We Thought We'd Be Back Soon: 18 Stories of Refugees, 1940-1944

by Dalia Cidzikaitė (Editor), Laima Petrauskaitė VanderStoep (Editor), Dalia Stakytė Anysienė (Editor)

The book is an impressive collection of reminiscences about emigration by Lithuanians to the West during World War II. The conversations with émigrés that are central to the book bring new knowledge about wartime reality and provide insight into the meanings of home and place, and the social impact of the geopolitical upheaval when the state’s sovereignty is annihilated.—Journal of Baltic Studies

Genres: Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Olena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm Ukrainian and bought this book at the airport after visiting my family who fled the russian invasion of Ukraine to Lithuania. So to say that this book touched me deeply is to say nothing at all. Those stories are heartbreaking, but so important to read, especially now. To see that unfortunately nothing has changed for some and that russians were barbarians back then, and remained such till today. Some of the facts mentioned in the stories are so painfully familiar to what my fellow citizens are going through right now. And this is why it is extremely important to know the history.

[Kriste CN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tematika - niūri, bet būtina perskaityti, kad žinotum, jog tokios problemos, kaip "o man tai špinatai neskanu" arba "man tai astrologė liepė nesimaudyti pirmadieniais" yra ne problemos.
Kitas aspektas - vaizdingi pasakojimai ir detaliai atkurtas karo vaizdas - patikėkite, Amerikos lietuviai tikrai ne marcipaninėmis valtelėmis ten nuplaukė...
Asmeninis santykis - po šios knygos tas 100 dolerių, kurį baigusi mokyklą, už gerą mokymąsi gavau iš Amerikos lietuvių ir sėkmingai prauliavojau Pašvinyje, šiandien atrodo kaip aukso luitas, kuriuo dalinosi nieko neturintis draugas. Dipukų paaukoti pinigai Lietuvai yra verti kur kas daugiau nei nominalioji jų vertė. Tai - meilės ir ilgesio valiuta.

[Giedra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mom gave me this book, which covers 18 stories of Lithuanian WW2 refugees who eventually came to the United States. My mom and her parents were just such refugees, so it was interesting to compare their story to those of others (and a cousin and I wrote up their story in the mid-90s, so I know it pretty well), but at the same time, it was kind of boring after awhile because the stories were all in some sense the same: person crosses border, finds work, has some harrowing experiences involving transportation or food or checkpoints or Russian soldiers or German soldiers or bombs or all of the above, eventually makes it to DP camp, eventually gets sponsored to go to US [or Canada or South America before US], lands in America, gets a job, and raises family here with varying degrees of happiness about how it all turned out.

Now, since the book was based on interviews, and the transcribers/translators attempted to maintain the character of each of their subjects, it was kind of interesting to see how much personality played into what the refugees made of what was happening to them. The ones who felt like it was an adventure seemed to do pretty well; some of the stories made you wonder if the ones who were most sour about the whole thing were kind of sour people to begin with.

One thing I found a little hard to stomach were the ways that people thought of Lithuania or their Lithuanian-ness, which often felt a little superior or nationalistic. (Most have died since being interviewed, so I feel justified in saying "were.") It's hard to explain what I mean. I understand pride in one's heritage and it does seem that Lithuania enjoyed and made the very most of its independent years between the 2 world wars, creating a nation that valued modern education, music, plays, literature, the sciences, and technology but also valued and enjoyed its own cultural history and traditions (songs, mythology, superstitions etc). It's not a bad thing that the refugees who grew up in that time came to the US and developed a system of Saturday schools to try to teach all of that to a younger generation of Lithuanian-Americans. But I think there are (and likely always will be in any immigrant community) issues with putting those cultural values above any others. From what I understand from my mom and her sister, they had to struggle with that with their parents who would have liked for them to have married Lithuanian men (my aunt tells a story about how my grandparents did not like her spending time with a clean-cut straight-laced boy from their church but were ok with her driving 90 minutes away with a Lithuanian teen who was drinking on the way...)...and certainly I have had my share of pushing against Lithuanian culture as I am even one more generation American. Anyway, this establishes the context in which I read one of these refugees lauding that her American-born children were "more Lithuanian" than the Lithuanians who have immigrated to America in the 1990s since the fall of the USSR. This kind of attitude makes me sad--not only is Lithuania the greatest country ever (which I got tired of hearing all my life), but only the Lithuania that SHE knew, and not any other version of Lithuania. While growing up, I totally felt the nostalgia that my grandparents had for that version of Lithuania (which my mother shared despite not ever having been there herself), but that made more sense when Lithuania was still an oppressed country. Seeing this person dis the people now coming from Lithuania just felt sad (although I know there is a lot of that, especially in cities with larger Lithuanian communities like Chicago). Throughout the book there were places where the refugees made casual comments about what the people of other European nations were like. I'm sure that stereotypes exist for a reason and some of the depictions were accurate, but others just had so much of an us versus them feel to them that made me cringe. I guess it's not surprising that living in a smaller nation might make people think more nationalistically (we might like to dis people of neighboring states but at least we still have our Americanness in common, right?)

