This is the photo taken as my Mom and my maternal Grandfather, Jake, prepared to flee Lithuania. Surrounding them are more distant relatives; some of them got out, others did not.
Behind this group stands the train that transported refugees from Lithuania on a two-week trip to freedom. My Mom and Jake road in one of the cattle cars that is visible behind them. Food was scarce during the trip. The refugees jumped off the train during its periodic stops, and they searched fields adjacent to the tracks for potatoes and cabbage.
Like most people who left Lithuania, Mom and Jake thought they would return in a few weeks. No one believed the Soviet invasion would mushroom into a permanent occupation.
On Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful Mom and my Dad made it out. I am happy to have arrived at the happier stage of their "journey." After all, I would not have been a compliant citizen in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic!
Tauragė, Lithuania, July 31, 1944. My Mom, in the print dress, stand with her father Jake—wearing the cap, in the back row—and Jake's cousins as they board the refugee train. My Mom wrote on the back of this snapshot, "The last hours in Lithuania."
UPDATE (1): This photo was taken a few weeks later, when Mom and Jake emerged from the train. Mom is walking with a few of the other Lithuanians who traveled with her. She's wearing the same dress as the one she had on when she departed.
UPDATE (2): My Mom just added a correction here. The city from which the train departed was Tauragė, not Kaunas. I've updated the location in the photo description and in the tags.
2 comments:
This is the perfect post for Thanksgiving.
Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and G!
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