From the collection of Audrius V. Plioplys MD
Although the emphasis of the Hope and Spirit program was Stalin’s atrocities, it is important to mention another atrocity that took place at the same time and same place. Approximately 200,000 Lithuanian Jews were killed under the German Nazi occupation, 1941-1945. At that time, the Jewish community was about 7% of the total population, and was almost totally destroyed. Similar mass killings took place across all of Europe, leading to the estimated death of 6 million Jews. Continue Reading →
In the photograph are Jonas Sepetys’ nephews and one niece in Siberia, children of his sister Apalione Sepetyte-Vajegiene. Standing, left to right, are Jonas, Petras, Vytautas’ wife Ale, Vytautas, Gene, Vincas and his son Jurgutis standing on the chair. The top letter was written by Jonas Vajega, the bottom one by Antanas Sepetys. Continue Reading →
On April 29, 2012, the Grand Finale of the Hope and Spirit project took place at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. This project, which originally was to last only four months, was extended to almost a full year. For the finale, there was a double book presentation, and double book signing, entitled Hands across History. Ruta Sepetys, from Nashville, TN, presented her book, Between Shades of Gray, the story of a teenage girl deported from Lithuania to Siberia, and Ellen Cassedy, from Washington, DC, presented We are Here, her family’s story as victims of the holocaust that took place in Lithuania.
The turn-out was record breaking. Never in the history of the museum have so many individuals attended a presentation. All of the available seats were taken, additional chairs were brought in, and still people had to stand at the back. This was a remarkable, and very satisfying finale to a project that has consumed two years of my life. In the photograph below stand Ellen Cassedy and Ruta Sepetys, with me in the center.
Leave Your Tears in Moscow, was originally published 50 years ago. It is the story of Barbara Armonas, and her decades of imprisonment in many different Siberian gulags and prison camps. The stories in this book are utterly unbelievable. This book, at the time, received acclaim and partial serialization in Life magazine. Continue Reading →
It was an honor for me to participate in the commemoration of Stalin’s deportations, as part of the European Union’s parliamentary declaration requesting international cooperation. This commemoration dealt with the March 25 to 28, 1949 wave of deportations from the Baltic republics. Continue Reading →
Elze Zimkeviciene writing from the Kazachinsky district of Krasnoyarsk, to Hedy (Jadzyte) Chinik in Cicero. In these letters she describes her family’s deportation to the high arctic, to the delta of the Lena River, at the Laptev Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. She inquires about two letters that she sent by registered airmail which never arrived, and comments that she will only send letters by ordinary air mail. Given the sensitive materials she mentions in the surviving letters, and the active censorship of all mail, one can only guess at the content of the missing registered letters. In one letter she enclosed dried flowers from Siberia. She wrote: Continue Reading →
Elena Lazauskiene is writing from the Yakutsk region of Siberia, searching for her sister Ona. She had received one letter from Ona 3 months earlier. She had written to the indicated address on Griffith Park Boulevard in Los Angeles, but received no reply. She was given the address of Bronius Gleveckas, living in Birmingham, England, by a relative of his. In this letter she is asking for his assistance in locating her sister. Continue Reading →
Algimantas Kuzma, deported to the Krasnoyarsk Region of Siberia writes to Juozas Gaigalas, living in Chicago:
“Dear uncles, aunts and brothers-in-law; In response to your letter, written on June 1, I answered it immediately after the death of my mother. I enclosed 3 photographs of the funeral, and I wrote rather superficially about life here. But, did you receive the letter? That is not clear. Thus, I do not know whether to write or not. When I receive word that our letters reach you, I will write about everything.” Continue Reading →
The story of the Marmas family was discussed previously in this blog series of letters from Siberia. In the picture, Jonas Marmas sits, flanked by two of his children. He wrote, from the Krasnoyarsk Region of Siberia, to Alfonsas Lietuvninkas, in Chicago: Continue Reading →
