This is the home that she remembers.

My maternal Grandparents, Jake and Jadzė, built this house in Kaunas, Lithuania. This was my Mom's childhood home.

During the Soviet invasion, the Russians passed laws restricting how many square meters one person could occupy in a living space: "to each according to his needs."  The government repossessed anything over that alloted fair share and doled it out to other people—strangers ("square-meter redistribution"). The Soviets decided that this house was too bourgeois for one family. So they moved multiple groups of Russian soldiers into the first floor rooms, and they allowed my Mom, Jadzė, and Jake to dwell in part of the second floor.

After the war, my Mom's maternal aunt, Dora, lived in an apartment in the house.

Kaunas, Lithuania, December 1935. The house was a European-style log home.