Res Humanitariae

This article examines how the Lithuanian partisan war narrative was suppressed during the Soviet occupation, and how it nevertheless survived in partisan families. Drawing on partisan documents, the underground press, Soviet propaganda and oral history interviews with the children of former partisans, it explores the competing interpretations of the resistance, and the mechanisms of memory transmission. The study argues that, although the Soviet authorities systematically delegitimised the partisan struggle in the public discourse, the narrative endured in private, through silence, fragmented stories, emotional memory and everyday practices, later contributing to the restoration of public memory after Lithuania achieved independence.