TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

Irena: Life Should Be Clear

approached the chapel, the tank drove into Trakų Street and opened fire. All of the Russian soldiers were killed. It happened right under our windows . . . The next day the Germans drove us out of our buildings to bury the soldiers’ bodies. A terrible stench rose from

Irena Veisaitė, her cousin Alexander Shtromas, and her daughter Alina Bum-Slavinsky. Tarusa, Russia, late 1970s.

them; when we moved one of the boys’ bodies, a brown liquid would pour from it. It was ghastly. Suddenly I saw that, among the pile of corpses, one of the soldiers was still alive. A neighbour and I dragged the wounded solider into the stairwell of our building. Of course, we had neither medicine nor any other means to help him properly, so we just gave him some water and a slice of bread. But the young man’s state was quickly

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