The history of the fort
The Russian emperor Alexander II signed a decree to build the Kaunas Fortress on 7 July 1879.
At the eve of the First World War (1914) Kaunas was encircled by nine forts, and batteries between them and other defensive fortifications. Kaunas became the Russian empire first class fortress.
IX fort was started to be built in 1902, and finished in 1913. For the building concrete and ferro-concrete was used. The IX Fort has barracks with guns in them, household and sanitary rooms, food stores, underground passages from barracks to the defensive wall. In 1924 IX Fort became a branch of Kaunas hard labor prison. In 1940–1941 IX Fort became an NKVD prison, a stop sending political prisoners to Soviet concentration camps.
During Nazi occupation period (1941-1944) IX Fort was a place of mass murder, where Nazis murdered more than 50 000 people of various nationalities, among them more than 30 000 Jews, ghetto prisoners who lived in Kaunas, 10 000 Jew brought here from other European states. Since 1958 according to the decision of the Lithuanian Republic Government Kaunas IX Fort became a museum of republican significance. A new original museum of distinctive forms was built in the place of mass murder, a 32 m high sculptural memorial (sculptor A. Ambraziūnas), symbolizing death, pain, and eternal remembrance.
At the eve of the First World War (1914) Kaunas was encircled by nine forts, and batteries between them and other defensive fortifications. Kaunas became the Russian empire first class fortress.
IX fort was started to be built in 1902, and finished in 1913. For the building concrete and ferro-concrete was used. The IX Fort has barracks with guns in them, household and sanitary rooms, food stores, underground passages from barracks to the defensive wall. In 1924 IX Fort became a branch of Kaunas hard labor prison. In 1940–1941 IX Fort became an NKVD prison, a stop sending political prisoners to Soviet concentration camps.
During Nazi occupation period (1941-1944) IX Fort was a place of mass murder, where Nazis murdered more than 50 000 people of various nationalities, among them more than 30 000 Jews, ghetto prisoners who lived in Kaunas, 10 000 Jew brought here from other European states. Since 1958 according to the decision of the Lithuanian Republic Government Kaunas IX Fort became a museum of republican significance. A new original museum of distinctive forms was built in the place of mass murder, a 32 m high sculptural memorial (sculptor A. Ambraziūnas), symbolizing death, pain, and eternal remembrance.