It seemed unreal! There was such a city! There was such a country! Lithuania had seemed like some sort of forgotten dream, a city lost in time. As I stepped out of that rattling Russian-Polish train, a large group of relatives surrounded me, spun me around, kissing me, telling me their names - I am Marytė, I am Liva, I am Romas, and so on. I only recognized my uncle from photographs, and maybe one cousin. I was probably one of the few Westerners to come into the still deep Soviet Union of 1978 and the first close member of the family. I had only met my uncle as a child, but I had no remembrance of him except a feeling of his kindness. And when he spoke, tears welled up in my eyes. It was my father’s voice, the same quiet, slightly husky tone.
They took me to my cousin Marytė’s apartment, where the table was spread with many Lithuanian foods. And of course, Champagne and Vodka. I later told my friends that I drank nonstop for five days because everyone received me graciously, and it would have been impolite to refuse. We sat around a small table in the living room (there was no dining room), the apartments were usually four rooms - a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom (the toilet and the actual bathroom were separate). My cousins and their children sang songs from Žemaitija. I filmed everything, and when my father later saw these films of his sister and brother, he wept.
My cousin’s husband Romas volunteered to be my guide and show me around the city. Vilnius was charming, especially the Old Town, which the Soviets had mercifully left intact. There were ancient cobblestone streets, arches into courtyards, and many amber shops, because Lithuania is the land of amber. I bought a beautiful amber bracelet, from “under the table,” as the saying goes. I learned that people had adapted to a new way of dealing and communicating within the Soviet system. One did not know whom to trust, who would be an informer, who would betray you consciously or unconsciously. So, people kept to themselves, closed in within their family circle or very close friends. Political opinions were unvoiced or expressed in generalities. When asked, “How is everything?” The answer would be, “Normal. You know.” Formulaic answers to formulaic questions. This was all to safeguard themselves against suspicion and possible imprisonment or deportation. It was a Totalitarian rule.
Being from a free country, I walked into that world not suspecting anyone of my relatives to be sympathetic to that system. My cousin’s husband apparently was. However, he was jovial, amusing, friendly, accommodating, and drove me where I wanted to go. First, we went to the apartment building where my parents had lived. My mother had always told me how beautiful their apartment was. It was on a prestigious tree-lined street, and I would easily compare it to Park Avenue in New York. I decided to climb upstairs to the second floor and see if the people living there would let me in. But when I came to the door, I saw four Russian names. That beautiful apartment had been subdivided into four separate living areas. I backed away, trying not to imagine what it had become. The idea was upsetting - an intrusion into my beautiful childhood memory.
Then, he took me to visit my mother’s youngest sister, Maria, and her husband Linas. They lived in an old pre-Soviet building, much different from the ugly Soviet bloc projects. Their apartment had high ceilings and an air of old elegance. I was beginning to understand that the Soviets liked an ugly, gray look. I had first seen it when I passed through Belgrade in Yugoslavia on my way back from Greece by train. Everything was gray, dusty, depressing, as if nothing had changed since the war. There was no brightness in the houses, nor on the faces of the people. My aunt gave me an album my father had left with her for safekeeping when my parents fled. It contained clippings of his historic flight from Prague to Kaunas in 1934 with photographs of his landing. It was a treasure, upon which I later built my film “Wings to Remember” in 2007. I flipped through it in the car, and some of the photographs showed my father’s emergency landing in Germany. My cousin’s husband immediately asked to keep it overnight and read about the flight. I reluctantly gave it to him. When he returned it the next day, two photographs had been visibly ripped out! I asked him to explain, but he lied and denied that he had done so. I realized then that he had either done it to protect me or he had given them to the KGB to ingratiate himself. But I was in a dangerous country, and I did not make too much of it, but my confidence in him was gone. The system had done its work - there were adherents everywhere, even in a family circle.
Although it was forbidden for tourists to go further than twenty-five kilometers outside the city limits, nevertheless, because of this affiliation, Romas took me to Kaunas, where I had been born, to visit my uncle again. They were the most gracious family - a family of an old noble line, subjugated by a cruel regime. But my uncle was a high-level professor of engineering, and because of his academic stature and accomplishments, he had succeeded in avoiding joining the Party.
Romas also took me to Trakai, the medieval castle outside of Vilnius, and to Palanga, the beautiful resort on the Baltic. It was a cold and windy day, but I decided to take a dip in the sea anyway, because it would be my only opportunity. My cousin Kazys stalwartly joined me.
I should mention that we were followed everywhere by security people in the proverbial black car. The resort had walkways lined with fragrant pines and the sand was so fine that one could barely feel it. It was almost white; hence, I suppose, the name “Baltic” because “baltas” in Lithuanian means “white.”
