As if I had a presentiment of great disaster, I left from my house at 4:00 in the morning. Small ambulances were flying from the direction of Karoliniškės and people were walking slowly, both alone and in pairs.
From them I found out that no more people were needed at the tower any more. Cold metal is rattling in my heart which has been feeling warmed lately - above the head which is facing freedom a HAND is raised. And yet...
And it seems that just now...
And hardly before noon people, without any premonition of the danger of looming death, were grouping together, walking around the tower, talking. People were quickly making new acquaintances there, without asking eachother's names and parting without eachother's addresses. There were especially a lot of young people.
The young people obviously wanted to be together. Good looking young men and women, although strangers, were somehow very close to each other. Standing by the tower and looking one another in the eye, they sang old Lithuanian songs for a long time. Somehow it was very dramatic. They sang songs that we were sure they didn't know. But it turns out - they knew them.
And they know how to die for their homeland.
How to die without beautiful words, without thinking about their heroism. Without even knowing that that is true heroism.
Thank you! I am sorry, thank you.
Now I know that you, Motherland, have never gone down on your knees -maybe next time you will bend down from the iron fist, and then - and then -
you'll straighten yourself up forever -
noble and beautiful.
Lithuania, 1991.01.13 : documents, testimonies, comments. - Vilnius : State Publishing Center, 1992, p. 241-242.