and Jewish (including Yitzhak Wittenberg of Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye) underground. Vitas planned on getting an official approval for these organizations from Moscow and, reportedly, had arranged a meeting with Antanas Sniečkus. However, on 19 July 1943, Vitas' was arrested by the Gestapo and later executed (exact date unknown). Soviet censors suppressed Vitas' biography due to his brother Ignas Valūnas who owned a restaurant in Alytus and thus was deemed a "bourgeoisie oppressor". He and his family were deported in March 1949 to the Krasnoyarsk Krai. Valūnas was released from deportation in 1956 and rehabilitated in 1959. Vitas was awarded the Order of the Cross of Grunwald in 1964 and was named Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965. References 1899 births 1943 deaths Lithuanian communists Lithuanian people executed by Nazi Germany Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Heroes of the Soviet Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union members