On the Three Crosses Hill in Vilnius, there is a monument to the three crosses. According to legend, their history dates back to the 14th century, when seven Franciscans died on the mountain. The crosses were erected between 1613 and 1636 to commemorate their martyrdom. In 1740, the crumbling crosses were replaced by new ones. In 1869 they were destroyed, but the Russian authorities forbade their reconstruction. The Polish theme appears in 1916, when, on the initiative of Monsignor Kazimierz Michalkiewicz, funds were raised and concrete crosses were erected according to a design by Antoni Wiwulski. The crosses were destroyed by the authorities in 1950. In 1989, on a public initiative, they were rebuilt as a memorial to the victims of Stalinism in Lithuania. Some of the remnants of the old crosses were built into the foundations of the new ones, and the rest are on display as a memorial.

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