The new National Library of Lithuania exhibition, which opened on June 26, 2024, tells about the great flight that took place in the summer of 1944. At the end of WWII, as the German-Soviet war front approached from the east, the inhabitants of the Baltic States, Eastern and Central European countries moved en masse to the West. Nobody knew that they would not return.
The necessity of leaving home caught most Eastern Europeans little or completely unprepared. The rapid collapse of the German front in the east and the approaching Soviet army prevented any deliberation or planning. Since the flight was hasty, people did not have much time to think about what to take. Some took a photo album, others a prayer book or pictures of saints, and others a high school diploma or a dissertation. Still others grabbed books and textbooks, which were especially useful when schools and universities were later established in West Germany.
The first part of the exhibition “Stranded from the Native Land” features the pictures of saints taken from Lithuania, the passport of Adolfas Domaševičius (Damušis), his graduation diploma of from Vytautas Magnus University Faculty of Technology, the graduation diploma of Damušis’ future wife Jadvyga-Aleksandra Pšibilskytė (Damušienė) from the Klaipėda Pedagogical Institute, and the prayer book written by Adolfas Sabaliauskas “Šlovinkim Viešpatj,” published in 1928 [imprint: 1929] in Klaipėda.
Few people know that back in 1943, the weekly newspaper “Lithuanians Working in the Reich” was published in Kaunas. At the end of 1944, when a large number of refugees from Lithuania began to appear in Germany, not only the place of publication changed, with the editorial office moving to Berlin, but also its purpose. From November 1944, the newspaper was called “The Newspaper of Lithuanians Living in the Reich.” It published poetry, prose, literary reports, and even had a section for children. The exhibition showcases a few original copies of this newspaper.
The train ticket from Eitkūnai (Eydtkau) to Graz belonging to the Lithuanian poet Bernardas Brazdžionis, issued on July 31, 1944, is perhaps the most interesting exhibit of this part of the exhibition. While traveling to East Prussia, at the border, the Brazdžionis family had to be separated. The sister of the economist Juozas Leimonas, who traveled with the Brazdžionis family, lived in Graz, Austria, so Brazdžionis and Leimonas decided to send their families in that direction, while they stayed behind. Aldona Brazdžionienė and her three small children traveled in freight wagons and were placed in a transit camp, while Brazdžionis was taken to dig trenches. Fortunately, three days later, a medical certificate was issued to Brazdžionis stating that he is unfit for work. There is no doubt that this ticket opened the first gate to the free world for the poet.
The plight of war refugees did not end with the end of the war. Most Western Europeans soon returned to their homelands, but Eastern Europeans, including Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, did not want to return to their Soviet-occupied homelands. Germany was divided into four zones: American, British, French and Soviet. Soon, in 1946, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority (UNRRA) began to establish refugee camps in West Germany and Austria, also known as displaced persons, or DP camps.
In the first post-war years, the war refugees feared that the Allies might return them to their homelands occupied by the Soviets. The people of the Baltic countries saw how brutally Ukrainians were treated,
who were forcibly sent back home. Only after receiving assurances from the United States and other allies that the citizens of the Baltic States would not be forcibly sent home, could they start planning their future lives. Despite various constraints and difficult living conditions, the refugees who settled in DP camps led active social, cultural and political life. A lot of time and effort was spent fighting for the freedom of the homeland.
In the second part of the exhibition “From Everyday Life in the DP Camps,” visitors are acquainted with the everyday life of the displaced persons. Here, they see the DP identity card that belonged to Adolfas
Damušis, the identity card issued by the British military administration to the war refugee Žalkauskas, the paper money of the Scheinfeld DP camp, the tobacco card that belonged to Bernardas Brazdžionis, the health cards of Juozs Grimskis, as well as various publications, such as “Santa Claus and Aunt UNRRA: A Christmas Sketch for DP children” [songs-music A.G.], [illustrated by A. Petrikonis], Eutin, 1946; “Calendar of DPs” 1947, released by the Lithuanians of the Dragsbæk refugee camp; “Summer Camp Songs” [Hannover], World’s YMCA- YWCA, 1948; “DP Baltic Camp at Seedorf, 1946–1947,” prepared by S. Narkeliūnaitė; artist J. Steponavičius; photos by V. Augustinas, Br. Gross, S. Narkeliūnaitė. Hamburg: UNRRA Team 295, 1947; “On the Roads of Exile,” Bologna: LUX, 1947 and many others.
