Dodging the camera.

Suburban Chicago, April 1961. Dad has brought the painted chair from my play table out to the patio, thinking that I will sit still in it while Mom snaps a photo of us.

Pro Memoria

This morning's post about the creep of Soviet imagery into the EU's celebratory poster prompted me to look again at "Pro Memoria," the primitive leaflet that chronicled the 1941 Soviet deportations. The firsthand narratives recount the numbers of Lithuanians shipped to the Gulag camps. The leaflet presents an inventory of "prisoners," cataloged according to the date of deportation, the Lithuanian town from which the deportees originated, the number of the railway car on which they traveled, and the location in the Soviet Union in which they served out their exile.

Pro Memoria's accounts parallel my family's memory of the Soviet occupation. Members of my Mom's and my Dad's families knew their names fell onto the second deportation list.

The Pro Memoria leaflet—a stapled packet that my Dad carried when my Parents emigrated to the United States—is in poor shape. Given its condition, I decided to post it here.

Be patient with the narrative's fractured English spelling and grammar. English was not the first language of the authors—for most, it was the fifth or sixth language:

[The page numeration skips from 1 to 4.]

  

What, no swastika?

A new poster celebrates the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. The poster incorporates the Soviet hammer and sickle into a logo.

The logo itself is a blend of co-existy symbols whipped together to form a Maoish star.

For three generations, the badge of the Soviet revolution meant poverty, slavery, torture and death. It adorned the caps of the chekas who came in the night. It opened and closed the propaganda films which hid the famines. It advertised the people's courts where victims of purges and show-trials were condemned. It fluttered over the re-education camps and the gulags. For hundreds of millions of Europeans, it was a symbol of foreign occupation. Hungary, Lithuania and Moldova have banned its use, and various former communist countries want it to be treated in the same way as Nazi insignia.

Shame.

UPDATE: Gone.

Balance

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, July 1967. I photograph Dad as he snaps a picture of me and Mom.

Listening to the speech.

Schweinfurt, Germany, 1948. My Dad, on the far left, listens as a fellow scout reads his remarks.

Related by Marriage: Encounter with a Lion

Brookfield Zoo, Illinois, June 1961. Mr. Irene explores one of the zoo lions as his Dad watches. Note the graffiti on the stone.

Mark your calendars.

Laurent House to open as a museum on June 8, 2013.

(Via PrairieMod.)

After Dinner

Suburban Chicago, November 1972. My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, and a friend—my Godmother's father—relax after the celebration of Tatjana's seventy-fifth birthday. That look on Tatjana's face is a familiar one.

Madison Arrival

"The Other Dream Team" opens in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 26, 2012, at the Market Square Theater, Odana Road.

I plan to go! The last movie I saw in the theater was "Titanic." Before that, it was "Truth or Dare." I don't like going to the movie theater. I have trouble watching fiction, and it's too dark in the theater to knit.

ADDED: Review with link to trailer.

Catch and release.

Lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada, July 1964. That little fish is too small to keep.

"Women in the UK are dying unnecessarily of ovarian cancer because of a lack of access to the best treatment."

Newish study reported by the BBC. Compare this older story from 2010.

Remember us this way.

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1944 or 1945. Two friends of my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, chose this touching photo as a keepsake to send to Tatjana after she fled Lithuania.

Panoramic Camp

Camp Aušra (later Camp Kretinga), Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada, early 1960s. The children of Displaced Persons who settled in Ontario also contribute to the numbers in the Boomer generation.

If you look back at some of the postwar photos of scouting camps, you'll see that the scenes look very similar to this one.

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

Tree Line

Glacier National Park, Montana, July 1970. A Mountain Goat maneuvers along the ledge.

Related by Marriage: The First Car

Marquette Park, Chicago, Illinois, October 1957. Mr. Irene's Dad stands next to his new car, a 1956 Chevy Bel-Aire.

Kitten Five

Suburban Chicago, Summer 1963. I gingerly engage the neighbors' Siamese Cat.

Babushkas at the Picnic

Geneva area, Illinois, June 1965. We're back at the Lithuanian-school picnic. Mom is eating, but the brown-haired head obscures her face. My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, is tucked behind the woman with the elaborate hair bun. Mom's best friend, Donna, is on the right, wearing sunglasses. Donna took off the babushka later in the afternoon.

Assisted Hiking

Glacier National Park, Montana, July 1966. I carry a walking stick as Dad and I make our way across a snow patch.

Memorial Visit

  

Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, June 25, 1973. My Mom's maternal aunt, Dora, and her second husband visit the grave of her Mother Zigmunta, her Sister Jadzė, and her first husband.

