Welcome back

Hi everyone, welcome back to cysfilm. It’s alive! Kind of! I took a big break from the blog to finish editing Bush League and to think about how I can be better at all of this. To start with, I wanted to redesign the site so it looked a little more professional but also so it could support more. Many thanks to my fellow CalArtian Stephanie Chen for the clean new design and to Jay Tillery who is programming it.

The site should be finished in the coming weeks so please come back soon for updates on Bush League and Indentured, which both premiere this October. Beyond that, I’m going to try and be a better blogger by being more concise and reaching out to interview other filmmakers and tell stories other than my own. Please don’t ever hesitate to contact me if there is something you’d like more or less of. I realize my name is on the front door but I’d like everyone to feel at home here.

Thanks again, Cy

New Holga Shots

Holgas are the Russian tractor of the photography world. Its a 15 dollar plastic camera with a plastic lens that takes medium format film. They leak light, have no adjustments for aperture, focus or shutter speed and the viewfinder is completely inaccurate. But they can take some great pictures. After shooting nothing but digitals for years now, its fun to shoot real film and wait for the results. The shot in the Charles De Gaulle airport is hands down the most popular picture I've ever taken. It's getting me more love and affection on flickr than I've ever gotten. Almost didn't take it cause I was afraid of airport security. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/2385954338/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/2385118573/

Lithuanian Jewry Posts, May - June 2007

(The following is a string of posts from the old cysfilm blog. Some of the dates have been lost so I compiled all into one post. It's messy but interesting sutff.) Lithuanian Jewry, Entry #3, June 11, 07

May 29, 07 I wrote:

Thanks for the information Ann, its enlightening. Can you tell me more about the documents you're sourcing? I'd also like to learn more about the Kupiskis police officer/triggerman that was turned up in Chicago. I believe you followed that case? Best, Cy

June 2, 07 Ann Rabinowitz replied:

Dear Cy:

I believe that you are referring to the following person in Kupiskis: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2002/January/02crm012.htm

Ann Rabinowitz

(The link Ann sent is to the following Dept of Justice document concerning Petras Bernotavius who participated in the murder of the Kupiskis Jews. To read the document click 'continue reading' below)

Department of Justice Seal Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2002 WWW.USDOJ.GOV CRM

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MOVES TO REVOKE U.S. CITIZENSHIP OF FORMER DEPUTY TO NAZI OFFICIAL RESPONSIBLE FOR MASS KILLINGS

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice today initiated proceedings to revoke the U.S. citizenship of a Lockport, Illinois man based on his participation in the persecution and murder of Jews and other civilians during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania in 1941.

The complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, alleges that Peter John Bernes (a/k/a Petras Bernotavi ius), 79, worked during the summer of 1941 as the deputy to Werner Loew, a Nazi-appointed mayor and police commander assigned to Kupiškis, Lithuania.

The complaint alleges that Bernes participated directly in the process of removing condemned prisoners from jail so they could be taken to nearby killing sites. During those months, more than 1,000 Jewish men, women, and children – approximately one-fourth of the town's population – were murdered in Kupiškis by armed men under Loew's command. More than 300 other local residents, among them a nine-year-old boy, were arrested and murdered as political prisoners. Bernes worked in an office near the overcrowded jail where victims were held without adequate food and beaten before being shot to death.

Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division, said, "The case against Bernes demonstrates the Justice Department's commitment to ensure that individuals who participated in genocide and other crimes against humanity find no refuge in the United States, regardless of when those atrocities occurred."

OSI Director Eli M.. Rosenbaum added, "Although more than 1,000 Jews were living in Kupiškis when the Nazis arrived, not a single man, woman or child survived their murderous spree." During the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, some 190,000 Jews, approximately 94% of the Jewish population, were killed by the Nazis and local collaborators.

Bernes immigrated from Germany in 1947 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in Chicago in 1954. The complaint states that he was not eligible to immigrate to the United States under visa regulations that barred the entry of any person who had "acquiesced in activities or conduct contrary to civilization and human decency" on behalf of the wartime Axis powers.

