My Grandfather’s Life Under the Soviet Regime
The saddest period of modern Lithuanian history (1941–1952).
A brief history of Lithuania before and after the Soviets
My motherland has not always been a small independent nation-state as it is today. From the 12th to the 15th century it was a gerat kingdom spanning all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea. After joining forces with the Poles, it became one of Europe’s largest countries in 1569.
Unfortunately, in 1795, succumbing to foreign forces the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist. Part of it was conquered by the Prussians, part of it went to the Habsburgs, and the Russian Empire annexed most of what is today’s Lithuanian territories.
Lithuania remained under Russian control for the next 123 years. Nonetheless, inspired by various nationalistic movements sweeping through Europe it proclaimed its independence back in 1918. Unfortunately, not so long after that World War II began and the country lost its independence again: first to the Nazis, later to the Soviets.
Finally, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Lithuania, together with 13 other previously occupied countries regained their rights to self-determination. Now, 32 years later we still exercise the right to call ourselves Lithuanians and we wish to continue doing so no matter what.
Unfortunately, history has a tendency to repeat itself. Its living proof is the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. Enacted by The Russian Federation it challenges Ukrainian independence. The Bear of the North is hungry again…
How did the Soviets deal with ‘traitors’?
As you can see, Lithuania has always had trouble with Muscovy as well as its successor states.
Nonetheless, probably the greatest trouble began in the late 1920s when Joseph Stalin became the head of the Soviet Union. This year marked the beginning of some of the greatest tragedies in Lithuanian history —the Soviets enacted mass Lithuanian deportation to Siberia. As written by historian Arvydas Anušauskas:
Soviet deportations from Lithuania were a series of 35 mass deportations carried out in Lithuania in 1941 and 1945–1952. At least 130,000 people, 70% of them women and children were forcibly transported to labor camps and other forced settlements in remote parts of the Soviet Union. Among the deportees were about 4,500 Poles. These deportations do not include Lithuanian partisans or political prisoners (approximately 150,000 people) deported to Gulags (prison camps).
You see, in the Soviet Union, everyone had to proclaim their loyalty to the Soviet party. If you refused to do so in any way, you were immediately deemed a traitor. Heck, you actually didn’t have to do anything to be come one. Sometimes it was enough for you to have more cows or a better house than your neighbour. As the Soviets hated wealth (unless it was held in the party members’ hands) anyone with at least a little of it suddenly became a bourgeois, an exploiter, a traitor.
In this regime of terror, there were three ways how to deal with the so-called ‘traitors’:
1) They were sentenced to death
2) They were sentenced to jail (for approximately 20–30 years or for life)
3) They and their families were deported to some of the coldest and poorest areas of the Soviet Union — the Siberian steppes.
As my great-grandfather got sentenced to jail for only God knows what kind of reasons, my great-grandmother together with her 5 kids had to spend over a decade in the frost of exile.
My grandfather’s memoirs from his life in Siberia
After being put in a wagon at the age of 7, my grandfather arrived in the Siberian Steppes sometime in 1944. To the locals of the village, the soldiers said that the were bringing ‘criminals’. Despite the claims, the local folk soon realized that the people who were brought there like cattle were no less normal and decent people than they were.
Out of pity, some of the locals helped my grandfather’s family by providing leftovers. At that time nutrients were sparse and my gramps had to wait for hours in line to get a crump of bread.
Having such a rough childhood left a mark on him for the rest of his life. The mark was so deep that he would cry when I or my father refused to eat a meal that he or my grandmother cooked. The reason for his tears came from his memories which were deeply steeped in hunger. As he said, sometimes his mother collected leftover fish heads and made soup from them. Unfortunately, most of them were picked from the trash.
If I had known what was going through my grandfather’s mind when I refused to eat I might have changed my ways. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I was an ignorant kid, and so was my dad.
Only when I became an adult did I realize the source of his pain. Part of it came from losing his son to cancer, another part was out of his snowy 10 kilometres commutes back and forth from school in poor-quality shoes. Probably because of these walks (and probably because of his later consumption of alcohol), he developed circulatory problems in his late 60s. The rest of his years were spent with excruciating limb pain, something I would not wish even on an enemy.
Never will I forget what happened to him and his family. Luckily, he did not die in Siberia. After the death of Stalin, he and his family could come back to his hometown in Lithuania. There he met my grandma, and lo and behold, fast forward 50-something years, here I am writing an article about a part of history which I have never experienced directly but felt through the stories and tears of my grandparents.
A personal verdict
I feel sorry for all the people that had to endure the terror of forced deportation. Unfortunately, similar things are still happening today. The name of the country does not matter. It can be The Russian Empire, The Soviet Union, or The Russian Federation — the tactics have always been the same: deport the occupied locations’ citizens and populate the area with those of your own. Later, you will be able to use the card of:
‘But we have always been there!’
No, you haven’t. That’s political rhetoric, manipulation, and plain lies.
Unfortunately, as said before, history tends to repeat itself. I hope that the growing self-consciousness of the planetary community will not put us in the position of my grandfather and so many others. Occupations cannot be tolerated and the invading aggressors have to be held accountable. If not, who knows who will wait in a queue for a slice of bread next.
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