On the back of the photo, which Dora mailed to my Mom, Dora wrote a detailed explanation of what flowers she had planted at the grave. She particularly noted the ferns and provided a narrative about why they didn't seem to be growing well.

Dora lived for another twenty years.

Hikers missing in Glacier National Park ...

… found alive.

Related by Marriage: October Wedding

Los Angeles, California, October 1952. Ignas, the brother of Mr. Irene's Dad, walks down the aisle with his bride, Ellie. The female attendants behind the newlyweds wear Lithuanian folkdresses.

A Familiar Expression

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, about 1961. My Dad catches his twin sister, Jonė, as she strikes her signature smile.

Autumn-Bounty Reunion

Spring Green, Wisconsin, September 2011. We're here to shop for cushaw melons.

It's a swingset, not a monkey-bars set.

Suburban Chicago, Spring 1961. I improvise on the swingset.

The Last of the Jamboree Snapshots

Isarhorn, Germany, August 2 to 14, 1948. I've posted most of the photos from the third National Scouting Jamboree that my Dad had saved in his scouting album. If you're one of the readers who comes here to see DP-era scouting snapshots, don't fret; I still have a few more things planned.

Let's sit at the corner and chat.

Rockford, Illinois, September 1962. My Mom and her Rockford friend relax during a visit. The friend holds one of her Poodles, again illustrating that it's hard to photograph a black dog.

I still need more practice.

When our family made its way West for the first time, I took my new camera. Here's one of my first shots of Mom and Dad:

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, July 1966. Can you tell that we're visiting Mount Rushmore?! Maybe not. Dad's telling me to adjust something; I know that look on his face. Mom holds the movie camera bag.

Rainbow at Summer's End

Verona, Wisconsin, September 2012. We had little rain this past summer. One evening there was just enough to create a rainbow.

Postwar

Schweinfurt, Germany, Summer 1945. I wrote earlier about how weary my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, looked after the end of World War II. Here's my Dad at the conclusion of hostilities in Europe. His face, too, speaks to the hardships he endured in the last months of the war.

Related by Marriage: Sit around the table.

 
Marquette Park, Chicago, Illinois, Spring 1961. Everyone has finished the Sunday ritual meal, and the men stay at the table. Mr. Irene's maternal Grandfather, Stanley, strums a toy guitar while Mr. Irene's Dad and Wally, the husband of Mr. Irene's maternal Aunt Martha, enjoy "Schlitz" beer and some Winston cigarettes. There's a Lithuanian crumb cake, filled with lingonberries, on the table.

I was young when I developed a fear of water.

Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada, July 1960. My Dad's twin sister, Jonė, balances me on the shoreline. I found the waves terrifying. Although I later learned to swim, I have never enjoyed spending time in the water.

Ready for Rounds

Suburban Chicago, Spring 1963. Mom is ready to head out for her Sunday rounds.  Dad has asked her to stand at one of his favorite spots for photos, namely next to the plastic plant and the piano.

Heights

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, July 1967. I wrote earlier that this is the place at which I learned the meaning of "claustrophobia." It's also where I came to terms with my fear of heights.

Acknowledging loss.

Suburban Chicago, November 1960. I bow at the grave of my maternal Grandfather, Jake.

Related by Marriage: The Bell Ringer

Near Panevėžys, Lithuania, July 1993. Mr. Irene's Dad traveled to his hometown shortly after his younger brother, Stacey, died. Here, typical Lithuanian folk art graces a cemetery plot.

Adapting to modern innovations.

My Dad learned to type later in life. In the mid-1970s, he replaced the Royal typewriter with an electric model.

Years later, Dad had trouble writing with a pen because of pain and weakness in his right elbow. When I moved to Italy, Dad regularly sent me vivid, typewritten letters. I still have those letters, and when I look at this photo, I imagine Dad constucting a narrative for me.

Suburban Chicago, March 1979. Dad wears the zippered, gray cardigan that Mom knitted for him. I still wear that sweater around the house.

Getting Around

Kaunas (probably), Lithuania, about 1923.  My paternal Grandfather, Vytautas, likely took this photo of a relative as he stopped to shop.

Good Duke!

Adopted dog alerts sleeping couple when their infant stops breathing.

The view from the Salute.

Venice, Italy, April 1984. Here is how the entry to the Piazza San Marco looks from the Punta della Dogana—the "point" of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. Venetians built the Salute to thank the Virgin Mary for having spared the city from a seventeenth-century outbreak of the plague.

Watercolors

Near Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada, July 1959. Dad watches as Mom paints.