The proceedings to denaturalize Bernes are a result of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution residing in this country. Since OSI began operations in 1979, 66 Nazi persecutors have been stripped of U.S. citizenship, and 54 such individuals have been removed from the United States.

Additionally, more than 150 suspected Nazi persecutors have been stopped at U.S. ports of entry and barred from entering the country as a result of OSI's watchlist border control program. OSI has nearly 200 U.S. residents currently under active investigation.

L i t h u a n i a n   J e w r y ,   E n t r y   # 4 ,   J u n e   1 1 ,   0 7

( G e r a l d   P e a r l m a n   w a s   a   P e a c e   C o r p s   V o l u n t e e r   i n   m y   g r o u p ,   L i t h u a n i a   0 0 - 0 2 )

O n   J u n e   1 1 ,   0 7   G e r a l d   P e a r l m a n   w r o t e :

S e r i a l   2   ‚ ¨     J e w s

E v e n   b e f o r e   I   c a m e   h e r e   t o   L i t h u a n i a   I   w o n d e r e d   a b o u t   m y   r e a c t i o n   t o   a   c o u n t r y   w h i c h   h a d   c o l l a b o r a t e d   w i t h   H i t l e r ‚ ¨!" s   G e r m a n y   t o   k i l l   o f f   a l m o s t   i t s   e n t i r e   J e w i s h   p o p u l a t i o n .   T h o u g h   I   h a v e   l i v e d   i n   C a l i f o r n i a   m o r e   t h a n   h a l f   m y   l i f e   w h e r e   t h e r e   i s   n o w h e r e   n e a r   t h e   e t h n i c   i d e n t i t y   p o c k e t s   t h a t   a r e   p a r t   a n d   p a r c e l   o f   e a s t   c o a s t   l i f e ,   I   s t i l l   w o n d e r e d .   O n c e   h e r e   I   n o   l o n g e r   w o n d e r e d .   I   t h o u g h t   l o n g   a n d   h a r d   a b o u t   w h a t   I   f o u n d   h e r e   a n d   I   d i s c o v e r e d   i n   m y s e l f   a   J e w i s h   i d e n t i t y   s u b m e r g e d   i n   t h e   a s p i r a t i o n   t o   f r e e d o m   t h a t   C a l i f o r n i a   s o   l o n g   r e p r e s e n t e d .

I t   b e g a n   i n   t h e   G e n o c i d e   M e m o r i a l   P a r k   o u t s i d e   t h e   c i t y   o f   A l y t u s ,   w h e r e   t h e   m a j e s t y   o f   t h e   m o n u m e n t s ,   e s p e c i a l l y   t h e   B r o k e n   S t a r   o f   D a v i d ,   s e t   i n   t h e   s o m b e r   b e a u t y   o f   t h e   f o r e s t   m o v e d   m e   t o   t e a r s .   H a n n a h   A r e n d t   w r i t e s   c o n v i n c i n g l y   a b o u t   t h e   p h e n o m e n o n   w h i c h   s h e   d e s i g n a t e s   ‚ ¨ S t h e   b a n a l i t y   o f   e v i l ‚ ¨ ù .   T h e   e v e r y   d a y   a c c e p t a n c e   o f   t h e   m o n s t r o u s   a c t s   t h a t   c h a r a c t e r i z e   s o   m u c h   o f   h u m a n   h i s t o r y   d o e s   s e e m   l i k e   a n   i n e s c a p a b l e   t r u t h .   G r e a t   m a s s e s   o f   i n n o c e n t   h u m a n i t y   h a v e   b e e n   e l i m i n a t e d   t h r o u g h o u t   r e c o r d e d   h i s t o r y   f o r   n o   f a u l t   o f   t h e i r   o w n   s a v e   b e i n g   i n   t h e   w r o n g   p l a c e   a t   t h e   w r o n g   t i m e .

