Author: Harry G. Kapeikis
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1425134009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Exile from Latvia is the story of a young boy's experiences before, during and after World War II, told endearingly, to touch the heart. Driven from his beloved Latvia by the Soviet Army, Harijs' family flees to Germany in the hope of being captured by the advancing American forces. The family experiences hardships of all kinds - hunger, homelessness and air raids. They brush with death many times in many ways and their life is often punctuated with misunderstandings, both humorous and tragic. Presumed guilty they must prove their innocence. The continuous migration causes Harijs to lose friends constantly. These experiences shape Harijs' life, surprisingly, in a positive way, especially in the Displaced Persons' camp under dedicated teachers and scoutmasters. There are lighter moments as young Harijs discovers girls, often handling the developing attraction in awkward though humorous ways, eventually touching the heartstrings of a girl tenderly. There is laughter, love, grief, tears and longings of the heart. Finally the anticipation of an unexpected future replaces the memories of cruelty, atrocity, hate, betrayal, misunderstandings, ignorance and fear with commitment to meet the future with confidence. During the war years Harijs made friends only to lose them. He will not lose you. You'll move alongside him through the first-person escapades of a pre-teen boy looking for answers in a senseless world.
Exile from Latvia
Author: Harry G. Kapeikis
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1425134009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Exile from Latvia is the story of a young boy's experiences before, during and after World War II, told endearingly, to touch the heart. Driven from his beloved Latvia by the Soviet Army, Harijs' family flees to Germany in the hope of being captured by the advancing American forces. The family experiences hardships of all kinds - hunger, homelessness and air raids. They brush with death many times in many ways and their life is often punctuated with misunderstandings, both humorous and tragic. Presumed guilty they must prove their innocence. The continuous migration causes Harijs to lose friends constantly. These experiences shape Harijs' life, surprisingly, in a positive way, especially in the Displaced Persons' camp under dedicated teachers and scoutmasters. There are lighter moments as young Harijs discovers girls, often handling the developing attraction in awkward though humorous ways, eventually touching the heartstrings of a girl tenderly. There is laughter, love, grief, tears and longings of the heart. Finally the anticipation of an unexpected future replaces the memories of cruelty, atrocity, hate, betrayal, misunderstandings, ignorance and fear with commitment to meet the future with confidence. During the war years Harijs made friends only to lose them. He will not lose you. You'll move alongside him through the first-person escapades of a pre-teen boy looking for answers in a senseless world.
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1425134009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Exile from Latvia is the story of a young boy's experiences before, during and after World War II, told endearingly, to touch the heart. Driven from his beloved Latvia by the Soviet Army, Harijs' family flees to Germany in the hope of being captured by the advancing American forces. The family experiences hardships of all kinds - hunger, homelessness and air raids. They brush with death many times in many ways and their life is often punctuated with misunderstandings, both humorous and tragic. Presumed guilty they must prove their innocence. The continuous migration causes Harijs to lose friends constantly. These experiences shape Harijs' life, surprisingly, in a positive way, especially in the Displaced Persons' camp under dedicated teachers and scoutmasters. There are lighter moments as young Harijs discovers girls, often handling the developing attraction in awkward though humorous ways, eventually touching the heartstrings of a girl tenderly. There is laughter, love, grief, tears and longings of the heart. Finally the anticipation of an unexpected future replaces the memories of cruelty, atrocity, hate, betrayal, misunderstandings, ignorance and fear with commitment to meet the future with confidence. During the war years Harijs made friends only to lose them. He will not lose you. You'll move alongside him through the first-person escapades of a pre-teen boy looking for answers in a senseless world.
Among the Living and the Dead
Author: Inara Verzemnieks
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 1782274308
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
A powerfully told memoir of family, separation, and the things left unsaid, in the wake of the Second World War Raised by her grandparents in the USA, Inara Verzemnieks grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited. Her grandmother Livija's stories recalled the remote village in Latvia left behind, where she and her sister, Ausma, were separated during the Second World War. They would not see each other again for more than fifty years. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together her grandmother's survival through the years as a refugee, and her grandfather's own troubling history as a conscript in the Nazi forces. As she interweaves two parts of the family story in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she offers us a profound and cathartic account of loss and survival, resilience and love. Inara Verzemnieks teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa. She has won a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 1782274308
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
A powerfully told memoir of family, separation, and the things left unsaid, in the wake of the Second World War Raised by her grandparents in the USA, Inara Verzemnieks grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited. Her grandmother Livija's stories recalled the remote village in Latvia left behind, where she and her sister, Ausma, were separated during the Second World War. They would not see each other again for more than fifty years. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together her grandmother's survival through the years as a refugee, and her grandfather's own troubling history as a conscript in the Nazi forces. As she interweaves two parts of the family story in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she offers us a profound and cathartic account of loss and survival, resilience and love. Inara Verzemnieks teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa. She has won a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Flight from Latvia
Author: Dagnija Neimane
Publisher: Dagnija Neimane
ISBN: 9780997553307
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
A substantial chapter of World War II is resurrected in this sometimes tragic tale of one family's flight from their Latvian homeland and subsequent uncertainty as displaced persons. On the day Dagnija Neimane's parents married in 1940, the Soviet Russians killed the Latvian border guards, leading to the first Soviet occupation of their country. The following months culminated in the Year of Horror, with mass arrests, executions, and deportations of fifteen thousand Latvians to Siberia. Though Nazi Germany drove off the invaders and in turn occupied Latvia, in 1944 the Soviets gained the upper hand once more. Some Latvians joined the German forces to fight the Soviets, others who could, formulated plans for escape, wondering if there was hope left for their country. Flight from Latvia is a true narrative of an extended family's exile and journey through refugee camps to find a safe home once more. The narrator, only a youngster at the time, derives details from family stories and periodicals to relay this significant chapter of her family's history. Children, parents, even elderly grandparents flee together as a family-though conditions for food and health are abysmal. Now, having come this far, who would be selected for emigration?
