Kalniete's book is a moving and eloquent testimony to her family and to the Latvian nation—to their shared fate during more than fifty years of occupation. It is an indictment of the inhuman repression of both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Above all, it is the story of human survival, and it has become the most-translated Latvian book in recent history.
On Monday, June 17, 1940, my father Aivars together with his brother and mother Milda were at the Jumprava Manor. While his mother and grandmother were taking sugar beets, Aivars was playing without a care in the world on the shore of River Daugava. His brother Arnis, in infantile innocence, was rolling around on a blanket laid out on the grass. It was a day like any other at the Jumprava Manor. Nothing pointed to the fact that the inevitable had already happened and that Soviet armed forces had invaded Latvia. Milda's mother did not have a radio in the house. Nor did the immediate neighbours have one, thus the only operative source of information about current events was not accessible. In the evening the family when to bed as usual. The shocking news became known only the next day. Aivars had noticed several Latvian army aircraft land in the Jumprava Manor fields and with boyish curiosity had run to look at the planes. From the agitate talk of the pilots and the nearest neighbouring men, he learned for the first time that Russians had entered Riga, that there were tans in the station square, that in the Mosowite suburb people were walking around with red flags. . . Today, in an era of information overload, it is hard to understand that on June 17 many of the country people in Latvia were in a similar situation as the Kalnietis family, and knew nothing of the tragic events in Riga. Even listening to the radio would not have helped much, because the medium was already controlled by the Soviet armed forces. Reliable information about what was happening could also not be obtained from newspapers.
How events unfolded on the 16th and the 17th in fact, is known with relative precision today from carefully collected and collated documents that had been dispersed in several foreign archives and have become available in Latvia after the renewal of independence, as well as the recollection and mementoes of Latvians scattered across the world. Latvian historians still do not have access to the archival collections of the USSR Interior People's Commissariat and USSR State Security Committee that could provide complete insight into the documents preparing the occupation of Latvia. Now it is known what happened on the afternoon of the 16th of June in the President's palace and what the government members, the military high command, as well as the border guards did after they received a coded telegram with the USSR ultimatum from the Latvian envoy in Moscow, Fricis Kocins. Testimonies have been preserved regarding the discussions and the difficult decision reached by the members of the government to hand Latvia over without resistance in order to save the nation from unnecessary sacrifices. People on the street at that moment knew almost none of the specifics of this imminent historic turn of events. Newspapers were not issued on Sunday, hence nothing appeared in the press about the ultimatum. Similarly, there was no press coverage of the Soviet attack on Maslenki border crossing point that occurred on the 15th of June. Three border guards were shot and ten border guards and twenty-seven civilians were taken captive. There were dreadful premonitions in the air, because rumours were circulating about Red Army incursions into Lithuania, but the radioed news from the Song Festival in Latgale somewhat calmed people. Would there be such celebration if the situation were so life threatening?
O, the Latgale song celebration! The last regional Song Festival of independent Latvia, which had been planned to celebrate the beauty of this very Latvian land of blue lakes, was fated to take place under the sombre shadow of fearful premonition and go down in history as a festival of grief. This song celebration was forever etched in each participant's memory and eventually became transformed into a painful legend. In the memory of many of the singers as well as the audience, the tragic events of the next few days have been so intertwined, that more than a few are convinced that it was precisely during the Festival that President Ulmanis had announced that the Soviet armed forces had crossed the border into Latvia. My mother's brother Viktors, who took part in the Latgale Song Festival singing with the Military School Cadet Choir, has retained exactly this sort of impression in his memory.
The President could not have announced the incursion of the Red Army, because the Latvian government had not yet accepted the Soviet ultimatum. In his speech to the Festival participants, made at approximately five in the afternoon on the radio, the President did not reveal how dangerous the situation was. Only in the words "the swift progress of international events in this week has exceeded anything we have experienced up to this time," can be heard a significant allusion to the approaching danger. Rumours of Soviet tank and infantry unit concentration near the border, as well as the incursion of the Soviet armed forces into Lithuania, had already reached both the audience and the singers in the choirs. The President's failure to talk about the events seemed like the greatest indication. In despair and hope, the choirs and the public sang the nation's prayer, the Latvian anthem "God bless Latvia" three times. The same as everyone else, also my mother's brother Viktors prayed to God three times to save our last sacred land of Mary. When the Latvian hymn was finished, the cadets received a secret order to return to barracks forthwith and to depart for the Latvian border. By sunset, the Latgale Song Festival came to an end and the participants dispersed, each in his own direction.
The next day - Monday, 17th of June, the people woke, as they had every workday, to start their normal daily activities and discovered that Soviet bombers were circling over Riga. A few hours later, tanks drove into the city centre. The shock was the greater because everything seemed to happen at the same time - the ultimatum, the resignation of the government and the invasion by armed forces. It was only after the fact that people read about the resignation of the government and the demands issued in the June 16 ultimatum by the USSR:
(1) to form without delay a government in Latvia that will be ready and able to ensure reliable implementation of the Soviet-Latvian mutual assistance pact;
(2) to ensure without delay the admission with restrictions of Soviet army units in the territory of Latvia, in order that they may be located in the most important Latvian centres in such numbers as are necessary to ensure the implementation of the mutual assistance pact between the USSR and Latvia and to avert probable provocative actions against the Soviet garrison in Latvia.
In the same newspaper, at the bottom, in bolder letters, it was announced that the Latvian government agrees to the Soviet conditions, that "the Soviet Army divisions crossed the border of Latvia in the early morning hours of June 17" and that the President has accepted the resignation of the government. Given this announcement, it was strange and out of context to read on the first page of the newspaper Jaunakas Zinas a quote of the calmly delivered President's speech at the Song Festival the previous day. The speech sounded as if it had originated in a different world and a different era. What was fated to happen, had come to pass. There was neither spontaneous resistance, nor screams of dismay. With the exception of a small crowd organized by the communists in the railway station square, the rest of the Rigans, as if struck dumb, stared at the tanks and the poorly dressed Red Army soldiers in city squares and on the streets.
The afternoon passed in anxious uncertainty. Rumours spread that the President and the government had been arrested, however at four in the afternoon, Ulmanis rode through Riga streets in an open car to the President's palace. He, it appeared, was safe and sound. That somewhat calmed everyone. On the evening of June 17, at 10:15, the State President made his last speech to the people. A month later, he was arrested and deported to Russia, where he died in unknown circumstances in a place unknown. This context, as well as subsequent events, assigns a tragic significance to the speech. With the passage of time, each word and each sentence has been subjectively interpreted and explained in various ways, creating a manifold mythology. Almost no Latvian can hear the most significant and most often quoted words "I will stay in my place, you stay in yours," with which the President finished his speech, without feeling deeply touched. I too, on reading or hearing these words, get tears in my eyes, however, when I try to imagine how they sounded on the day of the occupation, I am overcome with confusion.
On June 17, after the incomprehensible events of the day, people were waiting for explanations and assurance from the President, but he did not respond to these expectations. The speech was full of indirect allusions and pathetic appeals, which did not calm, but, on the contrary, increased the agitation and confusion. How dangerous the situation was, could be sensed from Ulamnis' plea to countenance the incoming Soviet army units with friendship, to curb excessive curiosity and refrain from actions that would disturb law and order. The President invited all "to stay in their place with the same solidarity and will to work as in the past and to serve what, for all of us, is uppermost and sacred - the interests of Latvia and our nation." Pathetically, he begged the people: "Show by your thoughts, deeds and demeanour, the spiritual strength of the nation released during the years of flower of renewed Latvia. Then I will be certain that everything that is happening now and will happen further will be for the good of the future of our nation and our people and for our good and friendly relationship with our large Eastern neighbour - the Soviet Union." Also the explanation about the future actions of the government is just non-specific and puzzling: "I am convinced that you will understand the decrees that the government has issued and will issue, even though, in some instances, they will be stringent and even harsh. Follow them conscientiously, for they have no other objective than your peace and well-being." The next day the speech was published in the newspapers.
It was not a coincidence that, in issuing its ultimatum and occupying the Baltic States, the Soviet Union chose the same June days in which the world with bated breath was following the irreversible approach of the capitulation of France. On the 17th of June, the hero of the First World War, Marshall Petain, asked the army to cease resistance and, within a few days, the Germans ceremoniously marched across the Champs Elysees. Hitler enjoyed his retaliation: in Bois de Compiegne: France's humiliating cease-fire with Third Reich was signed in the same railway carriage, where in 1918 Germany had agreed to its capitulation. What did the fate of the small Baltic States matter in comparison to this drama, which staggered Europe and the world? Thus we were left alone with our despair.
