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.

Recently Found

Kaunas, Lithuania, October 31, 1941.  I was digging through Dad's memento box, and I found this image attached to his agricultural-college identification booklet. Dad earned his highest grade at the school in a course called "Political Economics."

Near the Castle?

Probably Raudonė Pilis, near Tauragė, Lithuania, about 1940 or 1941. A commenter earlier helped identify this location.

Class Reunion

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Summer 1971. My Dad and a few of his classmates celebrate their thirtieth high-school reunion."KABC" stands for "Kauno Aušros Berniukų Gimnazija."

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.

Exchanging Portraits (Part 46)

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1941. One of my Dad's high-school friends offers a graduation memento.

A Recovered Image

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

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1923. This is my Mom.

*     *     *     *     *

 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.

The red star resurfaces on Red Square . . .

. . . and children, wearing Soviet-era uniforms and carrying arms, participate in the festivities.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin defends the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and Lithuania's Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius pens a response.

ADDED: Full video of the parade here; the hammer and sickle are first visible at 4:53. Here's footage from the November 1, 1941 parade.

June 14

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

Sunday, at the Oak

Near Tauragė, Lithuania, about 1940 or 1941.  My Dad's two friends rest during a visit, I believe, to Raudonė Castle. The women may be sitting next to the Gediminas Oak.

(On the other hand, they may be here instead.)

Raudonė Castle, Identified

 

Near Tauragė, Lithuania, about 1940 or 1941. This is Raudonė Castle. Thanks to the reader who identified it.

Can you identify this place?

My Dad took several photos at this location, and—uncharacteristically—he failed to record the place or the date.

Do you know this site? It's either in Lithuania (about 1940 or 1941) or Germany (about 1946).

Reminiscences

Toronto, Ontario, Summer 1971. My Dad participated in his thirtieth high school reunion. Here, classmates from Aušros Gimnazija review photos from their school days. Dad took and/or restored many images for this display.

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."

"Christmas in Siberia, 1942"

The experience of Lithuanian deportees.

See this post for how my family confronted this time frame.

"The godfather of avante-garde cinema"

An interview with Jonas Mekas.

"When the old forms began collapsing and falling away though exhaustion and repetition, a new sensibility is born. That is what happened back then and may be happening now."

I mentioned Mekas once before here.

Exam!

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941. This newspaper photo, taken at Aušros Gimnazija, captures high-school students writing a Lithuanian-language essay. My Dad is in the second row, second from right.

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.]

  

I hope to retire some day.

Then, I'll have time to do this.

(Via Ambiance.)