OPEN ARCHIVES OF KAUNAS

Railway station

Siegfried: “Just at the outskirts of Kaunas, I was dug up by locomotive firemen and picked up like some kitten. It was the spring of 1947, the weather was still cold. The men asked me in German: “How did you end up here?” I told them: “I want nach Litauen, Kowno, Brot holen. To Lithuania, Kaunas, bring bread back to my mother.” The train stopped in front of Nemunas and the railway bridge. The main said: “You would not cross this bridge. We would cross it, bring you over and leave you in Kaunas.” And that was what they did. I saw clean, neatly dressed people walking around. The city and the station were full. I thought to myself, that I was probably dead, because my mother told me that we were “close to our graves”, and if people died, both children and adults, they went straight to heaven.” And when in Kaunas I saw one Russian and then another one, I woke up from that dream. My new life had started. When I started writing a book, I told people and to myself that this has been my second homeland. I was in Lithuania for the second time.” (2018 m.)