Algirdas Marcinkevičius

Algirdas Marcinkevičius was born in Kaunas in 1934 and grew up in Petrašiūnai with his brother Aloyzas and sister Aleksandra. Both of Algirdas’ parents, Aleksandras and Kazimiera, were also from there. The Marcinkevičius family lived modestly and were civil servants. His father served in the army in 1922 and in the railway police. On June 14, 1941, the Marcinkevičius family, along with thousands of other Lithuanians, was deported to the Altai region on the coast of the Laptev Sea. Less than a year later, Algirdas’ father died, leaving his mother alone with three children. Algirdas grew up in exile and studied in Yakutsk, where he met his future wife, Jūratė. He was later drafted into the army in Sakhalin. Algirdas returned to Lithuania only in 1957, already a grown man. After Lithuania regained its independence in 1989, Algirdas became actively involved in activities to preserve the memory of the deportees.

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“I remember kindergarten, getting ready to go to first grade at the newly built Petrašiūnai School, which has now been renovated. But I never got to go there. Just a couple of months before it opened, our family was deported along with other families. On June 15, 1941, we set off on a long journey into the unknown. Thus, a large part of my childhood and all of my youth were spent outside of Lithuania – they were taken away from me.“

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”I was seven years old. I remember how my mother woke me up in the middle of the night, crying and very upset. My father was brought from the railway station by truck. My father said that we all had to move. To take our clothes. /…/ I remember how my mother quickly made tea in the early morning, fried eggs, and through her tears demanded that we eat. Get ready, get dressed. My parents were very shaken and upset by this event, with soldiers walking around, writing reports and telling us to get ready in a couple of hours.”

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“Fragments remain in my memory. My mother in tears… They’re taking us away. My father is separated and put into another car. My mother falls to her knees in front of a soldier – and so, by a stroke of luck, my father was able to stay with us. /…/ It was chaos. I know they took us back through Petrašiūnai, through the tunnel. I know that our house was visible through the windows. My mother said: children, come closer, look through the window one last time – that is our home, remember where we lived. At that time, she had no doubt that we were being taken to our deaths. But it turns out that the intentions were different… A large part of the nation was deported so that they could be used, their strength drained, to benefit them.”

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“Later, the transport across the Lena River began. It is about 2,000 km long. This continued for about 3-4 weeks, with the ships pulling the barges slowly. The first deaths occurred along the way. Sometimes they would stop. I know that they would lower these boards, fragile ones. One child after another… Quickly, when the ship stopped, they dug a small hole and placed a cross-shaped stake in it. And that was it.“

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”Before the ship reached that place, we saw that the vegetation was disappearing from the shores. The trees were getting smaller, then only bushes remained, and finally there was nothing left. Gradually, we said goodbye to the taiga and came to terms with life in the tundra. It was the second half of August. The first snowflakes were already falling…”

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“The Lithuanians built the yurts themselves, gathering various types of wood from the shore. They made posts and built layers of turf around them from the thawed ground. The turf layers went all the way to the top. The roof was also made of logs, and the turf was placed on top of it. Due to the dense vegetation, the earth did not fall inside. Inside the yurts, there were two-story beds on both sides and a passageway. They made stoves from metal structures that they found on the shore after storms. The windows were made of ice. The walls were about 80 centimeters thick. Later, these openings were covered with snow, allowing some light to enter the yurt. In some places, there were two doors with a small corridor to keep out the cold.

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“At first, Lithuania was like a fairy tale to me. I spent my childhood abroad, so I only knew Lithuania from my parents’ stories, and only fragments remained in my own memory. Later, our interactions with those around us formed a certain understanding of Lithuania.

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“Now it is very important to unite, to find a common denominator from which we can start. In exile, that denominator was my extraordinary desire to return to my native land, to my ethnic roots.”

Interview date: July 20, 2020