Family History Series ~ Two Potatoes

My mother, Salomėja (whom everyone knows as Sally), was born and lived in a small Lithuanian town on the German border.

A small river separated that section of Lithuania from Germany. The river was narrow enough to allow groups of German and Lithuanian boys, who would be fishing from their respective shores, to taunt each other with mocking chants.

On one side, the German boys would loudly and proudly sing their national anthem:

"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles..."
("Germany, Germany over all...")

In retaliation, the Lithuanian boys would fire back their taunting rejoinder:

"Zwei Kartoffeln das es alles..."
("Two potatoes, that's everything..." ~ a very loose translation)

Meanwhile, the adults on either side of the river would make use of the bridge, connecting both nations, for meaningful commerce.

The Lithuanians would cross over to Germany to purchase mercantile goods. Being an industrial nation, Germany provided a wide array of manufactured goods, whether they were cloth, needle, and thread for the Lithuanian housewife to sew her family's clothing, or machine parts and farm equipment for her husband to till his fields.

Seeing that Lithuania was an agricultural nation, the Germans would cross the bridge for a rich sampling of her produce ~ potatoes, beets, mushrooms, milk, poultry, etc.

Sometime during World War II ~ perhaps in 1944 ~ German soldiers marched over that bridge into my mother's town with the cries, "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!"

In order to "save" the Lithuanian townsfolk from the impending Communist onslaught, the people had to be quickly evacuated.

My mother's people barely had enough time to scramble and hastily gather clothing and other necessities needed for their new lives as refugees across the river. They certainly did not have enough time to settle their affairs or go to the bank to withdraw their savings.

Salomėja remembers her own mother opening the barn door in order to release the family cow, even though she knew that eventually that cow would be caught by the German soldiers and slaughtered for food.

With their meager, hurriedly-gathered bundles, the people were herded onto frigid freight cars and shipped off across the river to Germany as human cargo.

(In all the fray, my mother did managed to smuggle a single Lithuanian coin.)

When I asked my mother if she was upset or terrified when all this happened, she said, "No." She explained that at the time she was a young, teenage girl. To my mother this was an adventure where she had dreams of seeing the world.

Eventually she did ~ but not before making her first stop at a refugee camp (which also was a work camp) where she would spend the remainder of the war.

There, the Lithuanian refugees were put to work on the German railroads. They would work long hours on the railroad only to spend their nights in the freezing cold freight cars. My mother recalled that one time it was so cold that she woke up with her face frozen to the freight car.

Even though the people worked hard, my mother said that their caretakers were kind and fair people. They made sure that the refugees got adequate work breaks and were fed regular meals ~ even though food was scarce. They even once had to eat a horse.

It was at the refugee camp where my mother had first met Jonas, my father.

To be continued...