The Museum of Deportation & Resistance documents the spirit of Resistance encompassed by the partisan Forest Brothers, who fought against Soviet occupation. Led by Jonas Žemaitis-Vytautas (1909-54), 100,000 men went into Lithuania's forests to battle the tyrannical regime. One-third were killed, the rest captured and deported. Fighting continued until 1954 when the last partisan was shot.

One of the most desperate anti-Soviet actions was the suicide of Kaunas student Romas Kalanta. On 14 May 1972 he doused himself in petrol and set fire to himself in protest at tyrannical communist rule. A suicide note was found in his diary explaining why.