Hello Everyone,

We just wanted to take a minute to let you know that our new and improved website is now live.

It can be found here -  www.theinvisiblefront.com

Thanks again for your support.

Best

Vincas.

We’re holed up today while there’s a blizzard raging outside so I feel compelled to talk a bit about Partisan bunkers.

For the most part, in the beginning of the resistance the Partisans set up outdoor encampments in the woods. However, as the fight dragged on, they relied more and more on underground bunkers. Some of them were built under houses, hidden in stables or in middle of the forest, completely undetectable by the Soviets. As Jonas Kadzionis, a Partisan active in the later years of the resistance, told us that unless they were betrayed, the bunkers were very safe.

Jonas Kadzionis shared with us many ways they were able to avoid detection. Among them was the cooperation of the nearby villagers who devised a warning system using objects placed outside their farm houses to alert them of any searches being conducted. Another way they avoided detection was by placing rags doused in turpentine into the airducts to hide their scent from any search dogs who may come across the bunker. He told us quite a bit more, but you’ll have to wait to see the film for those stories.

In the summer of 2009 we joined Kadzionis and his friends as they rebuilt the bunker he shared with his wife and another Partisan until Kadzionis was captured in the early 1950’s.

Over a rainy weekend that July we rebuilt his bunker on the exact same spot and to same specifications as he had left it. The remarkable thing is that even though I’ve been to this spot over a dozen times and helped build the bunker, I’d still be hard pressed to find it in that deep forest.

This past summer we returned to film some bunker re-enactment scenerios with Club Grenadierius from Lithuania.

The first few pics are from the build in 2009 and the last shot is of Jonas Kadzionis and myself taking in the scene before we began filming.

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would share a brief excerpt from Juozas Lukša's book „Partizanai“.

Lukša and his comrades had escaped Lithuania through Kaliningrad to Poland before he eventually wound up in Paris. His mission was to gather support for the Resistance from the West.

The following is an abridged passage about his Partisan Christmas of 1947, two and a half years after the end of World War II.

The photos I’ve posted were taken in Kaliningrad during that mission.
-Vincas

CHRISTMAS IN THE MANGER

Everywhere people were preparing for Christmas. Women were cleaning their homes, tidying them up to the last detail and decorating for Christmas Eve. We were exhausted. Our faces were gaunt and spotted with sores caused by the constant exposure to the harsh weather. We wanted nothing more than to sleep.

We stopped at a farm. Seeing our exhaustion, the farmer showed us to a back room where we collapsed and slept. One of us took the bed, another a chair. I leaned against the stove, resting on my gun. We did not undress although our clothing was wet. We slept with our weapons cocked and loaded and close. The farmer noticed this and it made him anxious. We did not worry him more by telling him we were wanted men.

At midday the Polish Security Forces showed up at the farm where we were hiding. We were sleeping so deeply we did not hear them arrive. The search began so quickly he had no time to warn us. The Polish Security Forces ransacked his house and outbuildings, searching the barn and stables, going down into the cellars. We slept through it all. By some miracle they did not enter the room where we were sleeping. We think it was perhaps because the farmer’s wife had pasted the door and wall over with decorative Christmas paper. Because of her wallpaper job, the door blended in with the wall. We think that the Polish Communists simply did not realize that there was one room in the house that they had left unsearched.

Once the Polish Security Forces drove off, our host burst into our room and woke us. He kissed our hands and made the sign of the cross and explained what had happened. He declared the incident was a miracle, a true Christmas miracle.

Translated by Laima Vincė