Latvia officially was still an independent state. To stage the Socialist "revolution" Moscow chose as its chief director Andrei Vyshinsky, the Vice-chairman of the USSR Peoples Council of Commissars, who had proven himself to be a particularly avid implementer of Stalin's repressions. He needed only 34 days to complete the assignment, and on August 5, 1940, Latvia became the fifteenth Soviet Republic. As one of his first gestures, Vyshinsky handed a list of personnel for the new government to Ulmanis, explaining that the President did not have a right to change anything. In silence, Ulmanis signed it, as he had also signed other documents, thus destroying all that he had tirelessly built as a statesman since 1918. Did he really not understand that by "staying in his place" he was legalizing what was transpiring and that he had become a perfect instrument of Soviet will and an accomplice in the liquidation of the statehood of Latvia?
It is easy to ask this question today, but then everything seemed inexplicable and confused. From the eyewitness accounts of his contemporaries, it is known that until the end the President believed that his presence was his greatest obligation and that with his presence he would be able to save Latvia for the future, limit the repressions and the bloodshed. Not everyone understood or accepted this position of the President. In particular, the army rank and file could not reconcile themselves with what was happening. In spite of the overpowering numbers of the enemy, officers and the rank and file had been preparing to defend their homeland and die with honour since the border attack on June 15th. Contrary to what was expected, an order arrived to let the Soviet army divisions in without resistance. This humiliation could only be washed away with blood. On the morning of the 21st of June, having lost hope, in protest, General Ludvigs Bolsteins shot himself. Several other Latvian army officers followed his example.
The uncertainty that ruled in society in those June days was staggering. The most unlikely rumours were circulating. Almost nothing of what was happening with the political elite was known, since the press and the radio were totally under the control of the occupiers. Most of the newspapers still were being issued, but within the space of a few days their content changed in substance and they started to sing to the tune of the Soviets - of the mass support of the working people for the new government; the friendship of Latvian and Soviet soldiers' the great and peaceful Soviet nation; about the Great Stalin etc. Touching stories could be read in the press about the enthusiasm and love with which the friendly Soviet armed forces had been welcomed.
In reality "the welcome" was bitter. With each new day, the feeling of humiliation grew stronger. The sharp pain could not be silenced, as in the streets and squares the Soviet army personnel were seen filing by. Their presence was a harsh reminder of what had happened. Every day people laid flowers at the Freedom Monument. On occasion, my father's mother Milda, too, went to the Monument after work, so that, together with other men and women, they could mourn their lost independence. Some sank to their knees at the foot of the monument and prayed to Mother Latvia to take pity on her children and not to turn away from them. Others went to church with the same prayer and turned to God, their Heavenly Father. Thus, in this critical moment for our nation, the Latvian spirit manifested itself inseparably both in its reliance on a Mother, inherited from paganism dating back many centuries, and its Christian faith in a Heavenly Father introduced at a later date.
The Freedom Monument has always held a special place in our history. After many years of occupation, it is precisely at its foot that the Third Awakening of the Latvian nation began and ended with the renewal of independence. On June 14, 1987, after many years of silence, the dissident group Helsinki-86 was brave enough to extend the invitation to place flowers at the Freedom Monument in rememberance of those who had died in Siberia. On the appointed day and hour the brave were not many, but, for several days running, singly or in pairs, people headed for the Monument. I had something to commemorate as well. Several times each day, I stood in the crowd and cried as I watched. The same as in the summer of 1940, people again sank to their knees and prayed to Mother Latvia. I did not have enough courage to leave the silent crowd of sympathizers and cross the street while the Soviet militiamen and Chekists watched. I hate myself for it, but that's what I was like - having soaked up the invisible fear of my deported family. It is precisely in these days at the Freedom Monument that my sense of freedom was reborn.
My mother does not remember the first year of occupation as being bleak and dreadful. More likely, it was grotesque. The comment repeated again and again in the reminiscences of other people surprised me: what was happening then seemed to them so stupid and unreal that the anecdotal took precendence over the dramatic and the tragic. Seemingly, life continued at its customary rhythm and the day-to-say level was not immediately touched by what was happening beyond it. Shops, factories and movie theatres continued to function. The season in Jurmala - the Baltic Sea resort - was in full swing. Ligo Night - Midsumer's Eve - was celebrated with many bonfires. Concerts and garden parties were scheduled. But a new, strange public had materialized at the seashore - Russian vacationers in striped pyjamas. Emilija and Janisno longer wanted to go for their nightly strolls. The Soviet uniforms were unpleasantly bothersome to the eye. There was no reprieve from them anywhere. Especially on Sundays, when the Red Army orchestras, obsessively fulfilling their mission of forging closer cultural ties, thundered in the sane dunes and open-air stages with jaunty Soviet marches. Their artificial and infantile enthusiasm was foreign to the lyrical world view of the Latvians. The situation was unpleasant, but because of it, feelings of threat still did not arise, and people slowly calmed down.
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