Suddenly it Was Summer

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in June of 1941, I think it was the 21st, but the exact date I am not sure of. Dates aside, it left a luminous memory etched in my brain. The sun was shining brightly. I can still smell the air scented with scintillating aromas of blooming plants. Gentle breezes teased the nostrils. Nature treated us to the best summer day ever. A special gift for the beginning of summer vacation. School was finally over. The longed for day was here. This was the day we were going to celebrate our new summer of freedom with a day of fun and games in the water and in the sun. At nine a.m. we were going to gather in the gymnasium yard to start our long planned trip to the lake by the woods, a few kilometers out of town. It was going to be the annual picnic the one that puts an end to the year of homework and tests and dreaded deadlines. We were going to have a day of sunning and swimming, and kicking a ball around

.

The air was full of excitement and promise. The sky was clear, the sun was bright and the air was fresh. My mind was filled with scenarios that were crowded with hopes and anxieties. Most of them beginning and ending with Bebkeh.

Bebkeh was the bright star who had this secret hold on me. The last time our eyes met was when she caught my awe struck face stealing a glance at her. She gave out with a knowing, self assured smile that was not encouragement, or discouragement either for that matter, just the princess giving a slight nod of acknowledgment to the adoration that comes to her from all directions all the time, but with natural grace notices and acknowledges everyone of them. I could feel my blood rush to my face. It turned red as a beet. I have never before or since experienced a blushing face of that intensity. It was embarrassing. I could not trust my perception of what she thought of my blush, except that she definitely saw how struck I was, how much I was in awe of her. What she thought of me though remained a mystery to me. I didn’t even know whether she gave me any thought at all. But today she was coming to the picnic. Will our paths cross? And more than anything, will I be able to keep that unseemly color of beet from taking over the helplessly undefended skin of my face? Those were the thoughts that occupied my mind and made finishing the family breakfast very difficult. Privacy and open air were both needed here. I excused myself and went outside.

Bebkeh, Will I be able to carry on a conversation with her?

The freshly caressing morning sun, the gently warming scented breezes, lightly brushing the nostrils, all of nature became a promise of a blooming flower beginning to unfold its wonders.

The sounds of airplanes interrupted the revelry. Airplanes were not a common occurrence in Siauliai, Lithuania in 1941. It was always a sound that brought us kids out into the open air to scout the skies, to observe the miraculous machines that flew in the sky, like birds. The droning sounds were coming from the other edge of town, where the army base was located. This was before TV and we were not accustomed yet to see and hear such events. A couple of small airplanes were droning along, tiny objects in the vast sky.

All of a sudden the droning sounds were punctuated by repeated explosions in quick succession. What was that? Very quickly, people started to rush out of their homes, confused sounds and movements filled the street, quickly growing into panick filled screams and exhortations, questioning, aimless running around back and forth in growing nervousness everywhere. Could those be bombs getting dropped there? Something totally unexpected was going on, and it took some time before clarity and total panic took over. Yes, these turned out to be German planes, and they were dropping bombs on our city.

In no time, it seemed, we were all herded into the basement. Our home was a two story brick building and the basement was a place that was cool enough for storage of food and wine barrels. Refrigerators were not known to us yet at that time. There was only one very small window to the outside and the saturated odors from the barrels of wine, cabbage, and whatever other things that were marinating in barrels, filled the air with that unique basement food storage room saturated aromas that was always thick in that place.

There were about a dozen of us frozen with fear for a long time. That’s not quite completely true though. Panic was definitely in the air, but I am not sure that us kids were really all that panicked. At least I remember that I was more excited about the sudden and unexpected change that turned our world topsy turvy. Now what? Another jeopardy was only another challenge. Was it because at that age final defeat is inconceivable to the imagination? Perhaps. I had already experienced some unexpected rearrangements of the world from the way it always was, but in the past those changes were gradually replacing the old, ways that had seemed indestructible and never to be subject to change. The makeshift arrangement that turned out to provide all the shelter required while the old reliable and steadfast world was crumbling, provided its own romance and excitement. This though was different. Calamity, catastrophy,evil destroying oue world. War was suddenly upon us, this was total destruction. Even us kids had heard enough about the dangers of wars by that time. Still there was no way I could project myself and really taste what might happen. Maybe at that age I couldn’t really incorporate the fear and panic that was alive and rattling all around me. It was scary that all these masterful adults were all so panicked. While I could picture in my mind the horror stories that everyone was so afraid of, still, it just wasn’t anything that I really could feel happening to me. Nobody seemed to know what to do, or what to expect. And in face of all that, the paramount feeling that dominated my being, was sadness about the picnic. There will be no picnic. The promise of the day was shattered.

