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Oral history interview with Rita Frank

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2014.12.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0743

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    Oral history interview with Rita Frank
    Transcript
    OK.
    When you're ready.
    OK, we are rolling.
    Rolling.
    OK.
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Rita Frank on February 20, 2014
    in Silver Spring, Maryland.
    Thank you very much, Rita, for agreeing to speak with us today.
    We really appreciate it.
    I want to start the interview at the very beginning,
    like we always do.
    And please let me know what was your date of birth,
    your name at birth, and where were you born.
    As far as I know, my date of birth was March 18, 1933.
    And I was born at the military hospital in Kaunas.
    What country?
    Lithuania.
    And my name at birth was Rita Frankaite.
    Rita Frankaite.
    Right.
    Can you tell me your mother's name and your father's names?
    My mother's name was Lidia Regina--
    Regina Frankiene Sapiraite.
    Her maiden name was what?
    Sapiraite.
    OK.
    Excuse me for a second.
    And my father's name was Jonas Frankas.
    OK.
    Did you have any brothers and sisters?
    No, I was the only child.
    Do you remember their dates of birth?
    When your father was born and when your mother was born?
    I just know the years.
    He was born probably Saint John's Day, which would
    have been June something, 1900.
    And she was born in 1906.
    I don't know her birthday.
    Did you grow up in Kaunas, in the place you were born?
    No.
    Shortly after my birth, I was taken back
    to Siauliai, where my parents lived.
    And I spent my early childhood, as long
    as I lived with my real parents, in Siauliai.
    And Siauliai, can you tell me a little bit about that place?
    Is that a town?
    Is that a village?
    Is it a city?
    What was this place?
    Well, it's a city.
    And I think at the time, it was the third largest city
    of Lithuania.
    And the military base was right outside the city.
    And my father used the commute to the base and live at home.
    So tell me a little bit about what was his--
    what was his job?
    What was his-- what did he do to put food on the table?
    He was a captain at the time that I was born.
    And he was-- later when we read this his resume ,
    I'll be able to tell you what he did exactly.
    But at the time, he was an officer, a captain.
    And he was also--
    and he used to lead his troops on horseback.
    But they were infantry troops.
    And he also used to take them to Switzerland
    once a year, 12 choice people, to instruct them in skiing.
    He was a very good skier.
    And I had hoped that I would get old enough
    to have him put me on skis, but we never reached that point,
    much to my regret.
    So tell me, did you remember seeing him on horseback
    and seeing him with his troops?
    Yes, because I would be on my way to kindergarten,
    and he would be leading a parade through the city,
    and he would hoist me up on his horse
    with a saber hanging out at his side.
    And the music, and the marching music-- and to this day,
    I like the march music.
    When I hear it, it reminds me of my dad.
    And I love horses, even though I wasn't much of an equestrian.
    Mm-hmm.
    Tell me a little bit about what kind of--
    well, first of all, tell me, do you have any earliest memories
    as a child, as a young child?
    My earliest memories are of my mother
    working in her dental office, which was a home office.
    She was a dentist?
    She was a dentist.
    And I used to go in there.
    And some ladies later on in America
    remembered how I used to try and act like a receptionist.
    I would ask them to sit down, and I would talk to them.
    That's so cute.
    And then at home, in our apartment,
    I would drill, poke holes in the dining room chairs
    and try to fill them with flour paste and water, which
    was a no-no when my nanny caught me.
    [LAUGHS] So you were trying to be--
    you were trying to be a dentist, too.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    So are those your earliest memories of your mom as well,
    seeing her in the dentist's office?
    Yes.
    And I also remember her--
    one day in particular, she came back from shopping,
    and she wore a brown cloche hat, and she
    carried a little rolled up carpet under her arm.
    I have no idea what it was all about,
    but I have a very clear memory of her doing that.
    And I also remember her working on my teeth.
    And she used to be very, very gentle.
    And she would drill in and out.
    Of course, it was maybe like a first teeth.
    Mm-hmm.
    And do you-- tell me a little bit about their personalities,
    your parents' personalities.
    I probably could not really tell you.
    I remember one thing, that my father was an avid reader.
    And he would come home, and he would
    lie on the sofa reading whatever he was reading.
    And my mother would keep saying, [NON-ENGLISH] he would not even
    hear her.
    And I have the same trait.
    If I immerse myself in a book, I become deaf.
    So what would-- what does [NON-ENGLISH] mean in English?
    Well, the meal would be ready, and she would call him
    to the table to come and eat.
    I see.
    I see.
    And he just didn't hear.
    You would have to really poke him, practically,
    to make him aware of what was happening.
    Was he an outgoing kind of person?
    Or was he a reserved kind of person?
    Well, I don't know.
    But he was very engaged in sports.
    Apparently he was an amateur boxer,
    maybe a little before my time.
    He was a hunter, a fisherman.
    He would go away and bring back fish that he had caught
    and animals that he had hunted, rabbits and such,
    we would have prepared for our meals.
    Fresh meat, huh?
    And he also was an amateur flyer.
    So I have one memory of being--
    visiting my Grandmother Frankiene on her farm.
    And he flew overhead and dropped a tiny little teddy bear for me.
    And that was a very precious thing,
    which I think I didn't get to take with me.
    But I remember it was a tiny little teddy bear,
    and he dropped it from a plane.
    That's interesting.
    I mean, that's really touching.
    That's very touching and unusual,
    that somebody would already be a pilot, you know,
    and be able to fly a plane in those years.
    So he was a military man?
    He was a military man.
    And he had--
    I take it he must have been part of the country's military--
    the Lithuanian military, is that correct?
    Right.
    Had he started his service with the Lithuanian military?
    From what my adopted mother tells me,
    he ran away from home at age 16 and joined the Klaipeda
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    And what are the Klaipeda [NON-ENGLISH]??
    They fought against the Germans, as far as I remember.
    And this would have been at what time?
    What period of time?
    Well, it must have been 1917 or so, or 1916.
    So would he-- can you translate for me what does [NON-ENGLISH]
    mean?
    Klaipeda [NON-ENGLISH].
    We say it in English-- what would it be in English?
    The Revolutionaries of Klaipeda.
    The Klaipeda region.
    Would this have been communist revolutionaries or--
    No, no.
    They were Lithuanian revolutionaries
    fighting the Germans, because Klaipeda
    was a disputed area very much wanted by both
    the Russians and the Germans.
    And this was during the German phase, early German phase.
    So this was during German occupation of Lithuania
    in 19-- in the First World War?
    I'm not sure if it was the actual occupation or just
    a threat arising.
    I see.
    The Germans called it Memel, and that was really Klaipeda.
    The port city, yes.
    Had he ever been part of the Russian military forces?
    He was forced to become a Russian military officer
    after the communist invasion of 1940.
    Oh, I'm talking earlier.
    [CROSS TALK]
    Oh, earlier?
    No.
    No, he was only in the Lithuanian.
    First the [NON-ENGLISH],, the revolutionaries,
    and then he became a regular army person and worked his way
    up through the ranks.
    He was sent to the [NON-ENGLISH] in Kaunas.
    And that would have been--
    And he was maybe the second graduating class of the officers
    school in Kaunas.
    I see, I see.
    Was he somebody who--
    from the bits that you tell me, it
    sounds like he was a very doting father, that he was not
    the kind of father who a child would be frightened of,
    and that you would know, oh, here's the authority
    and I'd better shape up.
    I mean, was he somebody that was--
    were you ever frightened of him?
    Were you ever scared of him?
    No, I was not frightened of him.
    And I was really wishing I could be a boy--
    I was a tomboy--
    to emulate him.
    And maybe that came because of-- due to the fact
    that my mother became progressively ill
    and finally lost the ability to walk and was totally bedridden.
    And so for an active child, a father was really a--
    somebody I wanted to emulate.
    So tell me, what happened to your mother?
    What took place?
    And how old were you when these things started to become--
    Well, as I said, I was old enough
    to remember her working as a dentist.
    And even that incident where we were visiting the grandmother,
    she was perfectly OK.
    And then she started having difficulty walking, used a cane,
    then crutches, and then she became totally bedridden.
    And as a child, and even to this day,
    I don't know the real illness.
    It was something like an MS. And the family
    sent her all over Europe, to Italy and everywhere else,
    for treatment.
    And nothing seemed to help.
    And the only thing is, I remember
    every time she would go away, she
    would come back with some little toy for me.
    And my favorite thing was a tiny little wooden tea set.
    It was red with white little polka dots.
    Oh, wow.
    And it had little teeny cups and saucers and a serving plate.
    And that, I don't know where she brought it from.
    But this was one of the things she brought back.
    When you see the family sent her away,
    does this mean your father on his salary, or some relatives?
    I would imagine that it was the joint effort, maybe
    the grandparents.
    My Grandfather Shapiro had died long before my birth,
    as did my Grandfather Frankas.
    But the grandmother and the youngest brother who was single
    were very wealthy in Siauliai.
    And they probably helped.
    So let's go to the larger-- your larger family.
    Tell me about your parents, the families they came from.
    Were-- yeah, tell me about that.
    Both sets of grandparents?
    Bot sets of grandparents.
    What were their names, and what were their businesses,
    or things like that.
    Well, the Grandmother Shapiro lived in Siauliai.
    And she had what would amount to like a little estate
    [NON-ENGLISH] right inside the city.
    It had a nice house.
    It had some kind of a barn, which
    usually had a dog and little puppies or a cat and kittens.
    There were no other animals in there.
    And she had a beautiful garden.
    Flowers were nasturtiums, mostly.
    And to this day, I usually plant nasturtiums, remembering her.
    She also had-- there were apple trees, pear trees,
    all kinds of berries, a hammock.
    And because she was the local grandmother,
    I spent a great deal of time there.
    And she would have meals for some of the other relatives.
    And the only child, real child, she had in the city
    was my mother and then Uncle Misha--
    Michael, I guess would be his name.
    And he was single.
    He was a bachelor.
    He was your mother's brother?
    I'm sorry?
    He was your mother's brother.
    Yes.
    And he was about a year or two older than she.
    Because the grandparents had six children, and my mother
    was the youngest.
    And then they had Uncle Misha.
    They had Aunt Luba and her twin sister
    Aunt Manya, who emigrated--
    Aunt Manya emigrated to Argentina,
    so I had never met her before my birth.
    And Aunt Luba lived in Kaunas.
    I see.
    And she was a hat designer.
    And I don't know what her husband did, but they
    had a daughter who was about six years older than I.
    I see.
    And then there was Aunt Sarah, a twin of Uncle Jacob,
    and whom I never met.
    I don't know whether he was living
    or passed away before my birth.
    Since my mother was the youngest,
    you see, there was quite a gap.
    And Aunt Sarah emigrated to Argentina with Aunt Manya,
    so I never met either one of them.
    And then there were some half brothers and half sister.
    And because my Grandfather Shapiro had a first wife.
    And he'd had Ksaveral children with her, and then she died,
    then he married my grandmother and had the six other children.
    So of the other two children, two or three,
    I've met one uncle.
    And the half aunt was an eye doctor, I believe.
    And the half uncle was a lawyer.
    I think it was city prosecutor at one point in Kaunas.
    And they had wives and children whom I met once or twice.
    But they didn't-- it wasn't a very close relationship,
    because they were only the half siblings,
    and also because my mother became a Christian, a Catholic.
    And her immediate siblings had no problem with that,
    but I think the half siblings did not feel very comfortable
    with the situation.
    So that means the children of your grandfather's first wife--
    Yes.