Publisher: Dagnija Neimane
ISBN: 9780997553307
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
A substantial chapter of World War II is resurrected in this sometimes tragic tale of one family's flight from their Latvian homeland and subsequent uncertainty as displaced persons. On the day Dagnija Neimane's parents married in 1940, the Soviet Russians killed the Latvian border guards, leading to the first Soviet occupation of their country. The following months culminated in the Year of Horror, with mass arrests, executions, and deportations of fifteen thousand Latvians to Siberia. Though Nazi Germany drove off the invaders and in turn occupied Latvia, in 1944 the Soviets gained the upper hand once more. Some Latvians joined the German forces to fight the Soviets, others who could, formulated plans for escape, wondering if there was hope left for their country. Flight from Latvia is a true narrative of an extended family's exile and journey through refugee camps to find a safe home once more. The narrator, only a youngster at the time, derives details from family stories and periodicals to relay this significant chapter of her family's history. Children, parents, even elderly grandparents flee together as a family-though conditions for food and health are abysmal. Now, having come this far, who would be selected for emigration?
The Testimony of Lives
Author: Vieda Skultans
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134714874
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Vieda Skultans left Latvia as a refugee at the age of six months. In 1990, she returned for the first time. This text is both a personal account of a homecoming and an anthropology of a people trying to come to terms with its past and to face an uncertain future. Based on more than 100 interviews carried out in the wake of Latvian independence, it gives voice to stories of dispossession and exile and of ambiguous returns. At the same time it unpicks the process of memory itself, showing how personal memory is shaped by the traditional narratives of national history and culture.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134714874
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Vieda Skultans left Latvia as a refugee at the age of six months. In 1990, she returned for the first time. This text is both a personal account of a homecoming and an anthropology of a people trying to come to terms with its past and to face an uncertain future. Based on more than 100 interviews carried out in the wake of Latvian independence, it gives voice to stories of dispossession and exile and of ambiguous returns. At the same time it unpicks the process of memory itself, showing how personal memory is shaped by the traditional narratives of national history and culture.
A Man from Latvia
Author: Andrejs Eglitis
Publisher: Infinity Pub
ISBN: 9780741451729
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
Publisher: Infinity Pub
ISBN: 9780741451729
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
Latvia in World War II
Author: Valdis O. Lumans
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 9780823226276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572
Book Description
Valdis Lumans provides an authoritative, balanced, and comprehensive account of one of the most complex, and conflicted, arenas of the Second World War. Struggling against both Germany and the Soviet Union, Latvia emerged as an independent nation state after the First World War. In 1940, the Soviets occupied neutral Latvia, deporting or executing more than 30,000 Latvians before the Nazis invaded in 1941 and installed a puppet regime. The Red Army expelled the Germans in 1944 and reincorporated Latvia as a Soviet Republic. By the end of the war, an estimated 180,000 Latvians fled to the West. The Soviets would deport at least another 100,000. Drawing on a wide range of sources--many brought together here for the first time--Lumans synthesizes political, military, social, economic, diplomatic, and cultural history. He moves carefully through traditional sources, many of them partisan, to scholarship emerging since the end of the Cold War, to confront such issues as political loyalties, military collaboration, resistance, capitulation, the Soviet occupation, anti-Semitism, and the Latvian role in the Holocaust.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 9780823226276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 572
Book Description
Valdis Lumans provides an authoritative, balanced, and comprehensive account of one of the most complex, and conflicted, arenas of the Second World War. Struggling against both Germany and the Soviet Union, Latvia emerged as an independent nation state after the First World War. In 1940, the Soviets occupied neutral Latvia, deporting or executing more than 30,000 Latvians before the Nazis invaded in 1941 and installed a puppet regime. The Red Army expelled the Germans in 1944 and reincorporated Latvia as a Soviet Republic. By the end of the war, an estimated 180,000 Latvians fled to the West. The Soviets would deport at least another 100,000. Drawing on a wide range of sources--many brought together here for the first time--Lumans synthesizes political, military, social, economic, diplomatic, and cultural history. He moves carefully through traditional sources, many of them partisan, to scholarship emerging since the end of the Cold War, to confront such issues as political loyalties, military collaboration, resistance, capitulation, the Soviet occupation, anti-Semitism, and the Latvian role in the Holocaust.
