On Friday, the 7th July, due to the 73rd anniversary of the beginning of the Operation "Ostra Brama" (“The Gate of Dawn”), in the presence of the Home Army veterans, who will guard at Rasos Cemetery at the graves of fallen comrades, representatives of the Polish Embassy in Vilnius will lay flowers and light candles on the graves of the Home Army soldiers. They will also take part in celebrations organized on the 8th and 9th of July by Association of Inmates Soldiers of the Home Army from Warsaw and in the traditional ceremonies on 13th July in Kriaučiūnai.
The program of the celebrations of the 73rd anniversary of the Operation "Ostra Brama" (“The Gate of Dawn”), July 8-10 (organized by the Association of Inmates Soldiers of the Home Army of Warsaw):
Saturday, July 8th
10.00 - Holy Mass in the church of Sts. Teresa and prayer in the Chapel in the Gate of Dawn with the graces of the famous painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy - a common prayer for the souls of soldiers of the Home Army from the Vilnius and Novgorod districts who have fell during the conquering of Vilnius.
12.00 - the main celebration dedicated in memory of the Uprising of Vilnius at the Rosa Cemetery with the participation of representatives of the Republic of Poland.
17.00 - patriotic concert at the Polish Culture Center in Vilnius with the participation of the borderlands choirs from Belarus and Lithuania
Sunday, July 9th
10.00 - the wreath-laying and lighting candles ceremony by the veterans and the invited guests at the monument in Bogusze, where on 17th July 1944 the individual units have been disarmed
12.00 - the wreath-laying and candle-lighting ceremony in Vilnius Kalwaria.
17.00 - Holy Mass in Vilnius Colony, and then the wreath-laying and candle-lighting ceremony by youth from Poland and Lithuania on the graves of soldiers of Home Army who were killed during the Vilnius battle.
Monday, July 10th
9.30 am - Prayer in Ponarai, followed by paying tribute and lighting candles to 20,000 Poles, 70,000 Polish citizens of Jewish nationality and 10 thousand Russians, Roma and other nationalities murdered by the German occupiers and with them collaborating Lithuanian police "Ypatingasis burys"(“The Special Squad”).
Thursday, July 13th
On Thursday, the 13th July, due to the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Vilnius under the Operation "Ostra Brama" (“The Gate of Dawn”), the Vilnius Regional Department of the Union of Poles in Lithuanian invites the residents of Vilnius Country to take part in a traditional memory appeal at the monument in Kriaučiūnai - the battlefield of the National Army with the Nazi invaders.
The ceremony will be preceded by the Holy Mass in the intention for the heroic battle of the soldiers of the Home Army for freedom of Vilnius Soil.
14.00 - Departure from the Polish Culture Center in Vilnius to the place of the ceremony.
15.00-18.00 - Holy Mass at the monument in Kriaučiūnai. Appeal of memory. Concert and soldierly picnic with field kitchen.
The fought battle in Kriaučiūnai on the 13th July 1944 was the largest direct encounter of the Home Army and Nazi armies. Despite the quantitative superiority of the Germans, the Poles have eliminated during the further battles nearly 1,000 from 3,000 German soldiers and have disrupted the passage through the river Neris, for those Nazi soldiers who had been retreating from Vilnius. 80 Home Army soldiers were killed during the fight at Kriaučiūnai, including Czesław Grombczewski, the commander of the 1st Vilnius Brigade of the Home Army under the pseudonym "Jurand".