    --were the ones who were not happy that she had--
    so tell me, what language did you
    speak when you went to your grandmother's house?
    Only Lithuanian.
    Although, my mother taught me later on,
    because of the Russian occupation,
    she taught me Russian.
    And I also learned it from playing with Russian children.
    And I also learned German.
    And my mother used to speak to me a different language
    on certain days of the week.
    That is your real mother.
    My real mother.
    So that I spoke Lithuanian at home, but when
    I learned the foreign languages they were German and Russian.
    And she said when I got a little older,
    she would teach me French, because she
    knew all those languages.
    I don't know how she learned, but she knew them.
    So she was quite educated.
    And I never got to learn French with her,
    but I majored in French later on in life.
    So that was part of it.
    Did you ever hear Yiddish being spoken?
    Yes, because my Grandmother Shapiro spoke Yiddish.
    And she-- Yiddish was spoken in her household
    when we would go there for dinner or whatever.
    And occasionally there would be sentences in Yiddish
    that I would hear, but I never learned it,
    and nobody used it with me.
    And everybody spoke Lithuanian to my father at any rate, so.
    So when you visited your Grandmother Shapiro,
    in her household you would hear it.
    But when she would speak with you,
    she would speak in Lithuanian?
    Yes, because she knew I couldn't understand it.
    I see.
    And the other, the half brother and the half sister,
    the half sister who lived in Siauliai, the eye doctor,
    she was married to another doctor, their children--
    there were two cousins who also spoke Lithuanian.
    So Yiddish was never spoken among the grandchildren.
    In your grandmother's-- in your mother's family of origin,
    shall we say, a Jewish family, was your grandmother or any
    of the children religious?
    Were they secular?
    My grandmother-- I'm sorry, I started answering.
    No, go ahead.
    My grandmother was very religious,
    because I remember them, the family,
    saying that she was spending days in the temple fasting
    and praying.
    So she was very, very religious.
    I didn't observe it among the others,
    but it could be that at that age I
    didn't know the difference of who did what, when.
    And so, even though she was very religious,
    she was accepting of your mother having married
    somebody who was not Jewish?
    And in fact, she used to say, John is my best son-in-law.
    Jonas.
    Really?
    Yes.
    She was-- maybe to make him feel better or whatever.
    So there never seemed to be a problem with my grandmother
    or with my mother's real siblings.
    In fact, Uncle Misha would come at Christmastime
    and shower me with gifts at Christmastime.
    And he spent time with us.
    And he and my father were very friendly.
    Let's turn to your father's family.
    Did he have any brothers and sisters
    He had two sisters, both of them born in the United States,
    because my grandfather Mikolas Frankas,
    escapes conscription to the czarist army
    by coming to the US.
    And he got a job as a conductor on the Pullman Train
    from Chicago to New York back and forth, and he worked there.
    And it's a little nebulous exactly
    about my Grandmother Barbara, Barbara Mockeviciute.
    But I have strong basis to believe
    that he met her in Chicago.
    She did not speak Lithuanian.
    She was an American-Lithuanian.
    And she took lessons in Lithuanian.
    And they were married in Chicago.
    But they lived in Brooklyn, New York.
    And so the two daughters, Anna and Ksavera,
    were born in Brooklyn, New York.
    And he went back to Lithuania with the grandmother.
    And there was another instance--
    like, he escaped twice from the czarist army conscription,
    so that he had two periods of time in the States.
    But when I knew my grandmother--
    and my grandfather was born in Lithuania when they went back.
    Your father was born in--
    My real father.
    Jonas.
    But the two girls, Anna and Ksavera, were American-born.
    So he was the youngest.
    Both of your parents--
    He was the-- yes, were the youngest.
    Both of your parents were the youngest in their families.
    Right.
    So the Grandfather Frankas, I never met.
    He died before I was born.
    But my Grandmother Barbara was beautiful and wonderful.
    And she spoke with an English accent.
    And she would add Lithuanian endings to words.
    [LAUGHS] So she would speak-- she would say a word in English
    with a Lithuanian ending?
    Right.
    And she lived on the country estate
    with her daughter Ksavera and her son-in-law Professor Jurgis
    Zilinskas.
    First they lived in [NON-ENGLISH] near Seduva.
    And then they moved to Vaiskoniai near Kedainiai.
    Oh, is this far from Siauliai?
    Seduva was very close to Siauliai.
    Vaiskoniai was a little further.
    But I spent a lot of time with my Grandmother Barbara.
    And she always had a rosary in her hand.
    She walked with a cane, because she had arthritis.
    And I would walk with her, and then I would--
    once she sat down, I would take her cane
    and made believe it was a horse.
    And I would ride off and leave the poor lady alone
    with her rosary.
    And she couldn't go anywhere until I came back.
    That's what children do.
    Did your Grandmother Barbara ever meet
    your Grandmother Shapiro?
    I don't know.
    Because I know very little about the wedding,
    except that my mother was baptized the day of her wedding.
    It probably was a very private wedding.
    And the Zilinskas' oldest daughter was her--
    stood in for a [NON-ENGLISH].
    A godmother?
    A godmother.
    So that much I know.
    And Vita, the Zilinskas' real daughter, was about 14
    at the time.
    Their older daughter's name was Vita or--
    Vita Zilinskaite Vileisis was their only daughter.
    And she was your mother's godmother.
    I'm sorry?
    You said that their older daughter stood in to be your--
    when your mother got baptized--
    Right.
    She was her godmother?
    She was her godmother.
    So she must have been-- she was quite young.
    She was.
    14 But I think that's the age where you can officially
    be godmother in the Catholic church.
    Maybe it has changed now even to allow--
    Did you ever hear stories about how your parents met?
    No.
    Oh, yes.
    I'm sorry.
    What happened is my real mother and my adopted mother
    were both dental students in Kaunas.
    And they became friends, even though my adopted mother
    was two years ahead of her in dental school.
    I'm going to--
    I'm going to interrupt right now, because at this point
    no one knows that you have an adopted mother.
    Right.
    Your adopted mother was actually your father's sister,
    is that correct?
    Yes.
    OK.
    So it was Ksavera Frankas.
    And that happens later.
    But in school, Ksavera meet your mother, whose name again is--
    first name?
    Lidia.
    Sapiraite.
    Sapiraite.
    And they're both dental students in Kaunas.
    And Ksavera by then was Zilinskas.
    She was already married.
    Because Ksavera was an opera singer and a concert pianist.
    And he did not wish her the be on stage, her husband.
    So she was sent to dental school,
    and he was one of the professors.
    Oh, I see.
    So by that point, she was Mrs. Zilinskas,
    and she meets your mother as a student.
    Right.
    OK.
    And they become friends.
    And she introduced her to her younger brother Jonas.
    I see.
    And that's how they met.
    I see.
    So they met through your aunt.
    Your aunt was also your adopted mother, in other words.
    Right.
    OK.
    And did your mother or father ever
    tell you anything about those early days, about their meeting
    or about--
    I think I was too young, really, to hear any of that.
    I just accepted everything as it stood.
    And really, when you think about it, I was about six or seven
    when my father was disappeared from the scene.
    And my mother was very involved with her illness.
    So she would teach me things like languages.
    She also taught me how to play cards.
    I believe it was called [NON-ENGLISH] a thousand.
    To this day, I cannot play cards.
    But at that age I played cards with her.
    This is when she was already bedridden?
    Yes.
    And she used to have the officers' wives
    come in once a week, and they would play cards.
    And she would sit up in a chair to do that.
    Was she-- was she a reserved person?
    Was she a happy person even though she was ill?
    What kind of nature did she seem to have?
    I think she was a very happy person.
    She used to sing, and she would teach me all these things,
    and she played cards.
    And she was also a disciplinarian,
    because the father was away quite a bit.
    He would go on weekend trips with the army,
    and then later on he was stationed in Vilnius.
    So if I misbehaved-- and I was a very bad tomboy child.
    I was nasty to tell my nanny Anele.
    She had her hands full.
    So she would tell me to go get my father's belt.
    And the father had a parade belt, which
    had a heavy gold-colored buckle, and he had a plain black leather
    belt hanging.
    So I would ask, which belt should I bring?
    Aw.
    And then she would have me lie down across her lap on the bed,
    and she would administer the punishment.
    And I was a very proud child.
    I never wanted to see anyone see me cry.
    So I would not cry until I went off by myself in a corner
    where nobody could see me, and then I would pout and cry.
    Oh.
    But it didn't happen very often, but.
    A couple of thoughts came to my mind as you were speaking.
    Your grandfather from your Lithuanian family side
    was a Pullman porter in the United
    States, which is not a very high level position socially.
    But when you speak about both sides
    of your family in Lithuania, they
    sound to be quite well-to-do.
    You talk about his wife having an estate--
    not just a farm, but an estate.
    Is it that he earned enough money in America
    to be able to buy himself something quite vast
    when he came back?
    Were they well-to-do in Lithuania or not really?
    From what I heard just fairly recently from people who knew
    the area and knew the families, the Franks had a store
    in Seduva, which was quite well-to-do,
    and that apparently they gave quite a [NON-ENGLISH],, a dowry,
    to their daughter Ksavera when she married Zilinskas,
    and that part of this [NON-ENGLISH] where
    the grandmother lived with the Zilinskases,
    was from that money.
    OK.
    So it was really two different worlds--
    a very humble kind of job in the United States,
    but a far more prominent one in Lithuania.
    Well, all the refugees, when they
    come with nothing but the clothes on their back,
    have to start very humbly in the United States,
    having gone through that with the Zilinskases.
    So I imagine that's what it was with the Franks.
    OK.
    And another question that came to mind is, did you ever know--
    I mean, you saw the results of--
    you saw the tangible material results
    from your Shapiro side of the family in that your grandmother
    had a beautiful home with a surrounding yard or park
    around it.
    But do you know what brought in the money?
    What kind of business they had, or what kind of business--
    her husband, whom you--
    your grandfather, who you never met--
    what had-- how had they--
    Again, I never knew them.
    And I found out with fairly recently during my 10-year stay
    in Lithuania from their goddaughter, actually,
    that the Shapiros had a jewelry store.
    And he was an [NON-ENGLISH].
    He worked, you know, a gold--
    Gold mine?
    Yes.
    Where did he get this gold from?
    This was-- well, apparently they were wealthy.
    And my aunt used to say later to my--
    well, that's jumping ahead to my in-laws later on--
    that Rita, you know, has--
    is an heiress.
    And then they used to laugh and say,
    what's left of the heirloom?
    An old TV set, you know, or whatever.
    So the family had--
    they had had money.
    He had been in the jewelry business.
    But more details than that, you don't really know.
    I don't know, except that Uncle Misha was the one who had--
    since he was not married, and he was with my grandmother,
    he was actually the main heir.
    And everybody used to say, well, Rita is going to get it all.
    And--
    So did he actually work in the jewelry business?
    I don't remember either my grandmother or my uncle
    working anywhere.
    But again, it was a child's perception.
    I got that, OK.
    I mean, somebody was not home, what
    they were doing I don't know.
    Got it.
    Got it.
    The other question that came to mind
    is, your mother converts to Catholicism.
    And were you brought up in any religious kind of training
    when you were with your mother and your father?
    Did you go to church?
    Did you go to communion?
    Did you go to catechism classes?
    Well, I was too young for communion
    when I was with my parents.
    And really, there was no religious upbringing.
    In fact, when I used to go visit--
    I was due to visit my Grandmother Barbara.
    I could hear my Grandmother Shapiro good-naturedly say,
    I hope they don't baptize the child.
