"So, where did I stop? Look! I suddenly remembered. My memory is not good any more - didn"t I tell you? I have great cookies and I completely forgot about them. What a silly person I am! Please try - I made them myself. I baked them yesterday for the young scouts, who were planning to visit me. Cookies are still pretty fresh. Try, I put a lot of effort to make them right - I wanted to treat the scouts with something homey and tasty."
"So, tell me your opinion. Do you like them?"
"Who? The scouts? How do I know? They never showed up. Probably their teachers found out that they made a mistake by mixing me with somebody else. You see - they have now in middle schools a new program (as part of curriculum) to visit veterans of WWII but I guess that yesterday they figured out that I am a veteran of a different kind. Not the one who they are supporting, but opposite - the one who fought veterans that they are supporting. Do you understand? Since Lithuania gained independence everything went upside down - who was a bandit became a partisan and who was a partisan became a bandit. Crazy world!"
"I am so sorry that I moved away from our subject, young man, but the present set of affairs in Lithuania annoys and confuses me a great deal. It brings worries and discontent and it is so much on my mind that I cannot sleep at nights; I feel great urge to discuss this matter with somebody else, with someone whose opinion I could trust but.... I am very lonely. You are an outsider and probably can see things differently, without premature conclusions or prejudice. Since Yurgis, my late husband, had died 5 years ago, I lost (how do you say it in English?) - a fulcrum. Is that the right word - a fulcrum?"
"He was a very smart person, very knowledgeable, you know, and I used to rely on his opinion a lot. Actually, I can tell you without any exaggeration that my husband was the smartest person I ever met in my life. You may not believe me - but it is true. Why do you think I married him? When we met (it was in the late thirties) in Kaunas Yurgis impressed me so much that I immediately fell in love. Instantly. He was like a walking encyclopedia: he knew everything about everything and I never got bored with him. He was such kind of person. He studied law in the university but could not finish his studies because police arrested him for his political views and incarcerated. He spent two years in prison. Never the less, in the fifties, when he was already a middle age man, he went back to school and received Ph.D. in history. He had a brilliant mind! And he also was gentle and considerate... - what can I tell you? We spent so many years together, wonderful and difficult years; I missed him very much..."
"Wait a minute! Why am I telling you about my husband? Oh, yes, of course - because I feel myself very lost these days. For you, as an outsider, the latest events here, in Lithuania, might look even more confusing than they do for me. I don"t know. But let me tell you that for us, particularly for those who like myself, fought Nazis during WWII they appeared to be incomprehensible. When we fought fascists, both - domestic and invaders, when in the thirties, we struggled to create a better society here, in Lithuania, we never imagined that it would come to such abrupt and unexpected end, when murderers and bandits could be glorified as national heroes. It is very, very sad for me to see."
"What? You think that it might be reaction to our policies in the past? Of course, I realize that some of our actions made a lot of local people angry - I am not loony or crazy or very old - I am only in the seventies. Sure, we made mistakes. But who does not make them? Everybody does and it is always easier to find mistakes in actions of someone else than to avoid making them yourself. Do you agree with me? We were young and naïve and we trusted imposters and scoundrels, like Stalin, who used us for his own purpose. And sometime we were probably overly zealous or too inflexible in pursuit of our dreams. But we always believed that what we were doing was the right thing to do: we believed that bringing justice and equality to everyone would make the world a much better place. Do you understand me?"
"Well, I don"t know, I cannot argue about that, young man. See, before communists took power in Lithuania, people lived here under the rule of military junta. Dictator Smetona was then the president - so called "the president for life". Have you heard of him? Lithuania was then some sort of "banana republic" - corrupted, undeveloped and poor, like many countries are now in Africa or in Central America. Or like Chile was not that long time ago, remember? When dictator Pinochet was in power. Lithuania was like Chile - there were few people who had power: this Smetona - so called "president", top military officers, appointed by them members of the government, secret police. They used torture and violence to protect their power and their wealth. And then there were others - poor people, majority, those who did not have and never would have any power. Do you understand? It was unfair. Everyone, every human being, is born equal - do you agree with me? The purpose of our struggle was noble, young man: we wanted to bring to all citizens of our country freedom, equality and prosperity. Now new Lithuanian government glorifies Nazi collaborators, bigots and murderers just because we made few mistakes in the past. It sickens me."
"Yes, I heard - nonviolent forms of resistance. Gandhi, Martin Luther King... My husband had Ph.D. in history, young man. But let me remind you about two facts, which could prevent us to use these methods even if we would try to. Do you want to hear about them? Okay, first of all, if you remember, Gandhi (I am not sure if you study this in your capitalist schools) during WWII often tried to undermine Great Britain efforts to fight imperial Japan: he called members of the anti-Nazi coalition to surrender and accept Nazi rule and superiority. He opposed bombing by Allies of Nazi concentration camps because it would undermine his theory of not resisting murder by violent means. He suggested Jews to go to gas chambers voluntarily. He was willing to sacrifice millions of lives in China and Europe in order to achieve independence for India. He was a very, very selfish person! He was a nationalist. He did not care if millions of innocent non-Indian people would die or become slaves as long as India could gain its independence. That was disgusting. No, I am sorry young man; but he could not be our role model, example for imitation. We were internationalists and not nationalists and chauvinists like Mr. Gandhi and Nazis. And, besides, there was one more, even more serious reason why we could not succeed with such non-violent tactic. You may notice that it succeeded only against democratic governments like Great Britain and USA. Military junta, on another hand, as a rule, does not consist of overly conscientious people, young man."