The Latvian Saga
Author: Uldis G̦ērmanis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789984342917
Category : Latvia
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789984342917
Category : Latvia
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
Empathy and Healing
Author: Vieda Skultans
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857450360
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
For more than three decades the author has been concerned with issues to do with emotion, suffering and healing. This volume presents ethnographic studies of South Wales, Maharashtra and post-Soviet Latvia connected by a theoretical interest in healing, emotion and subjectivity. Exploring the uses of narrative in the shaping of memory, autobiography and illness and its connections with the master narratives of history and culture, it focuses on the post-Soviet clinic as an arena in which the contradictions of a liberal economy are translated into a medical language.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857450360
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
For more than three decades the author has been concerned with issues to do with emotion, suffering and healing. This volume presents ethnographic studies of South Wales, Maharashtra and post-Soviet Latvia connected by a theoretical interest in healing, emotion and subjectivity. Exploring the uses of narrative in the shaping of memory, autobiography and illness and its connections with the master narratives of history and culture, it focuses on the post-Soviet clinic as an arena in which the contradictions of a liberal economy are translated into a medical language.
Suddenly, a Criminal: Sixteen Years in Siberia
Author: Melanija Vanaga
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1460264037
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
"Those among us who survived," says Melanija, "did so because we were unbelievably full of the determination and will to live, and faith in our ultimate liberation, as well as because all the disasters arose unexpectedly." From her own and some of her fellow victims' notes and diaries written while the experiences were raw, she portrays an authentic panorama of what ethnic cleansing looked like on the ground during her involuntary Siberian exile (1941-1956). First on an animal collecting station near Tyukhtet when her son Alnis is only nine, and later in the village itself, she and the other women endure homelessness, borderline starvation, extreme cold, humiliation, insult, ill treatment and brutality, and all the while without any knowledge about their husbands' fate, the men having been separated from the women and children already at the first train station where their ordeal began. Add to that, black mud into which one sinks up to the knees, and in Melanija's case, a death's door operation. Miraculously, some survived, and a few, like Alnis, even ultimately regained a respected position in society. Indomitable, iron lady Melanija recorded uncounted biographies of those who did not—members of her extended family, neighbours, friends and acquaintances. She filled one hundred and ten large albums in her calligraphic handwriting, supplemented by photographs, and hand drawn maps and pictures. In Latvia, this documentary became an instant modern classic. In September 2014 it was published in Russian.
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1460264037
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
"Those among us who survived," says Melanija, "did so because we were unbelievably full of the determination and will to live, and faith in our ultimate liberation, as well as because all the disasters arose unexpectedly." From her own and some of her fellow victims' notes and diaries written while the experiences were raw, she portrays an authentic panorama of what ethnic cleansing looked like on the ground during her involuntary Siberian exile (1941-1956). First on an animal collecting station near Tyukhtet when her son Alnis is only nine, and later in the village itself, she and the other women endure homelessness, borderline starvation, extreme cold, humiliation, insult, ill treatment and brutality, and all the while without any knowledge about their husbands' fate, the men having been separated from the women and children already at the first train station where their ordeal began. Add to that, black mud into which one sinks up to the knees, and in Melanija's case, a death's door operation. Miraculously, some survived, and a few, like Alnis, even ultimately regained a respected position in society. Indomitable, iron lady Melanija recorded uncounted biographies of those who did not—members of her extended family, neighbours, friends and acquaintances. She filled one hundred and ten large albums in her calligraphic handwriting, supplemented by photographs, and hand drawn maps and pictures. In Latvia, this documentary became an instant modern classic. In September 2014 it was published in Russian.
Latvia
Author: Vilis Inde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
This is the first stop in learning about Latvian people and their culture and history. The Latvian people survived centuries of oppression under foreign rule, yet gained independence in 1918 and again in 1990. This history focuses on factors that played a role in maintaining the language and culture through difficult circumstances. The book also includes a brief section of one of Latvia's spiritual and political leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Rainis. He inspired people to act in the quest for freedom and independence.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
This is the first stop in learning about Latvian people and their culture and history. The Latvian people survived centuries of oppression under foreign rule, yet gained independence in 1918 and again in 1990. This history focuses on factors that played a role in maintaining the language and culture through difficult circumstances. The book also includes a brief section of one of Latvia's spiritual and political leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Rainis. He inspired people to act in the quest for freedom and independence.