There he frequently met both Soviet destruction battalions and partisans themselves, who gave Kraujelis missions like delivering ammunition and weapons.
Antanas, along with his sisters Ona and Vitalija gradually became communicators of the partisan Vytautas military district.
[1][2][7][8] By 1952 or 1954 he was betrayed and shot in the lung by his long-time friend Edmundas Satkūnas, whom Kraujelis sorrowfully admitted to killing later.
He'd write threatening letters to Soviet authorities and activists,[10] demanding to not hurt the local populace.
To avoid being caught, Kraujelis sometimes even dressed up in women's clothing and long hair, other times as a Soviet artillery officer.
Kraujelis's reputation began gaining popularity and he was commonly referred to in newspapers as a bandit (as were the partisans themselves).
Kraujelis' family, to whom he'd write only rarely, had been subject to multiple deportations to Siberia since 1951, from which they would only fully return and be left alone in 1966.
He considered escaping in women's clothing, but nonetheless, not wanting to be taken into captivity, Kraujelis burned some important documents and shot himself thereafter.
[5][6][1][2][8] After his death, Kraujelis's body was transferred for postmortem recognition by KGB general major Marijonas Misiukonis[11][12] and subsequently hidden.
The accusations came to light in Lithuanian media after a case in 2009 where Marijonas Misiukonis, then the minister of internal affairs, was brought to court under the charge of murder.