    And when I was with the Grandmother Shapiro,
    she knew I was baptized.
    And that's how it worked.
    And so finally when I was baptized, it was done secretly,
    and I have no recollection of it.
    OK.
    And do you-- did people tell you about the baptism
    afterwards, even though you have no recollection?
    By then I was no longer with my parents.
    And I made my first communion with my new family.
    And I made my confirmation in Germany,
    with a German bishop when we were living in exile.
    OK.
    That's quite a jump, so we'll fill
    in the gaps between Siauliai, which
    is what we're talking about in your early life, and then--
    now, in the late '30s, you would still be only a five-,
    six-year-old girl.
    And so the question that I have--
    I know it's kind of odd to ask, but--
    did you have any sense of the wider world and the politics
    going on, and the kinds of tensions that were going
    on in Europe in the late 1930s?
    Well, my father used to come home
    from the army talking about the situation.
    And it was mostly as the Soviets were occupying or just before.
    And he would talk to my mother about it.
    So there was tension.
    And, you know, they would discuss things
    which were way over my head.
    But I knew that things were bad.
    And then of course, the occupation took place,
    and then my father did a lot of talking to my mother.
    So-- do you remember that occupation?
    Do you remember how your life changed?
    Well, I also remember the day of the occupation in Siauliai.
    Tell me.
    Being a naughty child, I was put down for a nap by my nanny.
    And I climbed out the first story window and ran down
    to [NON-ENGLISH] Street to play with my other children.
    It was a couple of blocks.
    Because I used to be kind of a leader.
    I used to instigate all kinds of things.
    And there we saw a lot of people standing on the street waiting.
    There was like a crowd of people.
    Some people had flowers.
    And then in rolled the tanks.
    And there were many.
    They were the small what they call the [NON-ENGLISH],,
    which I guess are not a full size, huge tank.
    And they filled the street.
    They kept going towards where my father would
    be with the army, the base.
    And when they filled the street, they stopped.
    And then the portholes popped open.
    And out came the heads of the Soviet soldiers.
    They had leather caps on, as the tank drivers do.
    And people were just watching.
    And then some people ran and gave them flowers.
    And you saw that?
    I saw that.
    I saw the actual--
    Did it look odd to you?
    I'm sorry?
    Did it look odd to you that they were getting flowers
    or completely normal?
    Well, that didn't make any impression on me.
    It's just that, you know, these were the tanks,
    and the soldiers rolled in.
    And nobody-- I mean, we children were not afraid.
    And some people gave flowers.
    It's just a fact I saw it.
    It was almost like a film that I remember it now.
    And then in due time I went home,
    and then my father came home, and--
    What did he say?
    They talked about the occupation.
    And I think he was saying, well, I have to get out of the army.
    And then a short few days later, he came home with a red star
    on his hat.
    And he said we were not--
    I was not allowed to leave.
    I am now an officer in the-- whatever
    the Lithuanian Red Army equivalent was.
    So they just took all the military officers who were in--
    at least at his base in Siauliai--
    and converted them, transferred them, into the Soviet Army?
    Right.
    Because this quieted things down.
    Things were-- nothing has changed except the uniforms,
    so to speak.
    Now, during that time, I don't remember the circumstances,
    but a young lady, a young teacher named Vale,
    came to live with us.
    She was like a boarder.
    And she had her own room in our apartments.
    And she used to take me to the movies.
    She took me to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    when it came to Lithuania to Siauliai.
    And she was like a friend.
    Also during the occupation, we had
    to give up half of our apartments, because in
    came a Soviet.
    He was known as a [NON-ENGLISH].
    So probably a major or a colonel.
    A political officer.
    Yes, maybe that.
    But he wore a uniform.
    I don't know that the political officers wore uniforms.
    But he wore a uniform.
    He had a wife and two daughters.
    And one daughter was named Renata.
    And she was my age.
    And we used to play together, and that's
    how I learned Russian.
    But what I remember about the Russian family
    is they cooked cabbage every day.
    And the whole place smelled of cabbage.
    I mean, we used to have cabbage soup but not every day.
    And it got to be so that became synonymous with the Russians.
    And my mother used to frown and say, oh, [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And how do you say that in English?
    I'm sorry?
    How do you say [NON-ENGLISH]--
    It stinks of cabbage, because cabbage doesn't smell very nice.
    Yeah.
    What was their manner and their behavior in the house?
    This Russian military officer and his family?
    I don't remember how the kitchen was arranged.
    They must have shared our kitchen.
    Or maybe they had a separate stove.
    I really don't remember that.
    But basically, I'm not aware of any either friction
    or friendliness.
    It was just a fact of life.
    They had half the apartment, they lived there,
    and Renata happened to play with me.
    Tell me a little bit about that apartment
    that your parents lived in.
    Was it in a separate building?
    Was it in a home, a house, or a multistory building?
    Was it in the center of town?
    Well, originally when my mother was still a dentist,
    we lived someplace in the center of Siauliai.
    And the apartment was--
    it was like a double apartment.
    The half of it was the office, then there was a stairway,
    and then it was our private--
    Ksaveral bedrooms and a room for the maid or the nanny.
    She was like a housekeeper.
    When my mother was bedridden-- and I don't even
    recall when we moved.
    But we lived sort of on the outskirts of the city,
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    And I think it was a first floor place.
    And it was kind of rambling, but it was one apartment then.
    They certainly didn't own it.
    They must have rented it.
    I don't remember the arrangement.
    Was it a separate house?
    Or was it, again, shared, one building?
    No, there were other floors and other people living in there.
    So it was like an apartment house, but a low rise one.
    And we were on the first floor.
    And the Russians had half of it.
    OK.
    OK.
    Did you have-- you mentioned your nanny.
    Was there any other household help that was in the apartment?
    Or did she do everything?
    For our family, she did everything.
    And she mostly took care of my mother,
    but she also got the meals ready, and bathed me, and--
    she did everything.
    Was she always part of your life?
    Had you-- you know, was she there when you--
    was she part of your earliest memories, or did she come--
    Well, the oldest memories-- we had a series of maids.
    And I remember that one of them stuck me in a very hot bath,
    and I complained.
    And so after that, she was dismissed.
    And Anele was the one that stayed there for the most part.
    And she moved with us to the other house.
    OK.
    To the rambling one--
    Right.
    --where you shared with the Russian family.
    And your father would then come home,
    and he would see this other officer in the apartment?
    Somehow, I don't remember any interaction.
    Now, there may have been.
    I don't remember any.
    I would just remember he would come home,
    and he would talk to my mother.
    And do you remember things that they said?
    And do you remember their tones of voice?
    Well, he was upset about the fact
    that he was obliged to switch uniforms and stay
    in the service.
    He would have liked to get out.
    And he said a lot of things against the Soviet occupation
    and against the annexation.
    I'm not sure it had taken place yet, but it was in the works.
    And he was very upset, and he would complain about it.
    And then he was deployed to Vilnius.
    He was ordered to go to Vilnius.
    Yes.
    And later on from documents, I found out
    that he was the chief of the chemical warfare battalion
    or group, whatever it was, in Vilnius.
    So when he left Siauliai, was that the last time you saw him?
    Just about.
    Because I don't remember seeing him coming back.
    Because that was shortly before the Germans came.
    And so there was a lot of unrest.
    And I remember my mother used to listen to the radio--
    and this was under the Soviets.
    Because it was the London Radio, and they would speak in French.
    They would say [NON-ENGLISH].
    And they would listen with it turned down
    so nobody else could hear, and they
    would know what was happening.
    And did you get a sense of what was happening?
    Not really, except that when Hitler made a speech,
    he addressed the Lithuanian population.
    And I didn't understand most of it,
    but my mother sort of translated it.
    And basically, he had said, people of Lithuania,
    we have nothing against you, but we
    are in the process of liberating you from the Soviet occupation,
    and it may be necessary to destroy all the cities.
    So if you live in the city, please leave.
    Withdraw to the countryside.
    And--
    And she translated this speech to you?
    Well, maybe not word for word, but it was,
    Hitler is threatening to destroy all the cities,
    we have to leave.
    And so-- again, I don't remember whose horses or wagons
    they were, because we were not on the farm at the time.
    And somehow, my grandmother was not in the picture at all.
    It was like my mother and I were on our own with Anele, the--
    The three of you.
    Yeah.
    But I remember that we got on a wagon,
    I think, with some of the neighborhood people.
    And we drove out into the countryside.
    Even though your mother was bedridden, she--
    My mother was lying on the cart.
    And there were other people there.
    And I don't know who drove, even.
    But we all went to the countryside.
    And there were a lot of people in the situation, maybe
    a whole group of people from Siauliai.
    And they found what looked like a peaceful area
    and unhitched the horses.
    And my mother was still on the wagon,
    and I was sitting beside her.
    And the men started to dig a ditch saying that in case of any
    kind of hostilities, we will have to go
    into the [NON-ENGLISH],, the ditch.
    The ditch, yeah.
    And at sunset, all of a sudden, we
    saw rockets go up, some kind of a signal.
    And then shooting started.
    And apparently, what we did is we got situated between the two
    armies.
    Oh, gosh.
    Oh, gosh.
    So you--
    So my mother said quickly, Anele, take little Rita, Ritute,
    to the ditch, and lift me off the wagon and leave me here.
    But lift me off.
    So she did that.
    And it was a field of, I think, of rye or wheat that had
    been recently cut, harvested.
    So whatever was left were long, sticky things that were pokey.
    So Anele ran-- I was not really willing to go,
    but she grabbed me and took me.
    And the shooting was going from both sides.
    It was an exchange.
    And so we fell into this ditch with the other people.
    And your mother was left outside.
    And I was worrying about my mother.
    And the horses, of course, were deadly afraid--
    deathly afraid.
    So they would gallop from the one side--
    when the salvo came from the one side, they would gallop,
    and the salvo came from the other side, they would gallop.
    And then the men in the ditch were talking
    about what kind of bullets.
    And one of them said, well, these are the dumdum bullets.
    And the dumdum bullets are specific.
    I didn't know that at the time, but basically it's
    meant that they find their target and then they explode.
    And they really do a lot of damage.
    So anyway, I'm worrying about my mother.
    And they keep shooting back and forth,
    and the horses are galloping back and forth.
    And all of a sudden, I hear my mother's voice right
    beside the ditch--
    I'm here, pull me in.
    And so Anele pulls her in.
    And can you imagine, that with the horses galloping across her,
    they didn't trample her?
    That's hard to believe.
    But she rolled in, and she was safe.
    Wow.
    And then we-- we had through the following morning--
    everything was quiet.
    There was a farm there, obviously.
    So we stayed at the farm, I think, for one overnight.
    It's kind of nebulous, because the shooting,
    I remember very clearly.
    And then I don't remember when we returned to Siauliai.
    So do you know who was shooting at who?
    Was it actually German--
    It was the Germans and the Russians.
    Truly?
    Yes.
    I see.
    I see, they hadn't retreated yet.
    Because they-- it was a pitched battle,
    and we landed in the middle of it,
    because there was nothing to indicate there was a battle that
    would take place right there.
    So then I remember going back.
    And I remember that this was the first time in my life
    that I saw a dead body.
    And actually, there were a number of them along the road.
    And I think they were Soviets.
    They were soldiers in uniform just lying there.
    That must have been quite shocking.
    Well, you know it was like--
    it's not like we stood and observed it.
    It's not like looking at somebody you know.
    It was just a fact of life.
    And they were in full uniform.
    So we came back to Siauliai.
