the prisoner’s case file. The more information one had about the record one needed to look at the better were the chances to receive the permit to access the record. The index also gave enough information to determine if the person in question was the one the researcher needed. It gave the prisoners file number under which the case was filed.
Besides the number the index gave individual’s name, surname, maiden name (females), mother’s or father’s first name, the place of arrest, sometimes age, birth year or date, occupation and always the reason for the arrest. The archive was interested in making available only names and no additional data. I extracted 3,412 names of individuals who were arrested between late 1920s and 1940. The majority of them were accused of being Bolsheviks, communists, social-democrats and spies. It was fascinating to see how the history was reflected in the arrest causes. After 1939 (the beginning of the World War II) the most frequent accusations were “German spy”, “no documents”, “Polish soldier, escapee from a German POW camp”, etc.
To me it was fascinating to touch a little bit of history that involved real people and not just file case numbers. In this case it was also fascinating to run into the East European archival system. I noticed that it was for some reason friendly to the genealogy but not as friendly to the academic research. I hope this will be changing and other people will not end up being in my position.