"No, no, I don"t mind if you argue. I only have a look of seventy years old woman but in my heart I am still seventeen. So, don"t worry! And I like when somebody disagrees with me. It is fun; it is how the life supposes to be. Don"t you think so? I"ll tell you even more - if everybody would agree with everyone on everything the life would be extremely boring. Believe me. Besides, the "truth springs from the argument among friends" - do you know such proverb? When we were young we knew it by the heart. We used to argue all the time. Yes, all the time. Days and nights. What a wonderful time it was! We argued about everything - politics, science, books, and new movies... I don"t know how young people entertain themselves nowadays but I think that there is nothing more entertaining than arguments and discussions. Efforts to find the truth... We were lucky people... "
"Oh, most definitely. Sometime we did not speak to each other for years. "Comes with the territory" - is that how you say it in English? Of course, we had problems, but that was, I would say - the life, and I missed it dearly. And I am so delighted that you came to visit me. Such a change! People who surround me now, with whom I have to socialize, speak only about diseases, drugs and insurance. Boring stuff. Old people are boring, young man. I hate them."
"Oh -yes, sure. And don"t be shy - take as many as you want. I will not eat them anyway. Doctor"s advice - diabetes, you know. Let me add you some more hot tea. So, what did you want to find out about Kohanskis?"
"And by the way - this reminds me. I didn"t know the older Kohanskis brother. But the other two were very different from each other. We have a proverb: the apple does not fall far from the apple tree. But these two seems to me did fall pretty much apart. The younger one - Dovid (everybody called him Dovid der Shloser) was working in the mechanical shop for mister Peresman. Or Perelman. Well, I don"t remember his last name... Anyway, this man, Peresman or Perelman, came to our town, nobody knew from where, in the beginning of the thirties... Well, I think it was beginning of thirties. He was a shrewd, noisy and energetic fellow, real Jewish capitalist. He started his business by putting up electrical poles and hanging on them electrical wires around the town. You see, we did not have the electricity then. So, he bought an old warehouse on the outskirts (and I assume - at very cheap price) of the town to house electrical generator, which he built himself, wired it to the homes of rich people and started to deliver electricity, collecting money for his service; although only few residents could afford it. I remember how for the first time we had electricity in our home. It was such a wonder - to light up an electrical bulb; it was like in a fairy tale, unreal and unbelievable. This first moment when the bulb lit up I cannot compare to anything else in my life. And my dad was so happy then..."
"At the beginning this Peresman (or Perelman, or whatever his name was) did everything by himself - put electrical poles, laid wires, even walked around the town to collect money for electricity (there were no electrical counters then and he collected money depending on how many bulbs each customer had - very crude way to collect money), did repair and other stuff but when he got rich he hired Dovid der Shloser to do the dirty work for him. In other words - Dovid was the blue color worker, sympathetic to our cause..."
"What had happened to him later? To whom - to Dovid der Shloser? No? Peresman? I thought you are interesting in Kohanskis."
"Oh, I see, just for curiosity? Well, if you are so curious...We (I mean - NKVD, which is how then the KGB was called) arrested him. I believe it happened in 1940, in autumn, to be more precise, right after dictator Smetona was removed from the power and Lithuania became democratic country and joined Soviet Union. Most likely, he was sent later to Siberia, to the labor camp. That is where all criminals eventually ended. Together with his family, of cause."
"What for? For the felony, young man, for the felony."
"Oh, I see. Well, I am sure you have heard the lies of the capitalist propaganda that communists were arresting people just because they were rich. This is not true: for example, this Perelman was arrested not because he was rich but for the crime he actually committed. He tried to destroy his own generator when we confiscated it. You see he was a scoundrel - this Perelman; he used the generator to make money by servicing only rich people at a very high price. He was looking only for the profit. But everybody needs electricity - does not? Even poor people do - those who could not afford his prices. Right? So, we nationalized the generator, paid him some money to compensate for the losses and that could be the end of the story. But the crook got upset and tried to destroy the generator. It was a criminal offense, called sabotage: destruction of the government property. He was punished according to the law."
"Why his entire family? That was the law then too."
"You think - it was draconian and irrational law? There is nothing irrational in life, young man. Everything has the reason. The law was made to avoid vendetta, to exterminate an "eye for eye" culture: it was made to prevent what you might call "cycle of violence". If a relative or a friend of the convicted criminal would be left alone, he or she could take revenge on authorities and then somebody else could take revenge on this person as well. And so on. But if you remove the entire family then peace comes to everybody, even to those who were sent to Siberia. Perhaps the law was not fair for everybody but braking the "cycle of violence" never is - correct? Or do you think that continuing of violence could be a better solution?"