On 8 September 2018, in Eišiškės, Lithuania, a solemn funeral of soldiers of the Home Army took place. Their remains were found in 2017 and 2018 in the Vilnius region by specialists from the Institute of National Remembrance and Lithuania.

The funeral ceremony was attended by Prof. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, the Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance. The ceremony was held under the honorary patronage of the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Lithuania, Urszula Doroszewska. The ceremony was also attended by Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė, the Director General of the Centre for Research of Genocide and Resistance Movement of the People of Lithuania, representatives of the Lithuanian authorities: Lithuanian Sejm deputy Leonard Talmont, Mayor of Šalčininkai region Zdzisław Palewicz, deputy to the Polish Parliament Piotr Babinetz, a representative of the Office For War Veterans and Victims of Oppression, Jan Sroka representing the head of the Polish government, veterans, delegations of social organizations from Poland and Lithuania, scouts, the community of Eišiškės and the Šalčininkai region, specialists of the Office for the Search and Identification of the Institute of National Remembrance.

The celebrations began with a holy mass for soldiers, which was celebrated by Fr. Tomasz Trzaska in the parish church in Eišiškės. Then, accompanied by the honour guard of the Polish Army, the coffins with the remains of Polish soldiers were taken to the cemetery.

“In the 20th century, Poland experienced many cataclysms. Over the years that have passed, Poland lost its best sons. Those who died from the hands of the Soviets, Germans and communists. Our task, our duty to Poland and Poles is to find places where the remains of our heroes have been buried. We do it today. Here, in Lithuania. We meet in Eišiškės to bury three soldiers of the Home Army. We are also working on finding the next ones. This is, however, is not a task for one generation only. This is also a task for generations to come,” said Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, the Deputy President of IPN during the funeral ceremony in Eišiškės.

In 2017 and 2018, the IPN’s Office of Search and Identification conducted search and exhumation work in the Vilnius region. As a result, the remains of corporal Edward Buczek (nom de guerre Grzybek) were exhumed in the forest near Kolonia Michnokiemie. He fell in battle with the Wehrmacht mountain riflemen unit on 1 August 1944. In 2017, a search was also carried out in the Rudniku Forest near the Visinčia River, in a place called Long Island, and in a place near Eišiškės by the old road leading towards the Majak stronghold. There, more remains of fallen soldiers were found.

The IPN will continue work in Lithuania. “We create a list of such places. At the moment we are talking about thousands of places in Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, which we should investigate. (...) Today, it is difficult to reach particular places. That is why it is so important to get in touch with people who remember where such places may be,” said the Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance.