Armīna Lejiņa recenzija par Dzintras Gekas dokumentālo filmu
“KUR PALIKA TĒVI?”
Kad bija pagājusi kāda trešdaļa no filmas, mēs, divi skatītāji vienlaicīgi ierunājāmies: šī filma – labākā no visām Sibīrijas sērijas filmām. Pēc tam vēlāk izspriedāmies par tā laika briesmu darbiem un to, ka visa tā necilvēcīgā vardarbība, it kā kādos gēnos, tagad atplaukst Ukrainā, un t.s. civilizētā pasaule ne tad, ne vēlāk, ne tagad būtībā neko nevar padarīt…
1941.gada 14.jūnija deportācijā cieta 15425 Latvijas iedzīvotāji (latvieši, ebreji, krievi, poļi), tajā skaitā 3751 bērns vecumā līdz 16 gadiem. Izsūtīšanas laikā vīriešus atšķīra no ģimenēm un aizdzina uz Gulaga nometnēm, kur daudziem piesprieda augstāko soda mēru, bet citus sodīja ar ieslodzījumu nometnēs. 1941.gadā uz Sibīriju aizvestie bērni savus tēvus nav redzējuši, savās atmiņās viņi stāsta: “Tēvu pēdējo reizi redzēju stacijā. Viņu nobendēja Vjatlagā. No lielās dzimtas esmu palicis viens. Es varētu piedot par sevi. Bet par māti un tēvu nekad. Pareizi tas Putins saka, ka tā nebija okupācija. Tā bija visnežēlīgākā slepkavība.”
The 1949 deportations were one of the most tragic aspects of contemporary Latvian history. 43,000 people were deported to Siberia for life, with 10,000 infants and children, elderly people, and even people raised from their deathbed among them. 4,941 persons perished. Every fourth deportee was a child. Every sixth deportee was 60 or older.
The horrible first year of the Soviet occupation created things which were impossible during the previous 700 years. For the first time, Latvians who had suffered from Red terrorism, greeted the Germans as liberators, displaying much delight about the end of the Soviet o>ccupation. The joy was premature, however. The Nazis created a new occupation, and Latvia lost nearly 100,000 civilians, including nearly all of the Jews who had remained in Latvia in the beginning of July 1941. The path between lost independence and recovery of freedom was created by an illegal political organisation – the Latvian Central Council. Its leader was Konstantīns Čakste, son of Latvia’s first president, Jānis Čakste. The Latvian Central Council did not achieve anything. Some of its members were arrested by the secret police in 1944, while others were arrested by the KGB during the Soviet occupation. More than 2,000 of the members emigrated abroad, and the path toward the recovery of independence in 1991 was thus marked out. From 1941 until 1945, some 7,000 Latvians were imprisoned at a concentration camp in Stutthof. Documents show that several thousand of them died along with other prisoners. Professor Konstantīns Čakste served as an example of a selfless and unbending hero of the nation. He died one night in February 1945 as he was returning from the Stutthof camp. Freedom fighters are respected not just because they sacrifice their lives, but also, and especially, because their struggle relates to the rights of each nation to sovereignty and freedom.
2013. gadā filmai piešķirta balva “Gada labākā dokumentālā filma”
In 2011 we marked the 70thanniversary of the deportations of June 14, 1941, when 15,425 residents of Latvia (Latvians, Jews, Russians, Poles) were deported to Siberia. Among them there were 3,751 children aged up to 16.
During the process, men were separated from their families and sent to gulags, where many of them were sentenced to death, while others were imprisoned in labour camps. The facts of history and dry and few, but many of the victims and their children and grandchildren are still among us. Continue reading “Sibīrijas bilance, 2011”
Over the past centuries, Latvians have moved from their motherland to all corners of the globe. Some have been deported because they refused to obey regimes. Others have gone out into the world because they feel that they will have a happier and luckier life elsewhere. Still others have become refugees during wars and revolutions. Our compatriots were not welcomed everywhere with open arms, but it was only in the Soviet Union that the ethnicity of Latvians led to the development of a theory which said that each and every Latvian was a spy, a traitor, an enemy, or simply an undesirable person who needed to be shot as soon as possible.
