Our family was waken up by tank shots at about 1:20 a.m. When we got up we saw that a tank was standing in Sudervės Street, on the Cosmonaut Prospect viaduct, and was firing towards the tower. My son and I got dressed and ran to the television tower. Running across Cosmonaut Prospect, we saw (more or less across from the store „Kometa") a column of military vehicles approaching. Cars were driving in front of them with their sirens on. When we got to the TV building, people had already blocked the road from the tanks that were coming from the direction of the kindergarten. We ran over and made a human chain to block the tank's path. But the first tank didn't slow down and drove straight at the people. The people scattered, and a sand truck was left in the middle of the street. First, the tank pushed it with its front, and then it crushed the top of the truck with its tracks and started crawling over it. Perched on the truck, it seemed as though it would tumble over, but it simply crushed the truck with its weight and kept going. With its searchlights on and its barrel moving, it forced people to the side. But it didn't venture any further, as the road was blocked by ambulances. Then it aimed its barrel upwards and fired in the air. I knew the effects of tank firing, so I shouted to the people to open their mouths wide to protect their ear-drums. Then the tank turned across the street and started crawling up the slope where there were a lot of people gathered. The people had nowhere to escape - on one side there was a fence, and on the other the tank. This is where the tragedy began - where the first victims died. You could hear a woman scream that a person had been run over. We rushed to an ambulance to tell it to go over to the person who was injured, or perhaps even killed. Then the tank crushed another car - a white „Moskvitch". The whole column of tanks had already turned along the underground garages and was going up by the tower. In the light of the searchlights, you could see personnel carriers with paratroopers on top of them in between the tanks. In a few minutes, a flare was fired into the air, and the attack had apparently begun. Machine-gun shots began to pour: windows were breaking, smoke was thick in the sky, tracer bullets were flashing, people were screaming. We saw some men carrying a person. People were leading or drag¬ging wounded people by the arms to ambulances. You could see the flashes from explosives. All of this lasted about 2 hours. The paratroopers „employed" rubber sticks and machine-gun butts. When people were pushed from the tower, the tanks started to drive in a circle. They went faster and in larger circles, and pushed the people to the fence. One tank was quickly pushing people from the lawn into the inner yard of the TV building. When all the people had been driven out (fortunately the fence had been broken so the people didn't trample one another when they ran) there was still one girl left on the slope, on the other side of the fence. She was saying something to the paratrooper, but he lifted his rubber stick and hit her on head and she rolled down the slope. I watched as a guy who had been standing next to the girl rushed down the slope, hopping on one leg which had apparently been wounded. A paratrooper fired at another guy's legs, but luckily he stepped back. When we had all been driven out, our policemen took over this segment of „live road". Another green flare was shot, and evidently, the attack was finished. A paratrooper appeared in a window on the third floor, kicked out the glass, and aimed his tommy-gun at us. Finally an appeal was heard: ..Brother and sisters..." Whistling and screaming began and people started throwing whatever they could find at the armored vehicle. Then a group of paratroopers appeared on the slope, lined up, and kneeling on one knee, aimed their guns at us. But the people didn't retreat. These events ended around 4:30 in the morning. People began to break up and go home. At about 11 o'clock in the morning, we went to see what the tower looked like after the “victory" of the paratroopers. We spotted a tank with an Estonian flag on it. We started to speak with the paratroopers to see if they were really from Estonia; one of them shook his head but didn't say anything - he only hid the flag on the tank. In the afternoon, the paratroopers hung the flag of their regiment and another flag with a picture of the proletariat leader /Lenin/ from a third window. The first flag was removed on Monday, but the second flag was removed only when the 19 tanks and 5 personnel carriers left the grounds of the tower. Caps were thrown around the fence of the tower, coats hung on trees, and shoes had been left on the ground. Now they're gone already. Near the tower on both sides, paratroopers were digging holes and burying fragments of broken glass. The paratroopers asked for cigarettes, shivering from the cold, and explaining that they hadn't participated in the attack. Apparently it had been so. Those paratroopers /who took part in the attack/ had been brought in by special military vehicles, freed like wild animals, and once they had done their „dirty work", were taken away again. Their faces were terrifying, and red, and their eyes were glassy and protruding... We didn't have any special training. We were simply defending the freedom and independence of Lithuania. We live near the tower, and if people came from the most remote places in Lithuania to keep vigil it would have been disgraceful for us to sleep or passively watch during such a crucial time for Lithuania.
Lithuania, 1991.01.13 : documents, testimonies, comments. - Vilnius : State Publishing Center, 1992, p. 123-124.