The light from a persona: twenty years with lawyer Vitalijus Kumpikevičius

Abstract

It was, perhaps around 1963. These may seem like very old times to the young, but, for me, it is like yesterday. I was working as a lawyer in Vilnius back then, when I was sent to work professionally in Klaipėda. Safes were being looted brazenly one by one by someone from governmental offices and businesses in Klaipėda. Matters had to be clarified. Suspects were detained, but, unfortunately, they proved to be the wrong people, so they were released again. Lawyers were invited to participate in the process of those interrogations. That was when I first met Vitalijus Kumpikevičius, who was also a lawyer. Even today, I can be looking through the window of a high-rise building and seemingly see Vitalijus Kumpikevičius walking past along with Liudvikas Narcizas Rasimavičius, who later became a signatory to the 1990 Act of Independence and shortened his name to Rasimas. Both men carried a very dignified air and seemed totally independent to me. The way they carried themselves and their mannerisms were obviously those of the intellectuals who had lived and worked during the Independent Lithuania of the interwar period. I had seen men such as those after 1941, before the harsh reality of the war and the occupation had not yet managed to destroy them.