The documentary “The Station ‘Latvians’, 1937”
Original Title Latvieši – 1937 – Latiši Documentary, 60’, Released 2010
Director Dzintra Geka Production Company Sibīrijas bērni Director and producer: Dzintra Geka Screenplay: Ēriks Lanss Camera: Aivars Lubānietis Editing: Armands Zvirbulis Video engineer: Jānis Kazulis Sound editor: Normunds Deinats Text: Aivars Stranga Consultant: Jānis Riekstiņš Assistant to the director: Baiba Ārenta
Songs from Siberian Latvians have been used as the soundtrack to this film.
According to the 1926 Soviet census, there were 151,410 Latvians living there – 18,346 in and around Leningrad, 10,583 in the Pskov District, 10,167 in Moscow, and 35,069 Latvians in Siberia. There were at least 372 Latvian colonies with 12,000 farms. Gaļina Strazdiņa, who lives in Kemerov, says that “soon we will all be gone. We are neither Latvians nor Russians because we do not speak our own language, we do not speak Latvian. What can I say about 1937? I was 14, no, 15. A Black Bertha came to our village and collected everyone – Latvians, Estonians, Russians, everyone. No one ever returned.” The “Latvian Operation” was headed up by Nikolai Yezhov, who issued the relevant instructions on November 30, 1937. 22,360 people were arrested, and 74% were sentenced to death. Although the focus of the operation was on Latvians, others who were accused of spying on behalf of Latvia were also caught up in the process. The greatest suffering occurred among innocent people whose only “crime” was that they were Latvians in the Soviet Union. The central figures in the film are the offspring of those who were repressed, and they were found in Moscow, Kemerov and Latvia. A train station in the Kemerov District is still called “Latvians.”
This film is an emotional, figurative and historical study of the memories of people who were deported to Siberia as children on June 14, 1941. The film represents the sufferings of these victims in contrast to the beautiful landscapes of Siberia.
On June 14, 2009, a film crew, a number of children of Siberia who survived and returned to Latvia, and their children went on a pilgrimage to Siberia to install memorial plaques in memory of the mothers and children who were deported between 1941 and 1949.
One person who took the trip was Gunārs Toms, who became an orphan after his father perished in Vyatlag. “I have to say that to this very day I have not recovered peace in my soul after what I saw and experienced during a 120-kilometre pilgrimage from the village where my mommy, Alvīne Toma, was arrested, to the “mighty” KGB building in Yeniseysk, where there were interrogation rooms and a dungeon in which people were shot,” he says. There was the cemetery of the prison. The former death camp is still surrounded by barbed wire. And, finally, we put up a memorial plaque in the local museum.”
Movie about returning to the north, in the past. Plahina, Agapitova, Igarka and other giant counties are the edge of the northern land, where Ilmārs Knaģis ended up in 1941, when together with 4 thousand children from Latvia he was deported to Siberia. In the fall of 1942, 700 mothers and children of different nationalities landed on Death Island in Agapitova, around 60 people were saved, including 6 Latvian children – Biruta Kazaka, Pavels Kliesbergs, Venta and Ilmārs Grāvīši, Pēteris Bērziņš, Valentīna Voišiša. The memories are poignant, even incredible. In the leisurely course of the film, we will see the old men who stayed in Siberia, whose dream of returning to Latvia has disappeared, their lives have been spent in exile.
Question remains, why it happened and why there is nobody to blame? Maybe this endless return is search for time taken away? North deported generation turns into frozen land of ice and water. Those remaining disappears day by day. I am still desperately trying to stop time. In the hope that my words will not leave with me. – In fact, I did not forget. However, many seem to have seen a motion picture. Too incredible it was. But thousands and thousands tens of millions have experienced something similar here, and more violent. All our nowadays mind is raped and distorted that the events which there is no similar in the history of mankind, now seems normal … (I.Knaģis)
Documentary film
Agapitova and the Rescued. Y 2009, 54′
Scenario
Ēriks Lanss
Director
Dzintra Geka
Music
Pēteris Vasks
Operator
Aivars Lubānietis
Editor
Armands Zvirbulis
Installation and sound editing
Jānis Kazulis
Video graphics
Edgars Lūsiņš
Assistant director
Baiba Kazule
(c) Studija SB 2009
(c) Dzintra Geka 2009
Thanks Latvian Embassy in Moscow and Latvians to Siberia for their contribution
Film was supported by National Film Center and Culture Foundation of Latvia
A Documentary Film “Konstantīns”