My mother’s side of the family was not numerous. Besides my youngest aunt and her family, I also had my cousin-godmother Aldona and her family. Her parents and two siblings had fled to the West. She had been cut off and left behind. Her fiancé had been arrested by the Soviets and shot. She was a very intelligent woman, had earned a Doctorate in Chemistry, had become a professor, had married a linguist, had a family, but was extremely fearful of the system. I admired, pitied, and liked her.
My mother’s second-oldest sister Ziutė had spent twenty-four years in Siberia, where she had been deported with her husband and three boys. They were some of the fortunate ones who had now been able to return. Her second son, Stasys, had organized the repatriation, and they were all living in Alytus, a town famous for its pine forests. Her husband, a former Captain in the Czar’s Army, had died, and she was living there with her son, his wife, also a Siberian orphan, whose parents had disappeared somewhere in the taiga wastelands.
Stasys came with his wife and two sons by car to my hotel, and when I asked where my aunt was, he answered that she would come alone by train. I was quite surprised. My aunt was eighty-two years old. When she did come a little later, I felt her indomitable spirit. She had survived the Siberian Concentration Camps, innumerable hardships, starvation, Malaria, and still had an angelic presence exuding warmth, compassion, and love for humanity. I remember she did my fortune, predicting all sorts of good things, and she gave me her national costume. It was the only thing she had to give me, and a small lace hand-embroidered collar. I had tears in my eyes as I accepted these humble gifts from a woman who had little and had suffered much. She also showed me the manuscript of her memoirs from Siberia and read parts from them. It was heartbreaking. Then, I made her a promise someday to print and publish them, which I did many years later. At the time of our meeting, I was afraid to take them with me for fear of them being confiscated.
After five days of reunions, tears, reminiscences, it was time to leave. Thirteen people came to see me off at the train station. Being superstitious, I had a bad feeling as I looked at the group. Some weeks before, a lovely friend in Paris had invited me to an afternoon luncheon at her home and when she counted the number of guests, there were thirteen. She became worried and said she would have to set two separate tables so as not to seat thirteen people at the same table. I had asked her why. She answered that it was bad luck, that someone would die before the end of the year. So, when I saw my thirteen relatives and one friend, a group of thirteen, at the station, a chill ran over me. People who are not superstitious will make fun of this, but I no longer do. That year, my youngest cousin, barely twenty-nine, died of a heart attack. My readers may think as they like, but I never seat thirteen at a table, nor will I sit at a table with thirteen people. I do not know where this superstition comes from, possibly from the Last Supper. The train ride back was a replay of the one before, except that when the security police came in to check our documents, they asked me to open my suitcase, the one where I had put my father’s album. They immediately found it, as if they had known where to look, but Romas had given me an official letter that the album was personal and contained no political undermining. So, perhaps he had ripped out the two photographs to protect me after all.
And so, my first trip to Lithuania was memorable in many ways. I had vague remembrances, little vignettes, of my early childhood years. I had met my dear relatives; I had seen an example of a country under the Communist regime - inferior building architecture, lines for products, empty supermarkets (but plenty of Vodka), and a fear of expressing one’s thoughts.
Some images stayed in my mind: men drinking at an outside stand early in the morning before going to work; a small single Soviet car, a green Moskvich, driving along a wide avenue all by itself. The furniture was brown, but the cars seemed to be predominantly green, ostensibly another Moscow allowance in car paint.
But there was much beauty as well: the streets were immaculate, no trash anywhere; the old Metropolis Hotel whose heyday had been in the 30’s, with its plush red velvet seats and white (or was it gold) painted French-style furniture, a vestige of its elegant past where famous orchestras had played fox-trots, waltzes, and tangos to a well-dressed public; the quiet park-like Petrašiūnas Cemetery in Kaunas with its extraordinarily beautiful individual monuments, and majestic trees. Yes, this was the country of my birth, the land of my fathers. I was moved to tears on many occasions and lost many of the preconceptions I had had. The world my parents had left behind had moved forward as had theirs in America, but differently. In Lithuania, people had retained their language, their culture, and their customs. We had to adopt and adapt ourselves to a new language and new customs. The question of identity began to arise in me. Who was I in this land? A stranger? Somewhat. A tourist? In a way. But I was a romantic and drank it all in, trying to tie together my wartime experiences and childhood recollections with my new culture and way of life. All these thoughts matured more deeply over time, but this trip had reconnected me with a reality I had forgotten, and which had been replaced by a new reality, including the joys and exuberance of my youth in America.
Giedrė Maria Kumpikas
East Hampton, New York
July 31, 2025
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