Siberian Exile: Blood, War, and a Granddaughter's Reckoning

by Julija Sukys

2018 Book Prize from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies
2018 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature in Nonfiction from the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto
 
When Julija Šukys was a child, her paternal grandfather, Anthony, rarely smiled, and her grandmother, Ona, spoke only in her native Lithuanian. But they still taught Šukys her family’s that of a proud people forced from their homeland when the soldiers came. In mid-June 1941 three Red Army soldiers arrested Ona and sent her east to Siberia, where she spent seventeen years working on a collective farm. It was all a mistake, the family maintained.

Some seventy years after these events, Šukys sat down to write about her grandparents and their survival of a twenty-five-year forced separation and subsequent reunion. Piecing the story together from letters, oral histories, audio recordings, and KGB documents, her research soon revealed a Holocaust-era secret—a family connection to the killing of seven hundred Jews in a small Lithuanian border town. According to KGB documents, the man in charge when those massacres took place was Anthony, Ona’s husband.

In Siberian Exile Šukys weaves together the two the story of Ona, noble exile and innocent victim, and that of Anthony, accused war criminal. She examines the stories that communities tell themselves and considers what happens when the stories we’ve been told all our lives suddenly and irrevocably change, and how forgiveness operates across generations and the barriers of life and death.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Family

198 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2019

About the author

Julija Šukys is the author of Silence is Death: The Life and Work of Tahar Djaout. Her biographical subjects are individuals who maintained dignity and principle in the face of terror: an author and journalist killed in the cross-fire of a civil war between armed militants and a military dictatorship; a librarian who defied Nazism. Her second book, Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite, is forthcoming with the University of Nebraska Press.

Šukys was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She lives near Montreal with her husband, son and black cat named Yashka.

Reviews

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and tragic story about the author’s search for information about her Lithuanian Jewish grandparents, Anthony and Ona. Lithuania is a country that has changed government many times. It was originally joined with Poland, then was annexed by Russian. During World War II, Lithuania was invaded by the Nazi Regime and also under Stalin’s rule. Anthony was considered an enemy of the state, and knowing that that he was going to be arrested, he left Ona alone to be the scapegoat and took their children to England. Ona was sent to Siberia and worked there many years under harsh conditions. She was finally released as an elderly lady and joined her family who were now living in Canada. The author was fortunate that she was able to review KGB files on her grandfather and an interview and photographs of her grandmother. One of the biggest tragedies of the Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust was that many of them were murdered and buried in mass graves by Lithuanian civilians under orders from Russian or Nazi soldiers. Even when Anthony was in England he was being tracked by other Lithuanians for the KGB. Anthony wasn’t much better himself, he was pretty heartless towards abandoning his wife.

[Edvige Giunta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting memoir where history is no background—it’s the very texture of the story. I love memoirs that show us the interconnections of personal and public. Siberian Exile does it masterfully. Teaching it in my creative writing seminar on the writer as researcher.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silence organized our family. There was always, for example, a great hush surrounding the years between 1941, the year Ona was deported to Siberia, and 1944, when her husband, Anthony, and their three children fled westward.

Read a more comprehensive review of this book in Vilnius Review.

[Monika Lekeckaitė · Rating 5 out of 5]

My grandmother told me about this book. Ona is a relative of her's and lived with my grandma's family while she was in Lithuania. It was an interesting experience to read it, compare Ona's personality with the stories told by my grandma.
This Siberian exile story is similar to so many people that lived in that time and also it is very similar to a lot of people from my family. Although just few were fortunate enough to escape to the West.

[Jonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Siberian Exile" is the very personal story of Sukys' discovery of her families history and involvment during Nazi occupation (her grandfather) and the exile in Siberia (her grandmother). Sukys is very reflective and also writes about her respnsibility for the actions of her ancestors (or lack thereof). A very interesting read, glad I stumbled upon this book in the bookstore :)

[Sophie Lyons · Rating 5 out of 5]

so powerful. I cried like five times in the library (if you heard sniffling no you didn't). Ona is the strongest person in the world.

[Lori Galaske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siberian Exile is written as one might write their family genealogy. The author presents the findings of her research in a matter-of-fact tone. While I generally prefer a story that draws me into the emotional landscape of the characters, I found that the exploration of what happened in Lithuania and Siberia during WWII was fascinating enough to keep me turning pages.

I also find myself now considering our current climate of racial friction...what is the prelude to genocide, and is our current culture in any way similar to pre-WWII Nazi Germany?

[Emily Linacre · Rating 3 out of 5]

after reading "between shades of gray" by ruta sepetys, i've been interested in learning more about those exiled to siberia during ww2, so i was excited to see this newly released memoir. while riveting--i liked the author's story woven in with those of her grandparents--it didn't go deep enough into any of them, for me. i want to know more about anthony's complicity, more about ona's decades (!!) just living and working in siberia away from her family, holding on to a hope that she might reunite with them, and more about the author's relationship with each of them. well-written, just wish there was more of it to read!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simply and thoughtfully written accounting of a Lithuanian family's experiences in the 20th and now 21st centuries. It was a shame that the author didn't reimagine her grandfather's life and choices in the ways that she vividly describes her grandmother but it sounds like there may have been less information. I am wondering if the author chose to remain at a distance from his actions or if there truly wasn't much documentation - a little hard to believe given that we know the Nazis documented so much of their evil. Definitely worth a read, even if you are exhausted by WWII writing.

[Reverend Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was going to read this book this month since I had it a while but ended up reading it in two days
Really good read and pretty cool story
Writing style is amazing and there’s even maps and pictures if you don’t want to think about it too much
Surprisingly easy to follow if you know nothing about anything over that ocean
Made me call my mom and ask what our families history was
Sadly it’s not this interesting 🧐🧐🧐

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and heart wrenching, this recounts the stories of those forgotten and unheard of, exiled from Lithuania by Stalin and living in fear. Many did not survive. This book tells the complex story of one family who did, separated for decades. Untold atrocities and crimes unspoken.
A chance find in Foyles, and one that will remain on my shelves forever.

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sukys traces back her family's history to her Lithuanian grandparents, one of which was complicit in the mass killings of Jews in the German occupation period and the other which was exiled to Siberia and did not return to her husband or children for decades.

[Maryann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast read and well written story. Carries one into much deep thought and feelings of the events and years covered.