Siberian Notebook

The Ogre History and Art Museum is launching a new story series titled ‘Museum Acquisition.’ It will feature the most unique items the museum has recently acquired to enrich its collection. To commemorate March 25, the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Communist Genocide, we present a story about an artifact used during exile and preserved by its owner for decades.

1949. March 25, 1949, remains in the memories of countless deportees as a day filled with uncertainty, fear, and grim doom. On that day, more than 42,000 Latvian residents (13,504 families) were arrested and hastily taken to remote settlement areas in the USSR. Some of them died en route due to severe living conditions (insufficient nutrition, heavy physical labor, cold, and illness), some died in their distant places of settlement, but most, enduring hardships, 20. century 50. returned to Latvia in the second half of the century.

Lidija Caunīte was one of the tens of thousands who managed to return to Latvia. A small, yellowed notebook preserves information about her years in exile.

The pocket-sized notebook was found in the attic of a house on Rīgas Street in Ogre by the building’s new owner. Fortunately, sensing the emotional and historical value of the small notebook, the man delivered it to the museum.

In the book “The Deported March 25, 1949” among the list of thousands deported, Lidija Caunīte’s name can also be found. 25. On the morning of March 25, 1949, she, along with her family members—her daughter, brother, and father, as well as her godfather and his family—began their journey to the Teguldet district of Tomsk Oblast. 1956. In 1956, Lidija Caunīte, her brother, and her godfather’s family were released from settlement. However, seven years in Siberia brought painful losses — in January 1950, Lidija’s father died at the age of 60, and in October of the same year, her daughter Valda died of pneumonia at the age of four. The brief phrases in the notebook only hint at the woman’s experiences.

Notes

March 25, Friday: “Beginning of red. rev.”; “Our arrest day. We leave home at 8:30.” [Author’s original spelling preserved in quotes]

March 26: “Left Ogre at 7:30 PM”

March 27: “Crossed the Latvian border at 2:30”

The following days record the names of cities through which the train echelon carrying the arrested passed: “Velikiye Luki — Bolovoye — Rybinsk — Danilov — Kirov — Molotov — Sverdlovsk — Omsk — Novosibirsk — Taiga, in the evening we arrive in Tomsk …”

April 10: “Unloaded from the echelon at the refugee camp.”

April 14: “Surrendered passports”

April 16: “Beginning.”

Subsequent days in the notebook are filled irregularly. Mostly, tasks are recorded: gathering firewood, threshing grain, mowing, milking cows, etc., as well as weather conditions, sent and received letters, some calculations. Occasionally, a surname appears, with an explanation such as “taken to the hospital; we buried [them].”

In longer texts, sadness and nostalgia for home are evident. 1949. In December, the woman writes: “Holiday days pass in housework. In the homeland, they celebrate them differently. Last year, bright candles sparkled on our Christmas tree at home. This year there are none, and God knows what we’ll do next year.”

The notebook has several pages with scribbles, possibly drawn by the woman’s daughter Valda. On one of the pages, amidst the swirls of scribbles, the name “Valda” is written.

More detailed descriptions for individual days are found at the end of the notebook. For example: “Outside, a terrible blizzard. Today I washed laundry. Also have to go for firewood, as there’s only enough for a day. On February 26, I sold father’s glasses for potatoes. Feb. 23. Valda was vaccinated for smallpox.”

1950. March 25, 1950: “Today marks one year since we left our homeland. Outside, there’s still deep snow and a blizzard, although the sun warms more than in winter, and we think spring will be here soon too. To mark the day we left our native home, I will write a letter to my homeland.”

The notebook was filled over several years, so in places, notes about 1950 are found next to entries from 1949. It is evident that after the hardships of 1950, especially the loss of her daughter, the woman stopped writing. The last entries—corrected day names—are dated 1957 and were most likely written so that the notebook could be used as a calendar even eight years after its publication.

1949. The March 1949 repressions were primarily aimed at individual peasant farms and the elimination of “kulaks as a class” to enable general accelerated forced collectivization. One such peasant farm, which was intended for liquidation under this plan, was the “Stariņi” homestead in Ikšķile parish. Consequently, its residents—Lidija Caunīte’s family—had to abandon it on the morning of March 25.

The small format of the notebook did not allow for extensive descriptions, and most likely, there was neither time nor desire for them. Nevertheless, the short, cursory phrases and concentrated daily descriptions serve as an emotionally powerful historical testimony to what this date—March 25—truly means, a day on which we fly the national flag with a black mourning ribbon.

Santa Šustere,
Former History Specialist at Ogre History and Art Museum