    And I would think that by then it must've
    been occupied by the Germans.
    But again, I never saw any soldiers
    marching in or anything.
    It's just that I used to see soldiers driving a truck,
    going about their business.
    And I had a pet dog, a little puppy, grown up by then.
    And its name was [NON-ENGLISH].
    My mother selected that name because he was very feisty.
    So it meant "the feisty one."
    And [NON-ENGLISH] was a little brown mongrel.
    And one day-- and I'm not saying it was done on purpose--
    but a German truck ran over [NON-ENGLISH]..
    So I lost my little puppy.
    But I don't think they did it on purpose, the dog just ran out.
    And I used to be known to lead the children in front of a truck
    to show how I could cross the street in time
    in front of a truck.
    But again, I don't remember whether this
    was after the Germans came or before then,
    because there were trucks--
    [NON-ENGLISH] trucks.
    Yeah, that's right.
    And it was then that I became aware
    of things happening with the Jews.
    How did that-- how did you become aware of that?
    Well, my grandmother came to see us,
    and she wore the Star of David, a yellow Star of David
    pinned to her front.
    And then I think the same thing with Uncle Misha.
    And some of it maybe came from them talking to my mother,
    and some of them came from hearsay.
    But the story was that, very shortly
    after that they were obliged to wear a star on their back
    as well, front and back, and that they were not allowed
    to walk on the sidewalk.
    They had to walk in the middle of the street.
    And again-- don't ask me how much time expired--
    but my mother was concerned, and--
    actually, I should go back a little,
    because the father did not reappear
    after the German occupation.
    And so eventually-- and it must have been weeks,
    maybe, Ksaveral weeks after things, the front subsided,
    there was no more shooting, no more bombarding,
    that we received a message, whether it
    was a letter or a phone call or somebody
    came from my Aunt Ksavera, who lived with her husband
    in Vilnius.
    During the school year, he was a professor
    at the University of Vilnius Medical School.
    And she worked, I think, for the city whatever,
    some kind of a city office.
    So the message came that Jonas was apprehended on June 14
    and deported by the Soviets Ksaveral weeks
    because the Germans--
    before the Germans came in.
    And you heard that from your mother?
    That is, you learned of it while you were in Siauliai?
    That he-- well, the father wasn't coming home.
    He was deported.
    And I don't know.
    May I regress a little bit to the Soviet occupation,
    that why I knew what deportation was?
    Tell me.
    In the middle of the Soviet occupation,
    Anele used to take me for walks or take me to the store,
    or whatever-- take me to the photographers
    to have my annual picture taken.
    During one of our forays, we passed
    near the railroad station.
    And she was trying to sort of divert me so I wouldn't look,
    but then it was unavoidable.
    There were a lot of train, like cattle cars, parked,
    extending through the station on the street,
    practically, where were the railroad tracks were.
    And they had-- they had windows with bars on them.
    And there were people looking through the bars
    and yelling and screaming and crying.
    And there was a crowd of people lined in front of,
    facing the train, but there were soldiers between the train
    and the crowd of people.
    And the soldiers had weapons.
    They had bayonets on their guns.
    And they were facing the people with the bayonets.
    In other words, they were not allowing them to approach.
    And there was crying and yelling on both sides.
    And I saw this, had no idea what that was.
    So then when I got home, Anele told my mother
    what she had seen.
    And my mother said, well, you know,
    that's happening all over the city.
    They are deporting people.
    And "they" being-- who was the "they"?
    The Soviets, the Russians, were deporting people.
    And this was a train about to pull out to Siberia
    after they had rounded them up.
    And the people were crying, trying to get them,
    to give them some food or money or whatever,
    and the soldiers were preventing it.
    So going back now to the message coming that my father was
    deported from Vilnius--
    and June 14 was the day where thousands were deported.
    I mean, it's now being a memorial day.
    So I knew exactly what had happened,
    that my father was deported in a cattle car,
    just like I saw the people on the street previously.
    Must have hit you very hard.
    You were an eight-year-old girl at that point.
    Pardon?
    It must have hit you very hard.
    Well, it did, because we kept thinking
    that he would come home.
    And then to learn that after the Soviets
    were gone, even though there were new troubles happening,
    but at least we thought he would come home.
    And now we knew--
    and it was a very hard thing to perceive,
    that we would never see him again.
    It wasn't a question of me breaking down and crying
    or anything.
    It was just like an oppressive knowledge
    that this was how it was going to be.
    Tell me, what happened to him?
    Did you ever find out?
    Well, in this book that we might talk about, my uncle--
    may I recount what he said?
    Because I'm not translating--
    Sure, sure.
    Tell me.
    He apparently said that my father came to them and said,
    I'm being followed by the KGB, my days are numbered.
    Promise that you will take care of my daughter Rita,
    because Lidia is bedridden, she's a no--
    incapable of taking care of her.
    So they promised they would take care of me.
    And then he said, when they come to get me,
    they're not going to get me alive.
    I'm going to commit suicide.
    But before I do that, I'm going to take
    whoever is there with me.
    I'm going to shoot them first then kill myself.
    So that was what he said to the Zilinskases.
    To your aunt Ksavera and her husband.
    Yes.
    And Ksavera and Jurgis themselves
    were in danger of deportation.
    So what he did, he started sleeping, taking
    her to sleep, in the university morgue
    so they wouldn't be at home.
    That's your aunt and uncle.
    Yes.
    They would sleep in the morgue.
    And they were never arrested.
    And so when the occupation came, his first thought
    was, go and see what happened to Jonas Frankas.
    So he went to the street where the officers who are housed.
    It was an apartment house.
    I later visited that, but that's besides the point.
    And he talked to the owner from whom--
    the owner of the building.
    And the owner was kind--
    he said it was a Polish-Lithuanian, which
    opens up another chapter in the history.
    But he said, they came at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning.
    They were-- I guess one was a military,
    and Ksaveral were just KGB civilians.
    They forced me to unlock his door to let them in.
    They pulled him out of bed, and they took him with them.
    So he did not have a chance to commit suicide,
    and he did not kill them.
    For which I am happy, that he did not commit suicide.
    But then as the years passed, we really
    didn't know what happened.
    During the German occupation, one of his--
    no, this was later when--
    my mother had word many years later
    when I was no longer with her from a lieutenant who
    had been arrested with him.
    And he said that he saw him deathly ill with typhoid fever
    in the Arkhangelsk region.
    That's far north.
    So I assume that he died in Arkhangelsk.
    Now, may I go jump ahead?
    A little bit, yeah, sure.
    Many years later I was with a US delegation working at the Soviet
    Union under Gorbachev.
    And the first night in the hotel in Moscow,
    I had this vision/dream.
    My father was speaking to me in very elite Bible language.
    He knew I was afraid.
    He knew I was thinking of him.
    Here I was on the Soviet Union, and I
    could have been whisked away, even though I
    was an American citizen.
    And he said, I have died a martyr's death here.
    And no harm--
    I have earned something-- in other words, up there--
    that no harm shall befall you.
    And I immediately woke up because it was so real,
    and I cried.
    And the next day, we traveled to Kazakhstan,
    and I had a rerun of the same dream.
    We were living in a general's house, put up like VIPs.
    I had the same dream.
    And I said to him, but you were in Arkhangelsk,
    and this is Kazakhstan.
    Well, when I finally went to free Lithuania
    and saw his KGB documents, he did not die in Arkhangelsk.
    He died in Kemerovo area.
    It was his second place.
    He was switched from Norilsk to another camp.
    And he died very near where I was, really.
    Really?
    So that was a very strange thing.
    And I still-- excuse me.
    I still think it was like a vision and not a dream,
    because I was sort of wide awake.
    And to have it two nights in a row--
    And did you ever have it afterwards?
    No.
    And so you still didn't know at that point what had happened,
    what his real--
    No, I didn't-- I kept thinking that he might will survive
    Siberia and come back alive.
    So many did.
    But from the documents--
    and may I talk about the document?
    Sure.
    Which I found in Lithuania.
    In what year?
    In the archives of the KGB prison.
    And this would have been-- what year
    did you find those documents?
    The first time-- I think it was the first time I went
    there, 1991, the end of 1991.
    And there it gave his whole thing,
    and the he died on the 28th of December, 1944.
    He was only 44 years old and in top physical condition,
    a sportsman.
    He had a gold medal for track in the Lithuanian Army, by the way.
    He was really an all around sports figure.
    And so people in Lithuania said, you
    can be assured he didn't die.
    He was shot in the back of his head.
    But this was in the hard labor, gulag.
    So at that point I had closure, because I knew he had died.
    And in my religion, the 28th of December is the Day of the Holy
    Innocents.
    So that was a very special day.
    Yeah.
    So I did find out that he died.
    But all that while during the German occupation
    and in the ensuing years of living as a refugee and then
    coming to the States, for 50-some years,
    I had hoped he would be alive.
    Yeah.
    The KGB-- this file, his KGB file,
    did it have any other details in it about what had happened
    to him after--
    Yes.
    Well, first of all, apparently they
    keep them in that prison for about a week
    and torture them, the one that's on--
    is it [NON-ENGLISH]?
    Which is now the--
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    Yeah, [NON-ENGLISH].
    The trial, which was like a kangaroo trial, happened
    after he was already in the--
    deported.
    So in other words, he was tried.
    But he was-- there was a trial but a kangaroo trial.
    And anyway, the recommendation was
    made that he would be given 10 years,
    but he was given 15 years.
    And I saw the document that was in Russian.
    I have a copy of it but not with me, unfortunately.
    And it shows him with a number across his chest, and his head
    shaven, and very gaunt face, and it has a front
    and a side view of him--
    looks a lot, actually, like the Jewish camps,
    because the numbers, you know, displayed on his chest.
    And he was accused of being the enemy--
    an enemy of the people, which was a standard accusation,
    as I recall.
    And he made a very nice speech.
    He made a speech in Russian, of course--
    it was all recorded in Russian--
    that, if I am--
    if loving my country and objecting to its being annexed
    to the Soviet Union means that I'm an enemy of the people,
    then I am such, because I love my country,
    and I want it to be free.
    So that was his speech.
    And that was recorded in the document, which surprised me.
    Yeah, it is surprising.
    And so then he was sent to the first one camp.
    I believe it was Norilsk.
    And then he was switched to another camp in the Kemerovo
    district.
    And he perished in that camp.
    And you find this out in 1991?
    1991, yes.
    Do you remember how you reacted when you saw that in '91?
    Well, there were other people there,
    because this was a friend--
    a government employee who had gotten me this copy.
    And again, I try not to show my feelings.
    So I think I had a good cry later on late at night
    when I got home.
    And again, I saw the significance of the date,
    and I felt very sort of gratified, maybe,
    that it shows me that he was almost a saint, and probably
    a saint.
    And I have a similar thing with my mother,
    because her death, which I--
    Will talk about.
    --happened on a special date, too, in the Catholic religion,
    be it as it may.
    So just remind me, we will talk about this, too,
    how you came to become a practicing Catholic.
    That will be part of our conversation.
    Well, because living with my adoptive parents,
    I went through the regular motions
    of taking catechism lessons.
    I used to ride on horseback from Vaiskunai 5 kilometers
    to Pakalniskis for the lessons.
    And then after that, I remember we
    had a hard time sewing a white dress
    because this was a shortage.
    But I had a very pretty white dress and a candle,
    and I made my communion with the children.
    I probably was maybe nine years old at the time, eight
    and a half.
    Normally you're supposed-- at that time
    they were doing it at age seven.