A n d   t h e r e   i s   s o   m u c h   o f   t h i s   u n w a r r a n t e d   d e s t r u c t i o n   o f   t h e   i n n o c e n t ,   i t   l e n d s   i t s e l f   e a s i l y   t o   b e i n g   c o n s i d e r e d   ‚ ¨ S b a n a l ‚ ¨ ù .   E s p e c i a l l y   w h e n   r e g a r d e d   f r o m   t h e   p e r s p e c t i v e   o f   h i s t o r y   w h i c h   h a p p e n e d   l o n g   a g o   o r   g e o g r a p h y   w h i c h   r e m o v e s   i t   a   g r e a t   d i s t a n c e   f r o m   w h e r e   y o u   h a p p e n   t o   b e .   I   , h o w e v e r ,   w a s   s t a n d i n g   r i g h t   o n   t o p   o f   t h e   g r a v e s   o f   a t   l e a s t   1 0 , 0 0 0   i n n o c e n t   s o u l s   s l a u g h t e r e d   o n l y   b e c a u s e   t h e y   w e r e   b o r n   a s   J e w s .   T h e   e v i l   w a s   n o   l o n g e r   b a n a l   b u t   q u i t e   p a l p a b l e   a s   t h e   e n o r m i t y   o f   t h i s   c r i m i n a l   a c t   s u n k   d e e p e r   w i t h i n   m e .

I   n o w   b e g a n   t o   c o n s i d e r   w h a t   h a p p e n e d   h e r e   i n   L i t h u a n i a   i n   e a r n e s t   i n   a   w a y   I   n e v e r   c o u l d   i n   A m e r i c a .   I   r e m e m b e r e d   i n s t a n c e s   o f   a n t i   ‚ ¨   s e m i t i s m   f r o m   m y   y o u t h   b u t   i t   w a s   a   h a l f   c e n t u r y   a g o .   A l t h o u g h   i t   i s   c l e a r   t h a t   s o m e   d e r a n g e d   g r o u p s   s t i l l   e s p o u s e   h a r d   c o r e   a n t i - s e m i t i s m ,   i t   i s   a n c i e n t   h i s t o r y   f o r   m o d e r n   A m e r i c a .   B e s i d e s   q u o t a s   i n   s c h o o l s   a n d   l a c k   o f   a d m i s s i o n   t o   t h e   l o c a l   c o u n t r y   c l u b   c o m e s   n o w h e r e   n e a r   t h e   m u r d e r   o f   h u n d r e d s   o f   t h o u s a n d s   o f   i n n o c e n t   p e o p l e .

A n d   i t   w a s   d e f i n i t e l y   m u r d e r   i n   m y   m i n d .   I   n o   l o n g e r   h a v e   a n y   u s e   f o r   t h e   t e r m   ‚ ¨ S a n t i - s e m i t i s m ‚ ¨ ù   b e c a u s e   i t   s e e m s   t o   r a i s e   w h a t   w a s   e s s e n t i a l l y   a c t s   o f   m u r d e r   a n d   t h e f t   t o   s o m e t h i n g   m o r e   i d e o l o g i c a l .   A   d o c t r i n e   p e r h a p s ,   a l b e i t   m i s g u i d e d ,   b u t   s o m e t h i n g   l a r g e   g r o u p s   o f   p e o p l e   c a n   e n t e r t a i n   a s   b e l i e v a b l e .   T h e r e   i s   b o t h   c o m f o r t   a n d   l a c k   o f   r e s p o n s i b i l i t y   i n   l a r g e   n u m b e r s .   I f   a   s i n g l e   i n d i v i d u a l   c o m m i t s   m u r d e r   a n d   s t e a l s   a n d   i s   a p p r e h e n d e d ,   c h a n c e s   a r e   t h e y   w i l l   b e   p u n i s h e d   ( m o r e   s o   i f   t h e y   a r e   p o o r   a n d   f r o m   t h e   l o w e r   c l a s s e s ) .   B u t   l e t   m a s s e s   o f   p e o p l e   b e h i n d   a   s t a t e   p o l i c y   c o m m i t   m u r d e r ;   l e t   t h e m   s t e a l   w h a t   i s   n o t   r i g h t f u l l y   t h e i r s ,   a n d   i t   i s   m o r e   l i k e l y   t h e y   w i l l   e s c a p e   p u n i s h m e n t .   A n t i - s e m i t i s m   w i l l   n o t   e x c u s e   t h e i r   a c t i o n   e n t i r e l y ,   b u t   i t   w i l l   s o m e h o w   r a i s e   t h e i r   a c t i o n   a b o v e   t h e   g r o s s   a c t s   o f   m u r d e r   a n d   t h e f t   t h a t   i n   t r u t h   t h e y   w e r e .

