A Closer Look (Part 76)

Alytus, Lithuania, 1922. This is my maternal Grandfather, Jake.

Here's the original post.

A Closer Look (Part 75)

Alytus, Lithuania, 1922. This is Mary, the sister of my maternal Grandfather, Jake.

Here's the original post.

This Year's Banquet

Mr. Irene and I just attended the annual banquet hosted by Madison Vilnius Sister Cities, Inc. Our friends V and her husband again joined us for the weekend. It was a great occasion.

The Madison Club once more decorated the tables in the tricolors of the Lithuanian flag.

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This year, Mr. Irene welcomed the guests.

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Guests enjoyed cocktails before the meal. Some of us eat the olives first.

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We had a great turnout.

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The chef is becoming expert at preparing Lithuanian dishes.

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We started out with a favorite: Šaltibarščiai.

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The kitchen remembered to serve the soup with a traditional accompaniment: boiled potatoes.

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Our featured speaker this year was Dr. Audrius Plioplys, creator of the Hope and Spirit exhibit.

A Friend's Mother

 

Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, November 11, 1978. This is the mother of my Mom's friend Joy. On the back of this photo, Joy wrote, "This is my Mama, Marija, in Kaunas when she reached her 80th birthday. From 1941 she endured 17 years in the Siberian prison camp, along the shores of the Laptev Sea. We survived those years in Stalin's prison listening to propaganda."

Anniversary of the Later Deportations

March 25, 1949.

Here's an (English-language) account of the 1941 deportations. More here.

Truly Displaced

Irkutsk, Siberia, USSR, Summer 1956. My Mom's friend Joy stands near the Siberian barracks with her mother and children. Joy mailed this photo after she returned to Lithuania.

"Mission Siberia"

An annual pilgrimage.

June Misery

Kėdianai (?), Lithuania, about 1938. My friend V writes, "About this time in June, 1941 my grandparents, who were school teachers and uncle (he was 16) were part of the Soviet's mass deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia. They were put on a train in a cattle car and taken to Yakutsk, Russia. The anniversary of this holocaust is never mentioned in the media. So, today I honor their memory. My grandfather Petras [M.] perished in a Siberian prison camp." (Links added.)
 
Thanks to my friend V for making this photo available to us.

A Recovered Image

My Mom's friend Joy sent this photo in the early 1990s.

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1923. This is my Mom.

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 On the back of the photo, Joy wrote:

 Dearest [Irene's Mom],

This is you!

This photo is historical. It was with me in Siberia in my photo album. It endured all of our sufferings along the shores of the Laptev Sea. It was there for all 17 years of the deportation. Then the photo returned with me to Lithuania in 1958, and now it is in America! 1991.

June 14

The Soviet deportations of Baltic citizens began seventy-three years ago today. See here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Memories surface.

"'We see NATO airplanes, we hear them, and it reassures us a little - but will they protect us? I've been a peaceful person all my life, but now the thoughts keep bubbling up: What if…?'"

An Occasional Visitor

Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, about 1973. My Dad's older cousin, Vytas, visits with his niece, Kaunas Nina. Kaunas Nina holds her doggie, Musytė.

Vytas, like his brother Henry, was one of my Dad's older cousins. After Vytas returned to Lithuania from the Siberian Gulag, the regime prohibited him from living in a city. As a result, Vytas could visit Kaunas only occasionally.

The issue of ethnic Russians living in Crimea.

The ethnic Russian population in Crimea is a "justification for this entire operation: the ethnic Russians on the Crimean peninsula are allegedly in danger."

How did the population of ethnic Russians rise to a majority in the Crimea? "[T]he only reason that Crimea had a Russian majority was because Josef Stalin deported the native Crimean Tatars en masse to Central Asia after World War II and resettled Russians to replace them."

"The name of the film will be changed in order to avoid confusion with the upcoming adaptation of EL James' Fifty Shades of Gray."

A movie based on Ruta Sepetys's novel, Between Shades of Gray, will be filmed this year.

Commissars' Club

 
Irkutsk, Siberia, USSR, Summer 1956. One of my Mom's friends—who spent 17 years in Siberia—sent this snapshot of the "club." 

After the War, and After More

Near Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, late 1960s. This is how my Dad's older cousin, Vytas, looked some years after he returned from Siberia. Here is a photo of Vytas taken before World War II erupted.

Thanks to Vytas's niece—my Kaunas Cousin—for making this photo available to us.

June 14, 1941

Soviet deportations of citizens living in the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia began on June 14, 1941.

This document presents eyewitness accounts of the June, 1941 "Išvežimai."

Before the War

Kaunas, Lithuania, late 1930s. This is my Dad's older cousin, Vytas. The Soviets deported Vytas to Siberia, where he lived in exile for about seventeen years.

Thanks to my Kaunas Cousin for making this photo available to us.

They still try to rewrite history.

Russia's ambassador makes some controversial observations on the eve of the ninety-fifth anniversary of Lithuanian independence.

Click on the "Deportation," "Displaced Persons," or "Siberia" tags below.

Stalin World

Grutas Park.

(Interviews conducted in ... Russian.)