    So I was a little retarded in that respect.
    OK.
    So let's return to--
    there's the Nazi occupation, and you're living
    with your mother and Anele.
    You see your Jewish grandmother and Uncle Misha
    come in with stars and front and stars in back.
    And you get word from someone, somehow,
    that your father has been deported.
    And you know what that means, because you had seen the people
    at the train station.
    Right.
    What happened to you then?
    What happened to your life then?
    What evolved?
    Well, I got the impression-- again,
    not in so much a repetition--
    that my grandmother and uncle were trying to save my mother.
    And they decided they'd better not visit and not give
    any suggestions that she was Jewish,
    and because she was the widow of a deportee and an officer,
    that maybe that would help.
    And she apparently was very concerned about me nevertheless.
    Your mother?
    Yes.
    So one day, my uncle's brother, who
    was a farmer by the name of Mikolas Zilinskas.
    That is from your father's side?
    From my-- yes.
    Came from the farm with horse and buggy,
    and my mother packed up a little suitcase, and off I went.
    Did you-- and what did this mean?
    Did she tell you where you were going?
    Did you know?
    Well, she told me I was going to go and live with my uncle
    and aunt, because my grandmother,
    the Lithuanian grandmother, was deceased by then,
    and that I would go to the farm with the horses and everything.
    And I had spent many times at the farm.
    This was the farm in Vaiskunai, because the Pakalniskis
    was sold when I was still--
    a few years before the invasion, the Soviet invasion.
    And this is your Aunt Ksavera's brother-in-law
    from what I understand?
    Yes.
    Yes, her husband's brother.
    OK.
    So I spent, I think, one or two days on his farm.
    And he had three children.
    Antanas was the youngest.
    And then he had--
    I've forgotten the name of the older one.
    He was a deaf-mute.
    And a girl named Genovaite.
    But Antanas was about six or seven years older than I,
    so he was more my age.
    And I have no recollection of him.
    But again, if I may digress a little bit, Antanas tells me--
    because he's still alive and well in Vilnius--
    that I opened up my suitcase and took out
    a bunch of my father's medals, because he had,
    you know, the Grand Duke Gediminas medal and [LITHUANIAN]
    medal.
    And I laid them all out on the carpet and showed them to him.
    And he was sort of hoping that I would give him one.
    But I packed everything up, and that was it.
    He never saw them again.
    So a few days later, Antanas' father, Mikolas Zilinskas,
    drove me to Vaiskunai, which was another trip.
    And there, in the beautiful estate manor home,
    my aunt and uncle were not there.
    They were in Vilnius.
    He was still teaching.
    I guess it was--
    it was wintertime, school year.
    And so I stayed with--
    they had a bunch of maids.
    They had a [NON-ENGLISH] and a [NON-ENGLISH],,
    a cook and a housemaid, and God knows who else.
    And they took care of me.
    But in the final analysis, they probably didn't do too much,
    or maybe they couldn't.
    It wound up that I was sort of neglected,
    meaning that I had lice all over my hair, which
    I wasn't even aware of.
    I mean, I would scratch myself and that was it.
    So then a few weeks later, I think--
    it couldn't have been very long--
    I remember a beautiful night, a snowy night,
    and I was taken by a sleigh, a big sleigh ride with two horses,
    to Vilnius.
    And, you know, the moon was shining.
    It was a starry night.
    It was-- looked like something out of a storybook.
    And I was covered up with furs, because it was cold.
    And they took me to Vilnius.
    I don't know who took me.
    One of the people who work there.
    And again, I guess it had to be someone they trusted, because--
    or maybe he just thought I was a cousin
    and then didn't know what sort of a cousin.
    And so I arrived in Vilnius.
    And then I lived with my uncle and aunt.
    And I don't know when the formal adoption took place,
    because there was a document that I was adopted by them.
    Did you-- were you aware of this,
    that you were going to be adopted there?
    Well, I was aware that I was going
    to live with them, because it was dangerous.
    By then I was about eight years old,
    eight and a half years old--
    eight years old, because this was before the first communion.
    And remember, I said I thought I was around nine.
    But it was very dangerous.
    I must never speak who I was, that my name was Zilinskaite,
    and these were my mother and father,
    and I had no other relatives.
    Did you understand why you had to do this?
    Well, I'll tell you the next story.
    I myself am amazed that at that age
    I could comprehend and be that smart, because to me it's
    uncanny what happened later.
    But anyway, so they would both go to work.
    And the Zilinskas would be teaching,
    and she had her office job wherever.
    She didn't practice dentistry by then.
    She was just working.
    So one day-- and they had a maid named
    Olga, who was a housekeeper.
    And Olga could not speak Lithuanian.
    But I spoke Russian, we conversed in Russian.
    And Olga would take care of me.
    I mean, Zilinskas combed my hair out,
    and she used kerosene and God knows what else,
    and we got rid of the lice.
    That was all finished.
    And I had long hair, of course, with braids.
    And she used to shampoo my hair, you know, take good care of me.
    And Olga would take care of me during the day.
    And she would take me on the bus all over Vilnius.
    And she was a very devout Orthodox Russian.
    And most religious people bless themselves
    when they see a church.
    Of course, Vilnius was full of churches.
    In addition to that, Olga didn't know the difference between
    the [NON-ENGLISH] or anything that was a big building,
    she would constantly sit there on the bus and bless herself.
    So I remember that.
    And that was kind of humorous.
    And one time she took me to a Russian Orthodox church.
    And I remember, I nearly asphyxiated from all
    the incense, because they're very heavy on the incense.
    That's my memory of a Russian Orthodox church.
    Excuse me.
    So one day while Olga and I were at home--
    oh, the night before there was a knock on the door one evening.
    And my mother's-- my real mother's half brother,
    the prosecutor by the name of Shapiro--
    Moishe, I think, was his first name, knocked on the door
    and said, professor, help me to get through the underground that
    saves the Jews.
    He was asking my adopted father Jurgis Zilinskas.
    And I heard some of the conversation.
    I didn't-- wasn't in the room to say hello.
    And I knew exactly what was happening.
    I fully comprehended it.
    And my adopted father directed him
    to go wherever to save himself.
    He gave him the name, the phone number, the directions.
    I think later on he was apprehended
    and incarcerated anyhow.
    So anyway, this--
    But hang on a second.
    It's unusual that your adopted father, your uncle actually,
    would have known where he should go.
    That meant he must have been informed--
    Well, he was-- in his memoirs, you'll
    see how he was trying to save Jewish doctors by even baptizing
    them in those towns and such.
    So he was very much into helping as much as he could.
    Not to mention the fact that he had me,
    even though I was a relative.
    So the next day, the parents go off to work.
    Olga is home alone.
    There was a knock on the door, and a very nicely
    dressed Lithuanian gentlemen presents himself, hat and suit.
    He looks around, he asks Olga to leave.
    He closes the door, gives me some candy and says to me,
    in Lithuanian, yesterday evening a man came to the door.
    He came to your place.
    This was an apartment house with a hallway.
    What did he talk about?
    What did he say to your parents?
    Here I am, all alone, fully aware of what it's all about.
    And without much hesitation I said, yes, some man
    came to the door last night.
    My father opened the door, took a look at him,
    and I heard him say, you are a Jew,
    we're not allowed to talk to the Jews, go away.
    And that was it.
    And he bought the story?
    And I had been brought up by both my families
    that if you lie you'll get caught.
    Children are not to lie.
    So I was about 45 years old before I
    told my adopted mother--
    by then the adopted father was gone--
    what I had done, and how I had lived in mortal
    fear in Lithuania, when the other cousin arrived
    who was pure Jewish, when we went to Germany, how I was fully
    aware that I could get all of us killed,
    and how I managed to lie, and the lie held.
    And I really think it was with the help of God,
    because I don't see--
    So he was not--
    Moishe was not the only one who came to the door?
    The only one.
    He was the only one?
    The only one.
    And he is the one whose son went to Russia, became a communist,
    and tortured my mother later under
    the second Soviet occupation.
    We'll talk about that in a bit.
    So were you-- did you see yourself as Jewish in any way
    at that point?
    No, I didn't see myself as Jewish.
    But I saw myself as somebody who could get my Christian family
    and my Jewish people in trouble.
    I really felt like--
    I don't think I analyzed what I was.
    All I knew was that I had this knowledge, it was a secret,
    I was to keep it a secret, that I
    had to do the best I could to make it stick.
    Apparently it stuck.
    It stuck.
    But, you know, but I worried about it.
    Yeah.
    Were you thinking about your real mother at this time?
    I mean, this is very--
    No.
    Because at that point, my mother wasn't in the picture.
    It was this uncle.
    And of course, I guess if I had time to analyze it,
    of course the uncle was a relative of my mother.
    Yeah.
    But I mean, aside from the uncle coming to visit you,
    you're adopted by your aunt and her husband, who's
    an uncle by marriage, and you know that it's
    for your own safekeeping.
    But did you have a sense at age eight and a half and nine
    that really bad things were happening to the Jews?
    Did you have that sense?
    I didn't know what form the bad things were happening in,
    but I certainly knew that my grandmother and my uncle
    and my aunts and uncles were in mortal danger,
    as far as what form it would take.
    Because at that point, I don't think that my adopted-- well,
    my adopted parents may have talked about ghettos.
    Because by then, you see, because having looked--
    studied the subject--
    and I once gave a talk on the occupations
    here in Leisure World--
    I found out that in Lithuania, the Germans, the Nazis,
    acted very quickly.
    In other countries, they procrastinated.
    So there-- all of this, the putting the Star of David
    on, and rounding them up, and putting them in ghettos,
    happened very fast in Lithuania.
    So I think that maybe by then I knew
    that people, Jews were being rounded up and placed
    in places called ghettos.
    Because my adopted parents tried not to tell me too much,
    because they didn't want me to make a slip of the tongue
    and give something away.
    But still, they had to share some things with me.
    Plus, this happened very shortly after I had left my mother.
    And, you know, this probably was like--
    I don't know how much time I spent
    on Vaiskunai getting the lice, but it was shortly after that.
    And then before you knew it, we went back to Vaiskunai.
    So that-- and the German occupation was three years,
    but this was at the beginning--
    or two and a half years, whatever it was.
    Three years, I think.
    So I probably did not factualize everything.
    But all I knew was this danger.
    And it included all of us-- my new family
    as well as my old family.
    And my job was to stay out of where the Jews were
    being persecuted, obviously.
    I was being saved, and I had to go along with it and do my part.
    So you knew that the part of you that was Jewish was in trouble.
    Well, that's why I was given away.
    My mother told me that much.
    Ah, OK.
    That's what I wanted to assess.
    I knew why I came to live with my uncle and aunt.
    And my whole worry was that my mother would survive.
    That's what I was asking about before--
    Yeah, I was always worried about my mother.
    Did you-- two questions here.
    OK.
    The time when you had your Jewish grandmother
    and Jewish uncle visit you in Siauliai
    when your mother was-- you were still with her,
    was that the last time you saw them?
    Yes.
    OK.
    And I still remember one thing about my uncle,
    which jumps back to show you what a nice man he was.
    When the Soviets occupied Lithuania,
    and Lithuanian money was going worthless,
    before it happened Uncle Misha gave me a 20 Lita bill, which
    was a lot of money at the time.
    And he told me to run to the corner bookstore
    and buy notebooks, pencils, erasers, all the things I
    would need for school.
    Because pretty soon, there would be nothing
    you could buy with the money.
    So I remember that.
    Now, that's one thing I remember about my uncle.
