Letters from the Sukys family

Posted on May 26, 2011

Juozas Sukys with his three children, Juozukas, Aleksyte and Aldute in Siberia. Letter was written by Aldute to her aunt in Chicago.

In 1948 the Sukys family was deported from Lithuania to the Manski district in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia. In this letter Aldute thanks her aunt for a package in which she received shoes, her brother, a wallet, and her sister a fountain pen. She is proud to be the second best student in the second grade.

In the Hope & Spirit exhibit, we have two photographs of the Sukys family, 20 letters written by the parents, and 11 letters written by the children. This is just a small part of the 218 original photographs from Siberia, 157 original letters from Siberia, and 71 envelopes from Siberia, that are on display. All of these items, and many others on display, are extremely rare. Many of these letters had been sent to London, England, Sydney, Australia, Chicago, Illinois, Toronto, Ontario, North Bay, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec, from across wide swaths of Siberia.

The Hope and Spirit series is dedicated to the millions of victims of Soviet deportations–the men, women and children from all Soviet-occupied nations and of all nationalities, religions, and races–who suffered two profound indignities: the brutality of forced exile, imprisonment, starvation, torture, and genocide, and the injustice of the subsequent denial, minimization and suppression of their suffering and victimization.

I have organized this multi-faceted program with historical exhibits, historical documentation, art exhibits, photography exhibits, lectures, films, personal reminiscences, poetry and deportee letter readings. Detailed information can be found at:

http://plioplys.com/current-exhibits.php and

http://www.balzekasmuseum.org/Pages/hope_and_spirit_exhibition.html

The Hope and Spirit program opens on June 18, 2011, at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, 6500 S. Pulaski Rd., Chicago, Illinois. All are invited to attend the quality-laden events.

The letters and photographs are on loan from the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago, Illinois.