The exhibition also shows two Soviet propaganda publications, aimed to sow a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity among the DPs and to encourage them to return to their homeland. Moscow directed all the information dissemination channels possible at the time to the war refugees. For those who ended up in DP camps, the press remained an important source of information, so the Soviets made particularly active use of periodicals for the dissemination of propaganda. However, they quickly realized that the press published for a local audience was not suitable for the DP camp residents, so they started publishing specialized publications. One of such publications, the newspaper “Tėvynės balsas,” was published in Vilnius in 1947–1953 and in 1957–1967.
After it became clear that the war refugees would not return home, efforts were made to find them a permanent place of residence. In 1946, Great Britain offered DP women jobs in hospitals and sanatoriums, in 1947, Canada invited young men to work in logging and road construction, and young women as servants. Unlike Canada and Australia, the United States had relatively strict immigration laws and an immigration quota, so for a while, the number of war refugees from Eastern Europe was extremely low. Only in 1945, after US President Harry S. Truman signed the decree on the quota, priority was given to war refugees and the situation began to change. The first army transport ship “General Black” with the war refugees from Europe on board, sailed on October 30, 1948. The USA, Australia, Israel and Canada accepted the most refugees, in Europe, it was Great Britain, France and Belgium. Only a small part of them remained in Germany.
The exhibits displayed in the third part of the exhibition, named “Where to Next?” show what a difficult path the DPs had to take, if they wanted to emigrate overseas, among which the USA, Canada and Australia were the most popular. They had to be in good health, have the necessary vaccination certificates, and a proof that they have not committed a crime. Those who decided to travel to the USA first had to pass the medical examination of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and American doctors and undergo quarantine. Then they had to appear before the DP commission, meet with the consul and finally, the emigration inspector. If all stages were passed successfully, future US emigrants would travel to transit camps and wait for the journey across the Atlantic. It was not uncommon to have to wait several months or even longer. There were also cases where documents were lost or health conditions such as TB were detected. Then one had to return to the old camp and start the whole procedure again or bury all hopes of leaving.
The DPs, having successfully passed all bureaucratic obstacles, usually traveled to the German port of Bremerhaven on the North Sea. Almost all emigrants mention in their memoirs the name of Bremerhaven, which is stuck deep in their memory, and the army transport ships sent by the Americans, for it was a significant event—saying goodbye to Europe and at the same time, hoping for a new life.
The trip to the USA took about ten days, to other countries, especially Australia, longer. Accustomed to the press in DP camps, the war refugees did not want to be without it during the trip and published the newspapers on board. It is impossible to count how many and in what languages ships’ newspapers were published. Their circulations are small and probably only a small part has reached our times. These are probably the only publications published not on the land, their place of publication being the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
After arriving in the dreamed new homeland, the hardships of DPs did not end. They faced many challenges. One of the cartoons of that time reveals the social metamorphosis of a DP: from the Big Shot to the Working Mouse.
The works of two Lithuanian artists, Lina Šlipavičiūtė and Margarita Valionytė, specially created for the event, complement and expand this documentary exhibition.
Šlipavičiūtė’s neo-mural created in street art stylistics conveys the atmosphere of the DP camps in a closed space of the exhibition. Valionytė’s animated videos tell about the experiences of people who left Lithuania at the end of the WWII. The videos are based on the memoirs and photographs of three Lithuanian Americans: Irena Arnauskaitė-Grigaitienė, Juozas Gaila and Juozas Kapačinskas.
The exhibition is available in Lithuanian, English and Ukrainian.
The exhibition was prepared by Valda Budreckaitė, Dr. Dalia Cidzikaitė, Asta Miltenytė, Silvija Stankevičiūtė and Dr. Ilona Strumickienė. Exhibition architecture by Algirdas Jakas. Graphic design by Emilija Dobrovolskienė.
Coordinated by Milda Dainovskytė. Organized by Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania
Partner: Lithuanian Research Center, USA
Dalia Cidzikaitė