Anyway, I am rambling. As I was reading, I found myself wishing it were a book of stories of refugees from not just LIthuania, but all the European countries that had displaced persons during WW2. So many people were displaced! And the stories and situations were all so different. (One aspect that always seemed odd to me as an American was the way that Lithuanians tended to escape from Lithuania into Germany--wait, isn't that the enemy?--when of course a great many were highly educated people or members of anticommunist groups who were escaping the Russians that they knew would have deported them to Siberia...and yet so many other WW2 refugees were Jews escaping Nazis!)

[Darius Perminas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve bought this book (English version) in the airport en route to one of my business trips. It took me immediately, and with more pages (stories) I was deeper and deeper into the stories told. I found it too overwhelming seeing myself in various airports of Europe freely and comfortably traveling while reading people losing children in cold wagons back then. So touching. What a time they have lived through.

[Ju · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skaitant nori nenori kyla paralelės su šiandiena - atsimeni tą pirmų dienų sąmyšį, kuris kilo rusijai pradėjus plataus masto invaziją į Ukrainą ir klausimą 'O kaip žmonės supranta, kad išvykti dar ne per vėlu? Kaip jie susiorientuoja, randa sprendimą?'

Pabėgusiųjų iš Lietuvos 1940-1944 m. pasakojimai padeda įsisąmoninti tą blankią pasitraukusiųjų istorijos dalį ir suprast, kad išvykimo jie ir neplanavo, jis tiesiog nutiko... skubotai ir su viltim, kad yra laikinas ir jau greitai bus galima sugrįžti į namus.

Dalį istorijų skaičiau balsu, net balsas lūžo. Labai svarbi knyga.

[Margarita Rasiulytė · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiems, kas domisi pokariu ir "dipukais", lietuviais, karo metais emigravusių į JAV. Labai įdomūs interviu, kuriuose persmelkta tikra istorija bei nesumeluoti faktai, leidžiantis pajusti to laikotarpio realybę, mintyse atsidurti ten.

[ugne cerniauskaite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Įdomios, liūdnos ir viltingos, autentiškos nuo karo bėgusių žmonių istorijos. Makabriška matyti, jog istorija kartojasi. Tikiuosi, jog kuo daugiau lietuvių perskaitys, tokios knygos yra "wake up call".

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very hard read - each story weighed heavy for me. My grandparents both made the same decision to leave their home as these 18 interviews. Thanks to the writers for compiling and sharing these interviews. I wish I could stop time to finish up a similar interview with my family.

[Vytautas Rudokas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kiekvienam lietuviui rekomenduoju atsiversti šią knygą. Autentiški ir nepagražinti pasakojimai.

[Rūta Sipavičiūtė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ganėtinai sunkiai skaitėsi, bet žmonių istorijos tikrai itraukiančios ir sukrečiančios.

[Barb. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Labai informatyvu, neapsunksta skaityti (nors per vakarą "nesurysi"), o viršelio dizainas išvis nerealus.

[Artūras Rutkevičius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuostabu.

[Laima Tamošiūnaitė-Uzun · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Ieva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tai yra nepaprastai turtinga ir įdomi Lietuvos ir pasaulio istorijos dalis. Knygoje yra daugybė įvairių istorijų, kurias pasakoja moterys ir vyrai, pasitraukę maždaug po Antrojo pasaulinio karo (yra ir ankstesnio traukimosi istorijų). Vieni jų traukėsi dar būdami vaikai, kiti - jau patys turėdami vaikų. Penketuko neduodu todėl, kad ne visos istorijos buvo vienodai įdomios, bet tai yra normalu (nors ir subjektyvu). IR dar todėl, jog knygoje visi tekstai palikti originalo kalba, t. y. taip, kaip žmogus papasakojo (tarmiškai, keliomis kalbomis, nukąsdamas galūnes ir pan.). Viena vertus, tai yra kalbos pažinimo procesas, kita vertus, kartais tai šiek tiek apsunkino skaitymą, nes ne viskas buvo pakomentuota ar paaiškinta, tad keletas minčių liko ne iki galo aiškios. Nepaisant to, jei ši istorijos dalis jums įdomi - linkiu būtinai pasiimti šią knygą į rankas! + Aukso žuvys gauna 5 žvaigždutes už labai originalų leidimą. :)

[Kestutis Satkauskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiesiog įdomu išgirsti iš pirmų lūpų apie tų laikų įvykius. Tinkamas formatas. Be to, puiku tai, kad ši knyga yra dalis šios knygos autorių ir daugelio kitų, įdėjusių daug pastangų, kad būtų įamžinta žodinė patirčių, kultūros, pačios šalies to meto ir per kelis dešimtmečius nusidriekusi sklaida.

[Lizzie]

I only have this book in Lithuanian and my reading skills in my second language are not quite up to par for this book.

I'd love a copy in English!