A nine-year-old's journey into exile
Writer Regina Guntulytė-Rutkauskienė, who was exiled at the age of nine, remembers the deportation of June 14, 1941, when she and her family were taken to Siberia. Her story reveals not only the physical but also the emotional pain of exile, which accompanied her even after returning to Lithuania.
"The banging on the doors and windows woke me up. Mom was crying, she didn't help me get ready much. Dad calmed her down, and he gave me instructions on what to bring," Regina begins her story. The pain of childhood is reflected in her words: "I didn't really understand, although it was said quite clearly that we were going to see the polar bears now. And then I regretted terribly that I hadn't taken my only doll, which I had. I simply forgot."
At the fateful moment at the Padustėliai intersection, Regina was almost separated from her family. She remembers: "A neighbor, a resident of Padustėliai, a well-known Vainienė Stefanija, talked to her parents and came up to me and said, let's go, child, what are you doing here. And she took my hand and led me. But when we started to move away from my parents, I turned around and thought, what am I doing now. And I just pulled my hand out and ran back, shouting that I was nowhere, only with you."
The journey to exile was full of humiliation: "I remember when they opened the wagon after the Urals and let us out for our natural needs. The women and men lined up, turned away from each other and... And the soldiers stopped around us and made comments."
Even an attempt to sing was suppressed: "After the song 'Let's Go Home' was sung in the carriage, the soldiers who came running started banging on the doors to silence them."
"We were told that we were here for life and not to even think that we would ever return. But my parents, in my opinion, always thought that we would definitely return. Someday, if not them, then at least I," the writer recalls. Although the family managed to return to Lithuania, Regina had to suffer for more than a decade from the backlash about how "those people" were allowed to return to live at all.
Related timeline
Related objects
Deportation train wagon
A restored deportation train carriage is located near the Radviliškis train station, reminding us of the tragic page of history when the occupying Soviet authorities massively deported the inhabitants of the Republic of Lithuania to remote areas of the Soviet Union in 1941-1952. More than 3,000 residents were deported from the city of Radviliškis alone.
In total, about 135,500 people were deported from Lithuania between 1941 and 1952. On June 14, 1941, the first day of mass deportations in Lithuania, residents of the city of Radviliškis and its surroundings began to be “placed” in the wagons of deportation trains.
In 2012, the wagon was transferred to the Radviliškis District Municipality free of charge by the Vytautas Magnus Jaegers Battalion of the Special Operations Forces of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, through the mediation of the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center. The authentic deportation wagon was brought back from Kaunas, carefully restored by railway workers, and now houses a small exhibition.
Plungė railway station
The railway station in Plungė was built as part of the Telšiai-Kretinga line, which was built by the Danish company Höjgaard&Schult. The construction of the station began in 1930, and the main works coincided with the great Plungė fire of 1931, which nevertheless did not stop the process. The station was opened on 29 October 1932.
The Plungė railway station was built according to a typical project, a similar station is located in the city of Telšiai. In the architecture, between the one-story side wings, a two-story central part with a vestibule inside stands out, and an outstanding aesthetic element is the openwork decor of the roof parapet, which is currently being reconstructed.
During the interwar years, the Plungė garrison soldiers' orchestra was popular in the city, which would accompany departing reserve soldiers home from the new station with music. It is recorded that on September 18, 1938, soldiers returning from field exercises were ceremoniously welcomed at the Plungė railway station by gymnasium and elementary school students, teachers and other townspeople.
During the Cold War, Plungė railway station also became important in the military industry. In the period 1960-78, the Šateikiai and Plokštinė forests were home to the Šateikiai above-ground and Plokštinė underground thermonuclear missile launch bases. Both during their construction and later, during the period of operation, construction materials, weapons and everything else were transported by train to the Plungė and Šateikiai railway stations.
During the mass deportations of the population to camps by the Soviet occupation authorities, in 1941-1952 a number of them were also deported from the Plungė railway station, as evidenced by a commemorative plaque installed on the wall of the passenger hall building. The plaque was unveiled on June 14, 1991, thanks to the efforts of the members of the Plungė group of the Lithuanian Reorganization Movement and the Plungė company of the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union.
Mazeikiai Railway Station
The railway station is located in the central part of the city of Mažeikiai, therefore it became the axis of urban development. It began operating on September 4, 1871, next to the newly built Liepaja-Romnai railway line. The passenger hall built in 1876 became the first brick building, around which the city gradually formed. A few years later, Mažeikiai (at that time called the city of Muravjov) was connected to Riga.
Until 1918, the station, like the city of Mažeikiai, was called after the Vilnius Governor-General Muravjov, nicknamed "Korik" and famous for suppressing the 1863-1864 uprising. Many historical figures visited the station: during the First World War, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Imperial Germany dined in the station's restaurant, where the Bermontin commander, Colonel Bermontas-Avalovas, was promoted to general, and in 1927, the President of the First Republic of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, visited the station. Clashes between the defenders of Lithuanian freedom and the Mažeikiai Company and the Red Latvian Riflemen, who operated on the side of the Red Army, took place near the station.
In 1941 and after the war, residents of the Mažeikiai region were deported from the station. Among them was four-year-old Bronė Liaudinaitė-Tautvydienė (chairwoman of the Mažeikiai branch of the Lithuanian Association of Political Prisoners and Deportees) with her family and many other families.
Today, the station has not lost its original purpose, and a memorial plaque is attached to its wall, reminding of the 1941 and post-war deportations to the depths of Russia. Every year on June 14, the Day of Mourning and Hope is commemorated at the station.