    So what happened to your uncle and your grandmother?
    Did you ever find out?
    Yes.
    My nanny's granddaughter when I went to Lithuania
    told me that her mother Anele--
    her grandmother Anele had told her
    that, when they came to get my grandmother and my uncle,
    they begged not to be separated.
    But I think they separated them anyway.
    And I really don't know what happened.
    It seems to me that I heard a story--
    and don't ask me who said when, because they
    used to be very sparing with telling me anything, but--
    that maybe this was the case where some people from Siauliai,
    some Jews, were put on a bus, and then cyanide
    was thrown into the bus.
    There were-- there were things called
    gas trucks that were used in Poland, where
    people were gassed in trucks.
    In trucks.
    Sort of like mobile thing.
    That's the only thing I've heard.
    But cyanide would mean that the people would
    have to actually take it, physically take
    it, and administer it to themselves.
    Right.
    Is that the implication here?
    Not from the people who really were telling me about it.
    So basically, I know that they were taken,
    and that they begged not to be separated.
    And that was--
    That's all?
    That's all.
    Because you see, Anele died long before I came back to Lithuania.
    She probably could have told me more.
    And her daughter became an alcoholic
    and was not herself either.
    So the granddaughter didn't actually know my mother,
    but she heard stories from her grandmother.
    How history gets transmitted.
    And not only history, but the fate of people, you know--
    how you don't know, and through such very thin threads
    you find out a crumb or two of information.
    So you say you were constantly worried about your mother.
    Did you ever have word of her?
    Did you ever--
    Well, when we go back to the farm--
    we're still in Vilnius.
    So we go back to the farm, and life there is, you know, freer.
    I have the horses, and there are a lot of people the maids.
    And the children play with me, because we had what they call
    a [NON-ENGLISH].
    But first of all, the Germans did not give the farm back
    to my adopted parents.
    It had been taken from them?
    What they did is they made her an administrator.
    Because you see, the former, whoever
    was there under the Soviets--
    and I know his name, but there's no point mentioning it here--
    was in charge of the farm when the Germans occupied it.
    And he took it upon himself to inform the German administrators
    that the Zilinskases have either escaped or they were deported,
    that they were deported.
    So he was left in charge.
    And then of course, my adopted father argued with him,
    and my adopted mother went to court, the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And she was able to get him out, and they gave him somebody
    else's [NON-ENGLISH] to take care of.
    So if I can fill in the gap here,
    it meant that during the Soviet period, because this
    was a rather large well-to-do estate,
    it had been nationalized?
    Yes.
    It had been taken away from--
    their own property had been taken away from them?
    Right.
    But they made Ksavera Zilinskas an administrator.
    The Germans, when they came in.
    Yes.
    And so then Zilinskas, Professor Zilinskas,
    came back after he finished with the school, we came earlier.
    And the German officers would come routinely to inspect.
    And then once or twice a year, you had to give them--
    what would you call it?
    Not a bounty, but a required--
    had to give the Income--
    so much in cattle, So much in grain, so much in flour--
    It's kind of like a requisition.
    Yeah, requisition.
    And Zilinskiene used to put on a big dinner, lots of liquor.
    They would get very drunk and happy,
    and they wouldn't take as much.
    So this is your adopted mother, Mrs. Zilinskas.
    Yeah.
    Yes, OK.
    And of course, I used to be talking to them in German
    and always bearing in mind that I had to be careful.
    But now comes the other story.
    My mother's sister, Luba, and her husband had one daughter.
    Your real mother's?
    In Kaunas, yes.
    And they were rounded up and placed in the Kaunas ghetto.
    And one New Year's Day--
    I don't know if there had been an earlier
    agreement or anything.
    One New Year's Day, a mutual acquaintance,
    a Lithuanian from Kaunas, came bringing their daughter,
    who was 15 and 1/2 at the time, and handed this Zilinskases
    a letter from my mother's real sister.
    In the letter she said, I know my days among the living
    are numbered.
    Please, please, save my daughter.
    And so they decided to save my first cousin.
    Now, on the plus side was that she did not look Jewish.
    She had green eyes.
    Her dad was one of these blonde Jewish men.
    He was green-eyed or blue-eyed, whatever.
    Was this Aunt Luba who had had the hat
    store, who was the milliner?
    She was a hat designer.
    A hat designer.
    And once a year she would take her daughter,
    and they would go to Paris to get all the new hat designs.
    Then she would come back to her home.
    And I've been in that apartment.
    Again, it was an apartment, but a part of it
    was set up like a shop, and there
    would be two or three ladies with steam irons and head
    shapes, molding felt hats, because the president's wife
    and all the ministers wives--
    at that time, Kaunas was the provisional capital--
    would come in to get their new hat designs.
    So it was a busy place.
    It was like a little factory.
    And it was the newest styles.
    And I still remember the smell of the felt steam.
    It doesn't smell good.
    It's a funny smell.
    I remember walking through there and seeing it.
    So anyway, this was the lady.
    She was my mother's sister.
    Your aunt, yes.
    And Lucy-- or we called or that--
    came to live with us.
    And she was given two other names.
    But not the family name, because--
    and when people would sometimes question Zilinskas
    about these young children, he would say,
    well, it's a folly of mine, but my wife understands.
    [LAUGHS]
    I mean, he-- you know, he used--
    I used to be afraid of him, because he
    used to joke all the time, but you never
    knew that he was being humorous because he
    looked so strict and stern.
    So they would-- they accepted it.
    Nobody asked any further questions.
    So her problem was that--
    So you and Lucy were his indiscretions, in other words?
    Yes.
    And I guess the people who were closer
    knew that I was Zilinskiene's brother's daughter.
    And that's as far as it went.
    Nobody really knew who the wife was, because it was far away
    and she had never been there.
    So now, this girl's problem was that she
    spoke perfect Lithuanian.
    She had attended [NON-ENGLISH].
    However, the Jewish Lithuanians had a certain intonation
    when they spoke.
    It wasn't really an accent.
    But if you knew languages, you could tell.
    You could tell somebody was Jewish speaking
    perfect Lithuanian.
    So it was my job to kind of try to correct her a little bit.
    And you know, what she was much older than I was.
    She was six, five years older, six years older.
    And she had a mind of her own.
    Although she also knew the circumstances
    and she abided by them, but whenever the Germans came,
    we had to put her under wraps, because she
    was exceptionally beautiful.
    She was gorgeous.
    She had a tiny little nose and beautiful, green large eyes,
    wavy, light brown hair.
    And she spoke German as well as Russian as well as French.
    But anyway, she was still a child, you know, 15, 16.
    And it didn't take much for something
    to slip out, especially if the officers were paying her
    a lot of attention.
    So we just kept her out.
    And in his book, he mentions that he would lock her up
    in the smoke chamber.
    We had a smoke chamber in the middle of the house.
    That is, your uncle, who was your adopted father,
    would lock her there.
    And that's usually a place where you would smoke meats?
    Is that what you're talking about?
    Yes, we watch the smoke hams and sausages.
    And since we had to declare everything--
    I say "we" from the farm--
    to the German authorities, they occasionally
    wanted to fatten up a pig or something and not declare it.
    So this was kind of a funny thing.
    But when they chop wood in Lithuania,
    in order to keep it dry so the rain and the weather
    wouldn't ruin it, and they store it outside.
    They make like a pyramid.
    And we had this huge pyramid, taller than the house, of wood.
    And inside the pyramid, we had a little room, a sty,
    for our piglet.
    And we fed it there by moving the wood.
    And now the problem was, when the Germans came,
    the pig sometimes would-- you know, they make noise.
    So my job was to organize my little friends
    from the workers' place.
    And we would sing and dance and throw snowballs and make
    a lot of noise around the pyramid
    so the pig could never be heard.
    And we always had, you know, this nice pig
    that was undeclared, and we could eat it and have the meat.
    Because everything else was very rationed.
    Even though we had plenty, it was still rationed.
    So this was the German thing.
    Did you ever feel like you were in danger when they came by?
    No.
    I was always afraid of the Russians.
    And that's another thing.
    The woods, the forests, were full of Russian deserters.
    And, I mean, they have different names for them,
    but we called them [NON-ENGLISH]---- bandits.
    In polite language, they were the Russian guerrillas.
    And I guess some of the Jews who were lucky enough to escape
    were with them.
    But this was the fate.
    You couldn't choose as long as it was a safe place.
    And the bandits in our area used to come at night.
    They would ask for food.
    They would kill farmers and their wives.
    They would rape people.
    They were terrorizing the area.
    And the German local--
    Lithuanian German authorities were
    in charge of keeping track of them and rounding them up
    if possible.
    And I don't remember any time with the Jews being involved
    in conversation, but there was one instance where one night my
    adopted father and the man who was in charge of the farm--
    we'd hired this [NON-ENGLISH].
    Like a foreman.
    Like a foreman.
    And he was-- actually was our pastor's, priest's brother.
    His name was Vincas.
    He and my father were away for some reason.
    And we had a family of friends visiting from Kaunas.
    And the husband was again gone.
    Maybe they had gone hunting.
    So the wife was there with two little children.
    And my mother, adopted mother, was there, I was there,
    and the house staff, the maids.
    And maybe there was one man inside.
    And I was in the dining room, and the windows
    did not have any shades on.
    And I was in the dining room looking at the fireplace, kind
    of looking at the flames.
    It was pretty.
    And all of a sudden, I had this funny feeling,
    like the back my hair was standing up and very
    uncomfortable.
    So I didn't do anything.
    I didn't look at the windows.
    I went out the door and went to the kitchen.
    And there, I guess it was shaded.
    So I said, you know, something's funny outside.
    And we looked out, and there were two or three men stooping
    under the windows and going--
    the house was a long, one-story house--
    and they finally came to the kitchen.
    So they were observing me.
    And I-- you know, I didn't see them,
    but I had this funny feeling.
    So then they knocked.
    And in Russian-- they were the Russian partisans, bandits,
    whatever you want to call them.
    They wanted bread.
    They wanted food.
    And outside the kitchen, we had this like a rosette window--
    very small.
    You couldn't go through it, but you could open it.
    So my mother asked the maids to put out
    a couple of loaves of bread, put out milk, and then lock it up.
    And they did not force their way in, they went away.
    You earlier called them "deserters."
    If they were deserters, that would have been
    deserters from the Soviet Army.
    But for me it sounds--
    They could have been deserters.
    Maybe "deserters" is not the wrong--
    they were in favor of Soviets.
    So in other words, they were Soviet partisans.
    But partisans.
    They were also some of the POWs.
    We had three, four Russian POWs placed
    to work for us on the farm.
    Oh, really?
    And they had a very-- had it very good, so to speak.
    Three of them were very young, and one was an officer.
    And he was a communist.
    The others were just young kids happy to get food,
    because the Germans, instead of keeping them in POW camps,
    gave them out as a workforce to the farmers.
    And this way, they would be relieved of feeding them
    and get some use out of them.
    And I still remember, it was-- one was named Kolya,
    the other one was Misha.
    And I forgot--
    Mikhail was the officer.
    And then there was one other--
    excuse me.
    I don't remember his name.
    But they were Ukrainian, I think.
    And they would sing and play the balalaika
    and have a fire outside.
    And they worked for us on the farm.
    And they were totally like members of the workforce,
    fed but no pay.
    And they were very happy there--
    relatively happy.
    Did you ever talk to them?
    Well, I used to talk to them.
    I used to play with them.
    I used to sing, learn the songs from them.
    What did they tell you about themselves?
    Well, we didn't talk about anything like that.
