I was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1938 and lived there with my sister Edite (Krustmat) and my parents almost until the end of World War II. We lived in an apartment on Kantoru Ielu (Street).
Edite and I each had a big toy box. Hers was perfectly straight – not a speck of dust. Mine in contrast was a mess. I even gave my dolls food, and it fell into the box. And it started to smell bad. Krustmat didn’t let me play with her toys. The one time she let me play in her toy box was when she and my mom went to the opera. And she loved the opera, so she said, “You can play with my toys.”
In 1944 Latvia was occupied by the Germans, but when they realized the Russians were winning, they all wanted to get out of Latvia. My father was working for a pharmaceutical firm in Riga that had been taken over by the Germans, and the Germans said the Latvians working there could go with them to Germany. My parents decided to do that.
On the day we left Latvia, I remember we walked across the big bridge into downtown Riga, and we could see my cousin Roland’s house was burning. It had been bombed. Roland’s family didn’t want to leave, because his sister Brigitte was a little baby. After their home burned, they moved into our apartment on Kantoru Ielu.
That night after we walked to Riga, we stayed with my dad’s friend, Valdemar Malmanis, who lived right in Riga. They had two sons, and one was my good trouble-making friend Janis. The idea was that the next morning we would leave Latvia. It was all set up so the big ship was in the harbor, and we would take a little boat there.
That night all the adults drank and lot and ate a lot. We kids slept in the corridor between the bedrooms, on the floor with blankets. Maybe there was not enough room for everyone in the bedrooms, or maybe the idea was also if we were bombed, we would be safer away from the windows.
So the next morning we headed out for the harbor and prepared to leave Latvia. My father said he had to run back into town to get something, and he was gone a long time. We were very worried. What was he doing? Maybe having one last drink with his friends. But he came back in time.
As the ship was leaving the harbor, some of the adults were crying on deck, because they knew they wouldn’t see Latvia again.
The ship was the General Stubin. We slept on straw in a big hall. After landing in Germany we got on a crowded train. We had to kneel on on the floor. Mother had brought food but we ran out. During air raids we stopped and at one stop there was a pear orchard beside the tracks. Pears were delicious but caused revenge.
The first place we lived in Germany was a town called Siedlungs near Nuremberg. We lived in barracks, which were three or four long houses; every family got a quarter of a house. I think there were three rows of barracks.
Janis Apinis, my good friend, lived in the barracks kitty corner from ours. Next to us were good friends of my father’s. They had two boys, one a little younger than me, and one older. We always came out in the morning and played.
The barrack was next to the railroad, and one day news came that a train supply car was bombed, and there was food in it. Krustmat grabbed a pillowcase and we saw many people going to where the train was bombed, and when we got there we could see smoke and fire, and one half of the train car was burned out.
We were just little kids, but somehow Krustmat climbed over the tracks and tried to get into the train and I cried. But she climbed back a few minutes later because she saw we couldn’t do anything. But the people who could get in had full bags of food, and we all started back to the barracks. Along the way the people saw us two little girls with nothing so they gave us stuff, and so our pillow case was half full. And our parents came home and were happy.
The war was nearly over by then and we knew the Americans, British or Russians would overrun this area soon. We hated the Russians, so we hoped for Americans or British.
We still had some cans of food from that train that burned, and they were marked that they were for the German army. We were afraid that if the English or Americans came and saw that we have these cans of food from German army, they would ask questions. So everyone started burying the cans underground near the house.
Janis and I watched some of the cans being dug in not far from the railroad, and when the people left, I told Janis, “Let’s go dig one up.” I always initiated the bad things. Janis said OK, so we dug one of them up. It was a can of meat, but we didn’t know how to open it. I said, “Jan, we just need a rock and we can make holes in the can.” So we found a rock and hit the can with it. It eventually worked, but if you open a can that way there are rough edges. We had to use our fingers to pull open the can, and we cut our hands. But I'd never had such delicious food.
But if you are half starved and eat meat, immediately you have to run to the bathroom. I had diarrhea. We didn’t have a bathroom -- I had to go to the outhouse. After a few hours, the couple who had buried the can came to our barrack and told my parents that I stole their can. They were funny people, they didn’t have kids, so that was easier for them during the war. But they still couldn’t give starving kids a can of food.
Along with the cans were these tall cylinders full of hard tack, made of white flour, intended for the German soldiers. And there was sugar in a big bag. And honey. The honey and sugar was dug into the ground near the homes, but the biscuits were left out. How we ate those!
My father had made a bomb shelter about 15 feet from the barracks. As soon as it was announced that bombs were coming, we had to get to the bomb shelter.
One day when the men were at work we learned of an attack and ran to the bomb shelter. It was only moms and kids there. The Melmanis mom had made candy – we hadn't seen that in years – and had it in a bowl in the bomb shelter. Janis wanted to give us some. But his mother said, “Don’t give the girls any.” My mom was half Estonian, and I think she had a part accent, but the Melmanis mom and she didn’t get along. The talk was that my mom wasn’t a real Latvian. Well, some of the candy fell out of the bowl into the sand. I grabbed it and put it in my mouth, sand and all.
A little while later we got an announcement of another attack coming, so we all went into the bomb shelter. The shelter was really just a hole in the ground with a roof and some grass on top, so it couldn’t be seen. The fear was what if the soldier came with tanks, they wouldn’t see us there and drive onto the bomb shelter and crush us. So my father took a white cloth – pillow cover or sheet – and made a flag, and as he heard the soldiers approach, he crawled up to the opening and waved the flag. And you know the tanks came, but they immediately stopped. And they were American soldiers. We were so relieved!
The Americans were so polite. I think they asked if any of us were Germans, and we said no. In that camp was another pharmacy professional who spoke English, Dienvalds. He had studied in America. He told the Americans that we were Latvian.
The soldiers said they were very tired and wanted to stay in our apartment. We said that was fine. They wanted soldiers to sleep in our beds. I can’t remember where we went, but maybe the Melmanis’. Maybe the soldiers wanted our apartment because it overlooked the field.
We offered them some of the hard tack from the big bag with the German army insignia on it. They never said a word about the insignia.
That first night and maybe more, they set up a machine gun in our window. They had an order that they would shoot anyone who walked onto the big field next to our barracks. Farmers had set up haystacks in the field, and the Americans were afraid German soldiers could hide there. So the soldiers had orders to shoot anyone in the field. They used the gun many times while they were there. Later my friends and I collected up all the shells under our window and we played that they were tea cups.
The Americans didn’t stay long, maybe a week or ten days. While they were there, they built a tent with net camouflage sides. That was a pretty big tent, I think they ate there. When they left they left the tent there for us. We celebrated one John’s Eve there.
One day while the Americans were there gossip went around that they were dumping out a big pile of rotten oranges in this big field past the train tracks. Of course, we crossed the tracks and took a whole bunch of those oranges. They weren’t totally spoiled, just a little soft. That was delicious. We didn’t get sick – nobody got sick.
When the Americans got ready to leave, we kids sat on a little hill near the house. And they took chocolate bars out of their rations and gave it to us. There was enough for all of us. And that was wonderful. One of the best tasting foods in my life.