Vladas Petronaitis Vladas Petronaitis ( born November 2 , 1888 - murdered June 25 , 1941 ) , was a Lithuanian patriot , soldier and martyr . He was tortured and killed during the infamous Rainiai massacre by members of the NKVD , and the Red Army . Early life and education . Vladas Petronaitis was born on November 2 , 1888 , the son of a well to do farmer , Petras Petronaitis , in Plauciškiai , Rozalimas Volost , now Kaunas County ( Lithuanian : " Kauno apskritis " ) , Lithuania was at that time , part of the Russian Empire , as a result of the earlier partitions of the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth . The family ' s circumstances were good , and after attending the prestigious Jelgava ' s High School Gymnasium of Mitava , he went to the Saint - Petersburg State University , Russia and studied mathematics and science . He shared a house with his cousin , . In those days , many prominent Lithuanians studied in St . Petersburg , then the capital of the Russian Empire , including the future Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona and Prime Minister Augustinas Voldemaras . After graduating in 1913 , he remained in St Petersburg , and at the outbreak of World War I , was teaching mathematics . Like many young Lithuanians , he was drafted into the Russian Army . In 1915 , he was stationed in Jaroslavl near Moscow . Heavy Russian casualties in the war forced the Russian Army to set aside long - standing discrimination against Catholic Lithuanian soldiers . In 1916 , Vladas was promoted to officer rank and became a teaching fellow at a Moscow military officers ' school . At the same time he studied law at Moscow University . Army service . Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 , he made his way back to Lithuania , which had regained its independence in 1918 . He became an officer in the Lithuanian Army with an infantry battalion and later with an electricity technical battalion in Vilnius . In 1920 he was promoted to Commandant in Vilnius and played a significant role in securing Vilnius against the Poles and the Soviet Union . For his military and organisational service in securing the city , the President of Lithuania , Antanas Smetona , conferred on him the medal of the Order of the Cross of Vytis for the " establishment of Vilnius City and County Commandant Institution " . Following the Polish seizure of the Vilnius region , he was appointed Commandant in Kretinga . He married Bronislava Kentraite in a ceremony at Palanga in 1922 . Bronislava ' s Father , Jonas Kentra , was the public notary in Palanga , and very passionate about Lithuanian language and culture . A lawyer and advocate . In 1923 , Vladas was discharged to the army reserve and settled down in Kretinga working as a lawyer and advocate and supporting various Lithuanian patriotic activities . Like many other Lithuanians , he received the The Independence Medal Pursuant to the secret Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union , on September 19 , 1939 , Vilnius was seized and occupied by the Soviet Union . On October 10 , 1939 , under a Soviet ultimatum , the Lithuanian government accepted the presence of Soviet military bases in the country in exchange for restoring the city to Lithuania . The whole of Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 , and a puppet Communist government was installed in the newly created Lithuanian SSR . Arrest . Within days , Vladas was arrested by the NKVD and imprisoned in the cellar of Telšiai prison . In spite of his imprisonment , and long interrogation over many months , he protested his innocence and denied any wrongdoing . On June 22 , 1941 , Operation Barbarossa , Nazi Germany ' s invasion of the Soviet Union , commenced . With the Soviet troops in a rout , the NKVD decided to execute its Lithuanian political prisoners as they retreated . Rainiai massacre . On the night of 24 / 25 June 1941 , Vladas was taken to a forest at Rainiai and , together with 77 other political prisoners , tortured to death and buried in a mass grave . On exhumation three days later , his body was difficult to identify as it had been disfigured by the tortures applied to it . A memorial is built on the place with graphic photographs of the exhumation and the exhumed body of Vladas Petronaitis .