Family History Series ~ Mysterious Jonas

While my mother Salomėja came to Germany via German invasion and evacuation, my father Jonas took an altogether different route.

Not much is known about Jonas.

He did come from a large family where he was the eldest of several children.

Jonas's mother died young. And when his father remarried, it was to a young woman who was young enough to be Jonas's sister ~ not his mother.

My father stopped going to school when he was somewhere in third grade in order to take care of his younger siblings. Or at least that is what I remember being told.

What I also heard was that the young bride did not possess the same fortitude as Jonas's mother. Nor did she seem to have the same interest in managing the household and taking care of such a large brood.

I guess they had "trophy wives" back them, too.

From what I remember about the vague stories surrounding my father was that during World War II he was in the Lithuanian military force. When the Russians invaded, they allegedly assumed the Lithuanian army into their own military.

Not wanting to have anything to do with the Communists, Jonas supposedly went AWOL.

Shortly thereafter, he was nabbed by the Germans and conscripted into their army.

Being in the German army was not Jonas's choice; but at that point, where was a poor young man to go?

One of the things that the German army discovered was that Jonas could speak German like a native. Hmmm. That could be useful.

When I asked my father what he did in the German army, he said that he was a courier and dispatcher for the general staff ~ whatever that meant. Was he a go-pher then? I won't know. Jonas would not say much after that.

Was he sent to France?

Yes.

How was France?

Too many women.

And no more on that conversation either.

So, my father's German military career ~ as well as his years in Lithuania ~ has pretty much been a mystery. What is not a mystery, however, is that it was in the German refugee/work camp that he met my mother Salomėja .

And that's another story.

To be continued....