T h e   f a c t s   a r e   t h a t   t h e   J e w s   o w n e d   a   g r e a t   d e a l   o f   p r e w a r   L i t h u a n i a   d e s p i t e   a   h i s t o r y   o f   a n t i - S e m i t i s m   t h a t   g o e s   a s   f a r   b a c k   a s   L i t h u a n i a n   h i s t o r y   i t s e l f .   T h e y   c o n s t i t u t e d   t h e   m a j o r i t y   o f   t h e   p o p u l a t i o n   i n   a l l   o f   t h e   m a j o r   c i t i e s ,   r a n   m o s t   o f   t h e   b u s i n e s s e s   a n d   o p e r a t e d   m o s t   o f   t h e   f a c t o r i e s .   E t h n i c   L i t h u a n i a n s   l i v e d   b y   c o n t r a s t   m a i n l y   i n   r u r a l   v i l l a g e s   a n d   w e r e   e n g a g e d   b y   a n d   l a r g e   i n   a g r i c u l t u r e .   T h e   J e w s   d i d   n o t   s t e a l   t h e i r   w a y   i n t o   p r o m i n e n c e ,   t h e y   e a r n e d   t h e i r   p o s i t i o n   o f   w e a l t h .   A n d   i t   w o u l d   b e   a   g r o s s   m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g   t o   b e l i e v e   t h a t   a l l   J e w s   w e r e   e q u a l l y   s u c c e s s f u l .

S o   t h e r e   y o u   h a v e   i t .   I f   t h e r e   w a s   a n y m o r e   t o   t h i s   p i e c e ,   I   c a n ' t   f i n d   i t .   " n e v e r   a g a i n "   t u r n s   o u t   t o   b e   " h e r e   w e   g o   a g a i n "   a s   g e n o c i d e   c o n t i n u e s   t o   w a x   m i g h t i l y   i n   a l l   p a r t s   o f   t h e   w o r l d   a n d   u n d e r   d i f f e r e n t   n a m e s .

T r i e d   t o   a c c e s s   t h e   v i d e o   y o u   d i d   o n   M a l a w i   b u t   c o u l d n ' t   q u i t e   m a n a g e   t h e   p r o c e s s .

B e s t

G e r a l d   P e a r l m a n

On May 1, 2007 Sally Mizroch wrote:

Hi Cy, Long time no e-mail. I've been doing some databasing of some translated Lithuanian vital records, but I still haven't had a chance to write up details of my trip last August. I have a "deadline" looming, somewhat, because my brother will be visiting Lithuania next month and I want to give him some background to our family's ancestral places.

I have some questions for you, though. I've been e-mailing with an Israeli cousin (our grandmothers were cousins from Kedainiai). She is also researching family history.

I'm trying wrap my head around the events of 1941 (as best as I can, it's impossible, really). My cousin thinks that the Germans had many Lithuanian collaborators, more than in other countries. She thinks this is why such a large percentage of Lithuanian Jews were killed.

As an additional example, her mother was on good terms with a German family (she studied German with the father). Her mother was even invited to a party at their house. Then, afterwards, her mother found out that this German was one of the first collaborators with the Nazis.

I know you've done a lot of research on what happened in 1941. Can you give me (us) your sense of the magnitude of the Lithuanian collaboration, what the locals knew while the genocide was happening, etc?

Best regards, Sally

On 5/7/07, Cy Kuckenbaker wrote:

Hi Sally, good to hear from you.

