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DP CAMP LOHENGRIN
We arrived in Munich in the afternoon and spent another hour on the tram getting, as told, to the last stop. From there the DP camp was across the field. It was dark when we stepped off the tram and beyond the circle illumined by street lights we could see nothing. In which direction to go? One other passenger got off the tram and, seeing our confusion, approached us offering to help. It turned out that he lived in the camp. Since the field we had to cross was plowed and the footpath narrow, we took the wheels off the box and leaving them there, put the valise on top of the box. The men picked it up and started walking. I followed them with Guodele in my arms.
It was drizzling. In the distance faint lights were flickering and, unable to see the men in front of me, I aimed for the lights. I must have wandered off the path for when Vytautas called me, I was far to the side and treading mud. Wet and freezing I caught up with them and we finally made it to the camp. The compound of three-story buildings (a pre-war army training camp) was well lit and only then did I notice that the baby's legs were naked and blue cold, the diaper and the blanket having been lost along the way. The kind stranger pointed to one of the three buildings and said, this is the Lithuanian wing.
We entered the building late in the evening, asked for Juozas, and were shown to his room. His family was already in bed. For the night we were put in a room with ten or more other people sleeping on the floor. Early next morning Juozas took Vytautas to register us in the camp, and after breakfast in the cafeteria he took us to brother Antanas who, with his wife and their five-year-old daughter, occupied a large room by themselves. They took us in. Two bunk beds were brought in and the long table was placed in the middle to separate the room into their and our territories.
What followed was for me the hardest period of the two years in Germany. There was no privacy. The sister-in-law did not take kindly to me, especially when I came back from the clothing dispensary wearing striped blue overalls and army boots two sizes too big. Our daughter cried at night and unless I quieted her by rocking the baby carriage the camp provided, I heard them toss in their beds. To prevent myself from falling asleep, I hammered a nail half-way into the short post of the bunk bed and rested my temple on it while I kept rocking Guodele night after night. What seemed to irritate my sister-in-law the most was that after we finished eating the meal picked up in the cafeteria, I occasionally allowed myself to sit at the table and have a cigarette with the men, while she cleaned her side of the table right away and was out the door the next minute to wash the dishes. When she told Vytautas that his wife was unprepared to keep house, he answered, "I did not marry a housekeeper." The older sister-in-law, wife of Juozas, was friendlier but I saw her maybe three or four times during our entire stay.
Some time after our arrival the three of us had a medical checkup and Vytautas told the doctor that he had TB and would need care every ten days. The camp administration decided that his presence endangered other people and a few days later he was taken to a sanatorium, a train ride away. For the next five or so months, Guodele and I lived among people I had difficulty relating to. When I visited my husband I found him sleeping on a mattress on the floor, one of many people in the room. He looked well, said they took good care of him and the food was better than in camp. The beds were expected to arrive any day.
In camp during the day Antanas, also an elected official, was either reading a newspaper or dashing in and out of the room to meetings. Once Vytautas was gone, women gathered in the room daily, comparing the used clothing distributed to refugees also by the United Nations Relief Agency. Dresses and jackets were tried on, alterations made, a sewing machine shared, clothing sewn for their children and for themselves. There was no escaping the constant chatter. Careful not to cross the territorial divide I would sit on my bed trying to read a left-behind paper, or snooze with Guodele beside me or leave her with the women to wash the diapers. Anyone could recognize my diapers hanging on the line from afar—all were marked with brown spots. No one bothered to show me how to wash them clean.
