TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

Irena Veisaitė & Aurimas Švedas

someone beneath others. Eventually, I asked to be christened. My christening name is Marija, and my confirmation name is Kotryna. I received the sacrament of confirmation from Bishop Mečislovas Reinys. 9 For a long time, even during the Soviet period, I was a strong believer and attended mass regularly. As you have probably noticed, we are sitting in a room where a menorah stands on a table and a cross hangs on the wall. My bedroom also contains both a menorah and a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Eventually, I began to find the stereotypical thinking often expressed in priests’ sermons distasteful and turned away from the Church. From around 1949, I stopped going to mass. But to this day I painfully seek answers about our existence, and, if I can put it that way, am always searching for God . . . But let us return to the event that forced me to find somewhere else to live. As I have explained, Onutė and Juozas had found shelter for mewithMrs. Meškauskienė. I was given a place to sleep in a room full of all sorts of odd objects, clothes, and boxes—in effect, a storage room. A stranger, upon opening the door, would never suspect that a bed stood somewhere in the depths of the room. In fact, this detail saved me. One day, the Gestapo knocked on Mrs. Meškauskienė’s door. I don’t know what they were looking for, but when they poked their noses into the room where I was asleep, they 9 Mečislovas Reinys (1884–1953)—Catholic cleric, archbishop, pedagogue, activist.

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