Tag #148924 - Interview #78765 (Sara Ushpitsene)

In June 1940 the Soviet Army [5] entered Lithuanian territory as Lithuania was annexed to the USSR [6]. First, things remained unchanged. Though, there were empty shelves in the stores. Sausage, cheese and other things, which used to be abundant in capitalist Lithuania, became deficit; only two sorts of bread remain: wheat and rye, and there wasn’t enough of it. We ate what we could grow, therefore those reforms practically had no influence on us. When Father’s store was nationalized, he still was running it, but not as an owner, but as a manager. His position almost didn’t change. There were no wealthy people in our town, but well-off people were turned out of their apartments and housed in smaller places. Those people, whose lodging and bread and butter were taken away, were expecting the changes even for worse. They knew that rich people were exiled to Siberia [7] and they were ready for that morally. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to exile anybody from Luksiai and my remaining compatriots had a much more horrible fate here: all of them were murdered by the Fascists.