At first I responded to the women's questions, but from the start my comments evoked either a subdued giggle or silence. When Guodele was quiet, I pretended to sleep. No longer attempting to involve me in their activities, the women started whispering, avoiding eye contact. But then, all church-goers, they started to talk in measured and carefully punctuated voices about religion, how for centuries people depended on the teachings of the church to guide them, especially in difficult times. Attempting to enlighten me, they emphasized that no one in their right mind could deny God's existence and only those who did not think could be non-believers. I pretended not to hear. But when in the evening my in-laws talked as if to each other about the necessity of willpower, the virtues of duty and the pitfalls of selfish indulgences, I would slip outside and head for the wood piles. There, inside a stack of firewood, children had made a space to hide in. There I would cry. I harbored no anger, only a deep sadness that life had come to this. I did not feel misunderstood because there was little to misunderstand as from the start I spoke seldom and neither argued nor tried to explain myself. Silence was my defense. Before Christmas I stopped talking altogether and did not utter a single word for several months until Vytautas came back.
Christmas came and went. The calendar turned from 1945 to 1946. Spring came around. Equipped with bottles and lunch saved from the day before, Guodele and I would disappear for the day. The huge sky above the wide-open fields, the warm sun, the lark full of song, brought me to myself. During those days Guodele and I found each other again. I talked to her, I sang to her and could not wait to tell Vytautas that I was no longer in the dumps. I found him in the same room, still on the floor. This time however the person next to him looked in his last throes—he lay with eyes closed, breathing heavily, skin loose on his face, drops of caked blood in the corner of his pale lips, blood on the pillow case. While I was there, he convulsed coughing. Vytautas leaned over, handed him a tissue, pulled up the blanket. You are not staying here, I whispered, we are going home. He pulled his clothes from under the mattress, got dressed and we sneaked out of the sanatorium and took the train back to camp.
Brother Juozas legitimized Vytautas's return and his food rations were reinstated. We asked for extra blankets and hung them on a line to separate our part from the rest of the room, each side with a window of its own. Finally Guodele slept well at night. Cozily talking in whispers we were eager to start working. One other brother of Vytautas had married an English woman and resided in Newcastle, England, and Vytautas wrote asking whether he could send him a few wood-carving chisels. Before long Vytautas received the parcel. Out of a block of firewood Vytautas carved a vigilant mother protecting her child. Out of a piece of linden wood, obtained in exchange for cigarettes, he carved St. Veronica in high relief and it was suggested by the camp's administration that he give it to the American director of our UNRA camp. She paid us a visit and assured us that the emigration offices in town would open soon, suggesting that we prepare for it and be among the first in line. Vytautas reminded his brother-in- law in New York that an affidavit would be needed soon.
Learning that people with TB were not granted a visa, we went to a lung specialist in Munich. Though we had the old x-ray with us, we did not show it to the doctor. After hearing the history, the doctor examined him, took an x-ray. Coming back after a while, he asked, "Why are you talking about TB when there is no sign of it?" We showed him the old x-ray.
"The shadow is gone, it must have healed, the lungs are clear. How under the circumstances did you manage that?" Turning to me Vytautas smiled and said, "She takes care of me."
In case we needed proof during the official examination, the doctor gave us a letter stating that the lungs were normal. We could hardly restrain our joy or believe our luck.
A friend of my parents, Dr. Domas Jasaitis, was a refugee representative in the Red Cross in Munich, where the American Occupation Headquarters were. From him I learned that my brother was also in Munich, serving as translator in German, English, Russian and Polish for the American military government court for civilians. It was a delight to see each other and for me to meet his wife and their two-year-old daughter. Working for Americans he was well supplied with chocolate, biscuits and cigarettes and shared the goodies with us.
For months nothing happened. In June we received a letter from the Art Institute's former director saying that under the auspices of the French military government he was forming an art school in Freiburg. He invited Vytautas to join the staff and make a list of equipment and materials needed. Tired of waiting for America, we went to Freiburg. And what a respite it was. We had a small apartment to ourselves in an old house, flower beds lining the winding narrow street, the taste of life centuries old. The whole town was in bloom, market stalls loaded with fresh salads, radishes, cucumbers and strawberries we had not seen for several years. To be by ourselves yet also part of some ancient order was a most welcome relief from the tensions in camp. Five weeks later we received a summons from the immigration offices in Munich to appear for a physical examination.
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