    They were here, I was here and, they were working.
    And mostly it was, you know, what kind of weather is today,
    and you're a nice little girl, that type of thing.
    But we didn't get into any politics.
    And in due time, the Germans took them back.
    And I guess then they didn't have it so good, you know.
    They went back to the camp or whatever they did with them.
    How did you know that one of them was an officer
    and that he was a communist?
    Well, he identified himself.
    And Because there was always a danger that some would escape.
    And this is to answer your question about the deserters.
    Some of these were people, POWs, that escaped.
    And then they couldn't go back to Russia, certainly.
    So they-- and then they would get
    in with the partisans who would be planted there
    or would come to infiltrate.
    So it was kind of a very mixed thing.
    But basically, they were terrorizing the people.
    The people in the woods.
    Yeah.
    The partisans that sort of--
    The people in the woods.
    So I still have-- if we have time, if you want to hear--
    Sure.
    Let me see when we need to switch the cards here.
    So let's just wait until it switches so we don't
    lose something in the middle.
    All right.
    So we are one minute or less?
    Less.
    So as soon as it start to roll here, I'll know.
    It just says it's got to switch soon, in probably about 10
    seconds or so.
    OK.
    It's switched.
    You can go ahead.
    OK.
    So you wanted to say something.
    So this was concerning the deserters.
    At one time, the Lithuanian police
    in the little town of Pagiriai, which was our little town,
    were in the process of hunting these people, because they
    did something at one farm, did something on another farm.
    They were following them and trying to round them up.
    In the meanwhile, my adopted father was away somewhere.
    And the police, some of them, were on the farm with us.
    And they needed to send a message to the other half,
    wherever they were--
    Of the police force?
    Yeah.
    And I was a good horseback rider.
    So they asked my adopted mother, would she
    consider letting me ride from one to the other
    and give them the message?
    And of course, the question was what
    if the partisans grabbed me?
    So again, we had a nice little story.
    It was a pregnant mare, [NON-ENGLISH],, raven.
    She was beautiful.
    She was a very nice horse.
    I had to ride it to give it exercise.
    And if they stopped me, I would say in nice Russian
    that this is a horse that's about to foal,
    and she needs her exercise, and my job
    is to ride her every so often.
    And that's what I'm doing.
    And did anything like that happen?
    No.
    I rode, I delivered the message.
    I came back.
    I got off the horse.
    I'm walking in the door.
    And my adopted father slaps me and screams at me.
    It's dangerous.
    These are such dangerous times.
    What do you think you're doing?
    How dare you go riding?
    And he really lights into me.
    It wasn't even your fault.
    Well.
    So then-- and I think our priest was visiting us, too.
    Somehow, the priest tells him the story.
    And my adopted father kneels down in front of me,
    kisses my hand, and apologizes.
    Oh.
    So that I remember because, I was upset.
    I mean, I didn't do anything.
    I did what I was told, and it was dangerous,
    and here he is attacking me.
    Yeah.
    So that was the--
    But it also shows that he was the kind of person
    who would apologize to a child when he was wrong.
    Especially when it came to patriotism and stuff
    of that nature, because he was very patriotic.
    And in this case--
    I mean, this was the Lithuanian police
    trying to protect the farmers.
    It was not the Gestapo rounding up the Jews
    or something like that.
    So Lucy lived with you.
    And you were teaching her how to have a Lithuanian language that
    would have no intonation to it.
    And were you getting word from your mother and Siauliai?
    What was happening there?
    She would write us letters.
    And she was still able to write.
    Later on when we were in the States,
    her hand was no longer working.
    Anele would have to write.
    She would always send me candy on my birthday.
    And in the letter to my aunt, she
    would say, if I remember correctly,
    your youngest daughter has a birthday.
    So it was always written between the lines,
    and "your loving aunt."
    I see.
    And Anele came to visit us one time
    and spent about three weeks with us.
    I don't know who took care of my mother--
    one of her relatives.
    And so she was telling us more about my mother.
    Also, during the German occupation we--
    I got to visit my mother twice.
    What did you see when you went?
    I'm sorry?
    What did you see when you went to visit her?
    Well, she was lying in bed still.
    She was very happy.
    And we hugged and we kissed, and they left us alone for a while.
    And we just talked--
    I talked the child's language.
    And she said, well, we haven't heard anything from your father,
    you know, and that sort of thing.
    And we went-- we used to go from Mikolas' farm,
    because that was near.
    But one time we came, and I guess
    things were getting very bad for the Jews.
    Nobody told me why, but they said you can't go.
    You'll stay on Mikolas' farm.
    We're going.
    So they went to see her.
    And it was their last time.
    But it still is amazing to me that your mother never
    got rounded up.
    It is amazing.
    Yes.
    Anele used to say that people would come--
    and I don't know if she meant-- you know,
    they could have been civilian Gestapo, or German sympathizers,
    or maybe even German military--
    they would come and ask her, is she Jewish?
    And my mother didn't look Jewish, unlike this cousin.
    And Anele would say no.
    Does she have any children?
    She never had any children.
    So somehow nobody else squealed.
    And maybe people, other people didn't know.
    And the people who mattered were maybe arrested already.
    So-- but it is, it is amazing.
    But she was in constant danger.
    And I mean, she was local in Siauliai.
    Her mother and uncle were in Siauliai.
    And even that other half sister was in Siauliai.
    And they all disappeared.
    They all got rounded up.
    So do you think her being--
    I mean, now I'm just speculating--
    but do you think her being bedridden,
    which would have made her one of the first victims had she been
    identified, helped in some way?
    I don't think it was the bedridden.
    I-- and I don't know.
    I mean, I just have my own opinion,
    that the fact that she was an officer's wife, and the officer
    was deported by the Soviets.
    So in other words, the Soviets have harmed her.
    And maybe they didn't suspect that she was Jewish.
    I mean, a lot of people can look Jewish
    and be other nationalities, you know, have it in their genes.
    Do you remember the last time you saw her?
    It was one of those two visits.
    And I didn't know it was the last time.
    So the visits used to be, you know, I would come in,
    I would kiss her, I would hug her.
    We would sit there look at each other,
    and it would be very brief.
    And it was always hush, hush, hush.
    And then off we would go.
    And of course, at the time I didn't
    know it was the last time.
    Of course.
    Because that third time that we were supposed to go,
    for some reason I wasn't allowed to go.
    And I remember I was left on the farm, and our horse was there.
    And I went in to see it.
    And inadvertently, I left the gate open,
    and the horse ran away.
    So when the Zilinskases came back,
    on top of not seeing my mother, I was also in big trouble
    for losing the horse.
    I think I'd like to break here, even though we just
    changed the card, and maybe continue the story after lunch.
    It's now
    That sounds good.
    We're rolling.
    We're rolling?
    OK.
    This is a continuation of the United States Holocaust Memorial
    Museum interview with Rita Frank on February 20, 2014.
    Rita, now we come back to your story.
    And if I recall, where we left off was that you were in--
    you were in-- at the farm of your adopted father's brother.
    You were not allowed to go see your mother, your real mother,
    in Siauliai the third time, and what
    ended up being the last time, because it was just
    too dangerous.
    And your aunt and uncle, also known as your adoptive parents,
    come back.
    And tell-- pick up the story from there.
    What was going on at that time?
    And what happened after that?
    Well, they came back from visiting my mother,
    didn't have very much to say.
    And we were going to go back to their farm, but I had opened--
    inadvertently opened the gate to the pasture,
    and the horse escaped.
    And I think he headed for home, because they have
    a way of finding their way--
    so I was in big trouble.
    And after a while, I think his brother gave us a ride back,
    and we found the horse OK.
    So I was exonerated, sort of.
    But at the time, I think I mentioned,
    we had some Russian POWs that were given to us by Germans
    as farm labor support.
    We also had one or two families of Ukrainian refugees,
    entire families.
    And again, the Germans housed them on our farm
    as a work force.
    We didn't have to drive them very hard.
    We had to feed them, we didn't have to pay them,
    and we had to provide housing for them.
    And they worked for us.
    Were they prisoners?
    The families.
    No, the families were just refugees, as I understood it.
    In other words, they did not want to be with the Soviets.
    And they withdrew or somehow--
    I don't know the exact--
    Details.
    --details of it.
    But they were known as "Ukrainian refugees."
    And they struck up a friendship with two or three
    of the young POWs.
    And apparently, some of the POWs were Ukrainian.
    And so I got to hear some of their nice folk songs.
    And one of them played the balalaika.
    And they would have a bonfire and enjoy themselves.
    And they were very happy to see Ukrainian families,
    because there were two--
    one or two young girls there, like 16 or 17.
    So that was fine.
    And that lasted for some time, until, I think--
    I'm not sure, but it could be that after the battle, maybe
    around the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, when
    things started to turn around, that the Germans took
    the POWs back and, I think, the families, to be--
    I don't know to be exact what happened to them.
    But it seems to me that they left as well.
    I don't know under what circumstances.
    And so we had one incident which shows you
    how the country was divided among communist sympathizers
    and real Lithuanians and Nazi collaborators and what have you.
    I had a birthday coming up.
    And my adopted mother decided to give a little party.
    And I could invite the worker's daughters
    who were supposedly my friends, because I
    lived all alone in the house and I was going to a neighbor
    to get home schooling.
    He was a-- had a philosophy doctorate,
    and he used to teach me everything, math and everything
    else.
    So I really had no other little friends.
    And these were workers' friends.
    They worked for us.
    And the girls were my age.
    So my mother prepared a very nice party, nice food.
    And I remember she even had a recipe for using potatoes
    to make marzipan.
    And as you know, overseas marzipan
    is the epitome of nice--
    Candy.
    --candy.
    So the party went very well.
    We enjoyed ourselves.
    And then the weather was nice.
    Even though it was a little muddy-- the snow was melting--
    we decided to go out to play.
    And we had these--
    well, they were like alleys, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    that were almost closed then because the trees with meet up
    top.
    And they were hazelnut trees, actually, very nice.
    So we went for a walk there.
    And we had Ksaveral dogs.
    One was mine.
    That was kind of a mix, German shepherd and a hunting dog,
    as they call them.
    And the other one was a strictly hunting dog.
    And they were young pups.
    And they didn't bite, but they were large.
    So we went out.
    And when the dogs came running, the girls got scared,
    and they started running.
    And I said, don't run, because they'll chase you.
    Well, they chased them, and they jumped on them,
    and they fell in the mud.
    So the upshot of it all was that the parents said,
    see how these rich people are?
    They sic their dog is on our children.
    So that was at the end of my friendship
    with the little girls.
    I again had no one left to play with.
    I don't know however long that was,
    but I remember I was really heartbroken.
    And the thing is, they just wouldn't see it our way--
    that, you know, any dog will chase you if you run.
    They didn't bite them.
    It's just that they got muddy.
    They fell in the mud.
    So I remember that was not a very nice birthday party.
    Was Lucy living with you by that point?
    Oh, yes.
    She lived--
    How did she occupy her days?
    To tell you the truth, I don't know exactly.
    I mean, she was there.
    And she obviously sort of lorded it a little over me,
    because she was much older.
    And sometimes she supervised me.
    And I think-- she used to be very good at storytelling.
    So she would sometimes tell me a book she had read,
    and she could make it very interesting.
    Or if she had seen an old movie or something way back
    when-- in free Lithuania, she could recount it.
    So she was very entertaining.
    And she also sang some old Kaunas songs that were strictly
    not high-class songs, but--
    and I still remember the words.
    And one was about going skating.
