Forest Daughter Domicella Pundure (Lucia)

Domicella Pundure is a national partisan who spent more than a month since February 1945 in the Stompaku marsh settlement, where about 360 partisans lived at the time, including women, children and the elderly. He married in 1948, but already in 1949 the whole family was sent to Siberia to the Omsk region. He returned to Latvia in April 1960. The young family bought a house in the then collective farm "Borec", worked in a collective farm in the collective farm. When her husband died, Domicella Pundure moved to Balvi in the autumn of 1987. Already retired, she worked in the hotel buffet for a few more years.

The life story of Domicella Pundure can be read in Sanita Reinson's book "Daughters of the Forest".

Born on December 1, 1927 in Kručinova home of Šķilbēni parish. After completing four classes at the nearby Augstasila Primary School, Domicella began working on her father's farm.

"My father was a guard during the independence of Latvia, but during the German rule he worked in the Šķilbēni police. When the war front crossed for the second time in July-August 1944, we were not at home. The neighbors were local Russians and they persuaded them to leave. We left, but they didn't go too far, they stayed with relatives here even in Balvi. So after a while we drove back.

But my father stopped driving and no longer lived at home. He didn't show up at first, but then we met him. He no longer appeared in Šililben. They lived in such a small group, only later entered a larger group. Then his father went to Stompaku swamp. Later, when the Forest Brothers became more numerous, the Chekists began to terrorize everyone, and when I was sent a summons to go to work in a peat bog, my father took me with him in February 1945. Took a horse to Stompak. In the woods I left with what I had on my back and everything. Rosary, yes, it was with me - it had to be with me already. And we went to pray and God protected us. Whoever had to fall has already fallen.

The forest of Stompaku was not thick, and the camp was not so far from the road. We didn't drive on the big road, there we could drive straight through the forests. In winter, when the forest works, the roads were already entered by lines. Everyone in the camp was given a name. My father had Irbitis, but I probably had Lucia. Until the battles started in the camp, we did in the camp what we had already ordered. There was one elder in each bunker, and then it commanded. I live in a bunker with my father. It was not cold in winter. We had a small stove where we were going to eat. The walls are made of logs. The height is such that you can get up on your feet, and the mermaids where someone was up, who was at the bottom. Other bunkers were bigger, others smaller. There were places where there were more people, where there were few people. There were also horses. There were three horses at our own bunker. For them, such huts are made of spruce branches. They also fell in battle.

In general, there were quite a few women in those Stompakos. There were also children. For young children. … There was even a special bunker where bread was baked. But in general, each bunker took care of its own food - where everyone could get it, went to relatives or to a family who had a home. Food as from the countryside. As in winter, the pig was slaughtered, meat, cottage cheese was, milk. There was no hunger… I was told that the bunkers in Stompakos were numbered or that those numbers were now in place. Ours was the sixth bunker.

We didn't walk around the bunkers in the camp and didn't see others. We met others in the camp church and here and there. The church was located in the camp itself. For me, my husband and his brother had participated in the making. It was such a small bunker, more than twenty people could not enter. Catholics came to the church. Services were held every morning. And there even the confessions were accepted. The priest was from Šķilbēni - Ludwig Stagars.

About the day when there was a battle on 2-3. in March. The shooting started in the morning. I didn't know what was going on. People ran around the camp. My father's sister and I were at church. And we kept going there all day. Later, the wounded began to be brought to us. There were a lot of them. We had the Roman paramedic Romans. It commanded us. We helped as much as we could - we bandaged the wounded, gave us what we needed, and did everything else. There I met my future husband. He was injured in the leg. And then from then on, it all started for us.

In general, it was safe in that big camp, but that battle day was scary. Horror, what a noise there was! We were in one fear. After the battle, they talked in every way, but still, we see, ours was hit. The men had all kinds of weapons, there were not a few of them. The main thing in the camp was Peter Supe, but I didn't see him. And then in the evening, then we went out. The injured were taken by horse. We went those who were completely, as they say, healthy, all strong, went out. I didn't remember how many of us, but there weren't many. Bridges through the forest, through the swamp, through the forest. Men of course arms up. We went overnight. The next evening we came out to our house in the former Barec right on the edge of the forest. Gave us tea. And probably some bread was given, because we went out completely standing, everything that was in the bunker remained there.

And then our group divorced. My father and I went home. But he did not live at home. And so no one touched me anymore, I didn't go anywhere to apply or register, I live in a house. It turns out that I lived in the forest for a month. ”

On March 2, 1945, when there were about 300 people in the camp, the swamp was attacked by a unit of Soviet troops. Almost around the clock, the Forest Brothers resisted a large enemy force of about 500 people. 28 partisans and 46 Soviet soldiers were killed and wounded in the battle. The remains of the forest brothers killed to intimidate the locals were dumped in Vilaka and some nearby villages.