This is the anniversary edition of the author's book, orginally published in 1961, dedicated to her life. The Forward is written by her son, John Armonas, who with his mother was deported from their native Lithuania to Siberia on May 22, 1948. It is a truly powerful story leaving the reader filled with admiration for the strength of this human spirit. As a Lithuanian-American whose parents were fortunate enough to escape Soviet occupied Lithuania before themselves being deported, imprisoned or executed, I will be forever awed by such incredible people like the author.
As an American born Lithuanian, I was shocked that something like this could happen to the wife of an American citizen, himself born in the United States, who came to Lithuania on vacation, met his wife and married her there. I believe the author's husband would never had left his wife and eight-month-old son behind in Lithuania if he had not deeply trusted the American Counsul who assured him that "in two months another transport would be arriving and all remnants of American families could leave the country then." Sadly, this was not to be and the author and her son would find themselves trapped in an oppressive Communist system that took them twenty years to escape. Instead, not long afterwards, the author was forcibly deported to Siberia, like many of her Lithuanian brethren, where she worked like a slave for eight years, three years in deportation and five in prison (on trumped up charges) "all to build Soviet power" not being paid enough to stay alive. As the author stated in her concluding chapter "Without my husband's support I could not have survived to fulfill my "duty to socialism". Throughtout the book it seems incredible that this very support which she received from her husband in the form of food parcels was one of the reasons she was so horribly persecuted.
In her concluding chapter the author shed tears for "the thousands of Lithuanian deportees without permits to go home, living out their entire lives in terrible primitive poverty, powerless to give their children the education which might lift them out of these hopeless conditions, and I thought of all of those who had come home without means, deprived of their property and status. All the oppressed Lithuanians, surrounded by lies, isolated from the rest of Europe--why should they suffer? Just because they belonged to a small nation which happened to be in the path of a giant?" The author also asked herself: "....never tell in public what had happened to me. What good could I do? Hundreds of books had already been written about the indescribable sufferings in Russia, but they had no effect." I have often asked that question myself when I think about the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals being held responsible for their crimes. What the Soviets did to the Lithuanian people (and many other Eastern Europeans) was extremely criminal, yet, there have been NO war crimes for these criminals. Why have they not equally been held accountable? It is a real injustice.
This is an outstanding and passionate read, not a fictional story, but in brutal honesty depicting the real truth of what happened to one woman survivor (and her son) of the horrible Soviet deportations and prison camps post WW II Eastern Europe. It reminds me of the book written by Juozas Luksa
Forest Brothers: The Account of an Anti-soviet Lithuanian Freedom Fighter, 1944-1948
which also quite vividly gave an eye witness account of what was happening in post WW II Lithuania which the United States and other Western European powers chose to ignore in their ignorance. I would highly recommend it.
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Top reviews from other countries
Carla B.
Barbara tells it wonderfully.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 23, 2017