    And the other one was a young man who was telling his young
    girlfriend to cut her yellow braids off to get a beautiful
    permanent of curls, and then they would go to [NON-ENGLISH]
    where the sky was so beautiful.
    So she used to sing that.
    And she read a lot.
    So then-- and I think she probably maybe learned how
    to knit or sew or something.
    But basically, time just went by without--
    Did she ever mention what life had been like in the ghetto
    for her?
    Well, she did.
    Then she had some scars to prove it.
    Apparently, being one of the younger people,
    every morning they used to take a detail of young workers
    to work on the airport in Kaunas.
    And I think the airport had been damaged during the war.
    And it had some unexploded bombs and such.
    And so one time, one of those exploded.
    And she had cuts on both her--
    sort of just below the ankle, on her feet.
    And she still has scars to this day.
    And then she also remembered how many of the so-called friendly
    acquaintances, especially the people who used to like her
    mother's work and such, all of a sudden didn't want to have
    anything to do with them, couldn't-- wouldn't speak
    to them, and just were very nasty.
    And so to this day, she has very bitter feelings about that.
    And of course-- well, it was common knowledge,
    I guess, for the Lithuanians, and in my adopted father's book
    just recently, I read that there was an order put out
    by the German authorities that anybody caught
    being nice to the Jews would be threatened with a death penalty.
    And it was the same if they took the Jews' property.
    So it was like, you know, don't take the Jews' property
    after we take them away, and don't befriend them.
    And he cites in his book that, on one certain day he
    can recall four public hangings of Lithuanian nationals
    who had helped the Jews.
    So, you know, there's the other side of the coin.
    So maybe these people could not associate with them.
    But on the other hand, they didn't have to be nasty to them.
    And so it's very hard to draw a line.
    Mm-hmm.
    Did your adopted father, whom I still
    say is uncle/adopted father, Professor Zilinskas,
    was he always at the farm?
    Or did he go back teaching in Vilnius University?
    Did they-- did your life pretty much--
    was he always there, and was the family always there?
    Well, at that point he stayed on the farm.
    And the reason for it is, if I could go back a little,
    you know, he had been almost the founder, one of the founders,
    of the medical school in Kaunas, which was "the" medical school.
    During the Soviet occupation or just before it,
    some of his assistants-- and unfortunately, one of them,
    I think, was Jewish--
    were very communist.
    And they undermined his work.
    And when the Soviets took over, they actually
    became a threat to his life.
    So he disappeared.
    He grew a beard.
    He wore old clothing, walked hunched over,
    and hired himself out as a bell ringer in a provincial church.
    And that's how he survived for a year.
    But in that one year, his hair turned snow white.
    This was the first Soviet occupation.
    So these people had undermined his work.
    And actually, he could have been deported if caught earlier.
    So when he finally went back to his profession
    under the Germans, he went--
    he was offered a seat back in the Kaunas University.
    But he refused it, remembering all these bad things.
    And he got a job at the Vilnius University, where--
    which wasn't really a work of his heart, so to speak,
    but it was OK.
    So he worked there for a while, while I was
    living with them in Vilnius.
    But once he came back, the times were so uncertain
    and things were moving very quickly, he stayed on the farm,
    even though his wife was the official administrator.
    But he would still oversee some of the work, you know.
    And then he did some scholarly work,
    because he had his library.
    And he-- you know, he had published Ksaveral books,
    so I imagine he was writing something.
    But he didn't go back to Vilnius.
    So your whole adopted family and you are on the farm.
    And this is close to which major city then, this farm?
    Kedainiai.
    It was the--
    Kedainiai.
    I guess you would call Kedainiai [NON-ENGLISH]..
    Except, at the time it was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    And then when they redid the borders of the cities,
    it became Kedainiai.
    Kedainiai.
    So it was not far from Kedainiai.
    When did they-- when did they start talking about--
    or, let me put the question this way.
    Earlier I'd asked you, when you were still very, very little,
    how did the wider world intrude in your family in the late
    '30s, did you know of what was going on.
    So now when you were at the farm,
    and you have to be careful and discreet,
    and when the Germans come you have to dance around the pile--
    you know, where the little piggy is so that they don't hear it
    and so on, how much news of the outside world were you getting?
    And what kind of talk was going on in the farm?
    Well, the Zilinskases, of course, you know,
    were very educated people.
    And they had connections.
    Not to mention the fact that their daughter and son-in-law
    escaped the first communist occupation because he
    was the second or the first secretary
    of the Lithuanian embassy in Rome.
    So when he married Vita Zilinskaite he took her to Rome.
    And so when the Soviets came, they were put on the list of--
    because the Villesse family were like the Kennedy family here.
    A lot of them were in government.
    The father had been the mayor of Kaunas, et cetera.
    So they had this connection.
    And by then, Vita and her husband Peter flew to the US--
    with great difficulty.
    She pawned her engagement ring and pawned her fur coat
    for the passage by way of Portugal.
    So they used to get some kind of mail that was maybe
    written between the lines, just like my mom used to write to us.
    And so they knew what was going on.
    Plus, there was the radio or that you
    could listen to illegally, and they would listen to that.
    And the London station was acting.
    And then there was the underground.
    And our parish-- young parish priest,
    whose name was Romanas Klumbis, was a twin Lithuanian-American
    born in the US.
    He and his brother became priests and came as the to--
    missionaries to Lithuania.
    And he was the vicar in our parish.
    In fact, he taught me how to dance,
    which I love to do to this day.
    At any rate, he used to dress in civilian clothes,
    ride a bicycle, and inside his bicycle tires
    he would stuff anti-Nazi propaganda.
    There was a whole underground publication,
    and there were little leaflets.
    He used to deliver them.
    He wound up going to Dachau.
    But this was after our time, you know.
    He disappeared.
    And then I know he served time in Dachau
    and came out alive but with tuberculosis.
    And he finished out his days as a pastor
    in New Mexico someplace.
    Regretfully, I never got to see him, because I always wanted to.
    But, you know, it was far, children were little,
    new children were born, and I couldn't do--
    and I always felt sorry.
    So he worked in the underground.
    And there were many.
    And they had all this information.
    They knew when the Germans started losing.
    And they were happy with that, but they were also
    anticipating what would happen if the Red Army came back.
    So it was kind of an ambivalent feeling.
    Were you privy to these conversations?
    Did you hear them?
    Were you participating in them?
    I mean, I wouldn't participate, because, you know, in those days
    children were to be seen and not heard in adult company.
    But I used to hear a lot.
    And I knew exactly what was going on.
    And as I said, to this day I'm amazed that at my age,
    I knew what I knew and I was able to handle it.
    Because, you know, my children at age 15 and 19
    were nowhere near there.
    They're very smart, but it's just not smart--
    In that way.
    --in savvy way that life makes you do so.
    So-- what did I want to ask now?
    So did there start to be a discussion of what happens to us
    and what we should be doing as a family?
    Well, I think it was kind of an unspoken thing
    that if the Russians come here, we have to move west.
    But nobody thought it--
    I mean, to come to America would have been a dream,
    because by then their daughter had a child,
    and there was nothing that Zilinskene would have liked more
    than to see [NON-ENGLISH].
    Her granddaughter.
    But that was like a faraway dream.
    And-- but to go west, and hopefully that the Allies
    seize more of Europe.
    And of, course there was always the hope
    that if it comes down to Russia and the ally-- the other two
    Allies, that maybe the Baltics would
    fall into the other zone rather than the Red zone.
    So they were following it very closely.
    And it was like an everyday thing.
    I mean, like you look at a storm.
    You know, it's going to storm, then it's going to storm.
    And what do you do when it storms?
    So the fact that the Red Army might be coming back--
    hopefully not all the way--
    but what do we do then?
    And the only thing to do is move west.
    And so did you?
    Well, we waited almost until the last minute.
    And then after the Battle of Stalingrad,
    it started happening very quickly.
    And the front was nearing.
    And the Americans and the British and the French
    were a long ways off.
    So we loaded up.
    I think it was maybe four large wagons with two horses each.
    And I drove one of them.
    I was that good.
    I was able to handle a big thing, sitting on top of--
    we had smoked meats, we had flour,
    we had wheat, and all kinds of things.
    All the provisions, some clothes--
    and we left.
    And my father's-- my real father's dog, Eagle,
    [NON-ENGLISH],, was a huge German shepherd.
    And he had saved me from drowning one time.
    He was living with the Zilinskases.
    He was trained by the army, really.
    He went with us.
    Oh, did he?
    The dog went with us.
    And then having gone, I don't know, how many kilometers,
    he turned around and went back.
    Really?
    And I had my overgrown puppy tied to the wagon,
    and we had one other dog.
    And we were driving down a very deep incline.
    And I could bare--
    Lucy was sitting on another wagon,
    because she didn't know how to handle horses.
    Somebody else was driving.
    And I was kind of precariously balancing.
    And here we're going down, and I'm holding on for dear life,
    and the dog falls off.
    And the dog is tied.
    And his leg gets caught in the wheel.
    Well, this was one other time when
    my adopted father, under stress, really gave it to me good.
    He yelled at me, and then-- you know, that it was my fault.
    Well, it wasn't.
    I mean, I could have fallen off just as easily.
    And the dog-- I love the dog, but we couldn't untie him.
    He had to be tied.
    So to make a long story short, he had to shoot it.
    And that was very traumatic.
    We lost the dog.
    And then the first time we stopped--
    because as long as we were ahead of the army,
    there was no reason to go any further.
    You hoped that they would be pushed back.
    So one cessation of activities, the farm foreman, Vincas,
    went back to see what Vaiskoniai was doing.
    So you hadn't traveled that far away from it.
    No, it wasn't that far.
    It was like a day's journey.
    And he probably got back on a horse and rode, you know.
    And he said the scene that greeted
    his eyes was unbelievable.
    The army used Vaiskoniai as their headquarters.
    Which army?
    The German army.
    Because the Russians still weren't--
    and they were slaughtering cattle and pigs,
    and eating the good stuff.
    And [NON-ENGLISH] was in the doghouse.
    He came home, crawled inside his doghouse.
    And the Germans were trying to feed him,
    and he was on a hunger strike.
    So that's the story of a dog, you know.
    He was watching his home, but he was not
    taking any food from these strange enemy people.
    And then the foreman said that the German army guys told him
    that they mined the whole perimeter of Vaiskoniai.
    Vaiskoniai is a village or the name of the estate?
    Name of the estate.
    OK.
    And near it was another one called Little Vaiskoniai,
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    And there the Zilinskases had bought for their daughter
    and son-in-law.
    But it was never a manor house.
    It was-- it needed to be built. But it
    was land with some kind of a building on it
    that was not fit for fancy living.
    So Vaiskoniai is the manors.
    The Germans said they would blow everything up
    before they with-- as they were withdrawing.
    It was all mined.
    And of course, then Vincas, came back, and we proceeded further.
    And each time we would stop a little bit
    and then have to move on, because you
    could hear the cannon and everything
    else in the background.
    You could tell it was maybe 5, 6 kilometers away.
    It was just--
    That's not far.
    No.
    We were just-- because we didn't want to leave.
    But this was, like, one foot-- you know.
    So finally, we came near the border.
    And I don't remember the name.
    It was a farm.
    But I remember they had a brook.
    The name of the brook was Lolita.
    [LAUGHS]
    And you could set traps and catch crawfish.
    And I-- you know, that's like lobster only nicer.
    So I learned how to do that.
    And we stayed on that farm for probably Ksaveral weeks.
    We would sleep in the barn on the hay.