The Legacy Continues With Our Youth

Lithuanian-American students have always had the advantage when attending Lithuanian language and culture classes. These schools not only introduce and support the language's usage, but also present the students with an in-depth study of Lithuania's history in relation to world history. Here, Stalin's purges, the KGB's atrocities, and the fate of suppressed Lithuanians are examined and scrutinized. Children come away better prepared with an acute awareness of the way Lithuania was portrayed to the rest of the world, and how the Soviet powers were able to squelch not only the country and its people but, also the truth behind their actions.

PhiladelphiaÒ³ Lithuanian language and culture school, Vinco Kr鶩s Lietuvið« Mokykla, recently graduated its four eighth grade students. Their courses of study included grammar, literature, geography, current events, and history. Great pains were taken to introduce these students to history chronicles and deported victimsҍ journals, as well as time given to discuss these writings during their classroom periods. Why would such focused lessons and studies be necessary or needed for the average teenager?

The four students, Daina Maciunas, Gintautas Stirbys, Aidas Gedeika and Kovas Juð« expressed their thoughts regarding their Lithuanian studies. Gintautas Stirbys stated that "mass slaughtering committed against people of the world should be broadcast to every ear so that all would know or should know" the truth in history.

Daina Maciunas explained, "Everyone has heard of the Jewish Holocaust, the Tianneman Square massacre, and other massacres against nations or societies who fought for freedom. Even 50 years after these massacres occurred, people are trying to bring 90 year-old people to justice. Not many people are educated about the communists, and what harm they have done to the Baltic countries. These communists have killed as many people as the Nazis have, yet these same communists that sent Lithuanians to Siberia or to death live in their [the victims'] houses and claim their property." Justice should be for all, not for some.

A lesson most often taught yet, not always successfully, is the one about "imagine yourself in another personÒ³ shoes". These Lithuanian School classes bring the lives of the sufferers, the partisans, and even the torturers to life for its students. The children see themselves in the Lithuanians of the past with the power of American freedom and assertiveness in the way they react to events that unfold in their daily lives, or in response to horrific events occurring in other nations. They see themselves not as helpless individuals but as empowered people prepared to deal with the unpleasant and the tragic.

Aidas Gedeika wrote, "Would you want to risk your life for someone else? Probably not. Those people that did were farmers, builders, and simple folk. If the partisans hadn't been there for Lithuanians, Lithuania would have been totally stomped on by the Communists."

What can a handful of children do to aid Lithuania heal her wounds and help the rest of the world acknowledge that Soviets committed grave atrocities within the Baltic Nations? Kovas Juð« states, "I truly believe that during the Soviet occupation, what happened to the Lithuanian people was utterly, totally stupid. There was no worthy reason to commit these crimes. What gets me is that they [the Soviet system] got away with it. Now we have to speak up and make them face the truth by letting them know we know, and so will the rest of the world. Hopefully we can do it."

Words To Remember

As the numbers of Lithuanian resistance fighters and condemned individuals increased in the Siberian labor camps, the need to communicate with the outside world was overwhelming. The epigram on the right was one sent to Lithuanian women, "seses", on the occasion of February 16th. The letter, along with many others and the example on the cover of BRIDGES, was placed in a handmade wooden box and secreted out of the camp. The translation of this poignant piece follows;

 Dear Sisters!

There is nothing eternal under the sun,
there is nothing which does not end;
nor shall the chains of the bloodthirsty,
with which they bound Lithuania, last.
So courage, sisters of our common fate,
our road of suffering is short.
We will all return to Lithuania as one,
to freedom in the dear land of our forefathers.

Sources used:

• An Infant Born in Bondage, pub. by The Lithuanian Catholic Religious Aid, Inc.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; 1982.
• Encyclopedia Lituanica, pub. by Juozas Kapocius; Boston, Mass.; 1978.
• Information received from Lietuvos Genocido Auku Muziejus (LithuaniaÒ³ Genocide Victims Museum).
• Information received from The Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Putnam, Conn.