The airplane sounds stopped after a short time, and pretty soon individuals started to venture outside to scout some news for the rest of us. Stories and rumors began circulating. A little later, maybe after an hour or so, reports from the street started to come in. Some people grabbed their belongings and were starting to leave town. There were conflicting reports about which direction to go. Pretty soon strangers from out of town were coming in, on their way to unknown destinations. Some were going in the same direction that others were coming from. Confusion reigned. After some more time people were returning from the direction that they started on. They were encountering folks who assured them it was not the direction to go to.

A little later there began to appear dispersed among the disorganized and confused nervously meandering local civilians, small disheveled groups of Russian soldiers. They were limping along, on the run, too exhausted to move along in a fast pace, sort of shuffling by the side of the road. A mass of weary individuals, bent under the weight of the backpacks on their backs and the fears of taking the time to rest. No disciplined formations. A mass of weary soldiers individually on the run. The air of defeat, hard to describe but definitely hanging heavily and clearly, like a dark shadow over the crumpled limping, disorganized soldiers in retreat. Not at all the same confident, heads up, clean and unwrinkled uniforms, legs lifting high in measured unison, who marched in as uninvited guests not so long ago with bright confident smiles on their faces, in synchronized steps, who struck awe in our hearts when they marched in two years earlier. There were no orders to the wandering civilians, no attempts to assert discipline. Their rule was over. The new rulers were not here yet.

The direction of movement was becoming defined, away from the German border, Northeast toward Russia. But quickly the rumors arrived, no civilians are allowed across the border. Decisions were short lived. Our family was not ready to to decide on a course of action. At that point in our community, the stories of atrocities were still not fully confirmed rumors. I could sense an unspoken glimmer of hope.

After all, we were a marked family to the communist rulers. Most of our friends were already rounded up by the soviet government and delivered to a freight train that was kept in the station, guarded, for three days, before it left for Siberia. There was reason that our family won a reprieve from that first transport. The approximately thirty workers of our nail-manufacturing factory that was confiscated by the communist regime, unanimously petitioned the government asking that the owners be kept on as managers. The adults in my family reported rumors that the petition was instigated by the communist party, because they needed a rationale for allowing the “capitalist parasites” to continue running the business, because they couldn’t find anyone sufficiently trustworthy and knowledgable to manage the factory. There was a time limitation to this reprieve. The arrangement was to last only until the new person who was brought in by the authorities was sufficiently trained to take over. Our days had been numbered and now suddenly the world once more suddenly was shaken up.

I was too young, maybe too foolish, to get a good idea of how the adults in my family evaluated the options available. I was mostly preoccupied with the ruined picnic and with the unpredictability of any established or expected situations. What I do remember of subsequent developments was how family members were hoping that perhaps an occupying German officer would decide to use a room in our well appointed home, just like the Russian officer did before.

The Russian officer was assigned by the Russian army to live in one of the rooms that they requisitioned in our home. He was a tall, handsome, young hero of the Finnish war that had broken out before the agreement that Russia struck with Hitler in 1939 that allowed the russians to station troops in the Baltic states, in return for agreeing not to interfere with the Nazi invasion of Poland. The Finns had given the Russians a lot more trouble than was expected, and the young lieutenant whose name I don’t recall anymore, I’ll call him Vladimir, earned medals for bravery in that war.

Vladimir's presence in our home turned out to help our family feel a little bit more secure. Marauders and threatening persons who might have wanted to take advantage of a household that was clearly not in the graces of the new government, had been harrassing and looting many households in our town. But not us. The sign on the door that an officer was stationed here, turned them all away. I sensed an unsure, but present hope in the family that maybe that could happen again.

The German soldiers started to arrive after a hiatus during which the streets became silent and empty. It seemed as if all movement stopped. Then soldiers began to arrive. Many on bycicles. Confident and disciplined, some stopped in our yard by the water pump to wash up. They did not seem to linger too long or to rush, and were not responding, or engaging in conversations. Each one seemed to carry a map and a schedule. Some asked for clarifications about points on their maps, but none of them responded to suggestions to use indoor facilities. They did not seem to fear the population. They were after the russian communists, not the Lithuanian population. It seemed clear to them as well, that many Lithuanians would more likely be grateful that they chased the Russians out, and not look at them as invading enemies.

It soon also became clear that there will not be a replacement for Vladimir. For several days there were no particular orders or directives. The new government began to take shape under supervision of the officers of the German army, and the collaborators who were installed in governmental positions. One of the first directives that was issued, required that all Jews affix yellow Stars of David on their garments. We could not get any protecting officer stationed in our home, but the new government was also still interested in continuing to run the factory. The manager trainee who was selected by the communist regime was kept on, and only one of my uncles was again given the job of continuing to train him, temporarily.