Well, I guess my short answer is that there was substantial assistance from Lithuanians, but the active participation was not necessarily in large numbers. In the village I'm most familiar with, Kupiskis, there were only about five or six Lithuanians collaborators out of the approximately 6000 people in the town. From what I've been able to learn so far, this is what I've come to understand:

Some Background:

Lithuania's short period of sovereignty from the end of WWI to 1940 was an intense period during which the nation worked very hard to rewrite and reform its identity. Like other nationalist movements, the basis for national identity emphasized ethnicity, language and the motherland. This left the Jewish community out since they were (sometimes) different in appearance and spoke Yiddish in their community. It also may be noteworthy that during this time in Lithuanian literature, there was an intense connection to the land of Lithuania as a basis for identity. The Jewish literary tradition had much less emphasis on nature, and as a traditionally stateless people, didn't really need it. There is also a linguistic element, in the Lithuanian language usage; a man is almost always 'a Jew' not 'Jewish'. The objectification is subtle enough, but something I always feel when I speak with people. This usage seems to be an artifact of the grammar rather than an expression of bias, but the logic within it feels divisive to my American/English speaking sensibility. Likewise, the noun Lithuanian describes the ethnicity as well as the nationality. So Jews were not necessarily considered Lithuanians.

There is a long tradition of blood-libel stories in Lithuania against Jews that is emblematic of a general mythology that casts Jews as outsiders and competition to Christianity. The standard version is that the local Jews would kidnap a Catholic baby, wrap it in a sheet, then put it in a barrel full of nails or glass and roll it down a hill. Then the blood soaked fabric would be cut up and distributed as an ingredient in flat bread during Passover. I've heard this story, or variations of it multiple times. When it was told (its no longer common) it was told in a very similar context as a ghost story. The first man I met who told me about the stories was 83 and he heard it from his grandmother in Skapiskis.

In pre WWII Lithuania, Lithuanians were the farmers and Jews were the traders and shop keepers. There was an economic divide. Among Lithuanians, there was a the notion that the Jews worked together against them. If you ask a Lithuanian today why the Jews were killed, some will say: because the Jews weren't good to Lithuanians. This perception was propagated by plenty of politicians through out history toward one end or another and even today is a convenient excuse. In fact Jews probably held more capital, but there were plenty of poor Jews as well.

1941:

By 1941 the Lithuanians were already a heavily traumatized society. They had learned to rely on passive aggression to survive under the Tsar and other occupiers. They had very little tradition of public protest and had rarely succeeded in resisting occupation except by clinging to their language and traditions. During the first Soviet occupation (40-41), the Lithuanian social and political leadership was completely removed, so in the political vacuum of the Soviet retreat in June 1941 you can imagine how easily chaos reigned. It's also important to note that Lithuania was not an armed country. Very few private citizens owned firearms, and the small militarization that took place between wars, was just that, small.

The politics of 1941 are sticky. When the Russians reoccupied in 1940, they expanded the rights of Lithuanian Jews to participate in public life and politics. That compounded resentment among the Lithuanians. Lithuanians, in general, preferred a German occupation. They'd been suppressed by the Russians for a hundred plus years under the Tsar and certainly didn't want to go back. When I talk with old folks who remember the gossip, one standard rumor concerns Lithuanian Jews learning to speak Russian 'too quickly'. In my opinion this social compression and polarization during Russian occupation is the real set up for the horror that follows the Russian retreat. Imagine a tiny nation dead center between Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia, in a time when people had to choose a side.

When the Germans invaded in 41, it was still very early in the war and Hitler's final solution hadn't even been made policy yet. The Nazis used Lithuania as a testing ground, so their methods are inconsistent over time and place. In general, machine gun bullets are what killed almost everyone. I don't know a whole lot about this, but I do know that there was a group called Rolling Commandos, among the Nazi units assigned to Lithuania. In the larger cities like Vilnius and Kaunas they used a ghetto system, but in the country it was different. With the help of locals they would simply round up the Jewish community and march them out to a preselected area (often for cover and soft soil) and machine gun one group at a time. In Kupiskis, a small jail was used to centralize people before being walked to the mass grave and killed. What's impossible to comprehend is how they killed children. The Kupiskis memorial that was just put up in the synagogue in 2004 lists the names and ages of each person killed. There were many very small children and babies. I've been able to figure out a lot about those events, but I can't fathom how anyone did that. When the killing was done, the Jewish property was centralized and redistributed. An eye witness in Skapiskis described seeing one of the local Lithuanian triggermen walking through the square with two fur coats on and a machine gun over his shoulder.

So now about Lithuanian participation. Yes, absolutely, many of the triggermen and much of the organization was carried out by Lithuanians collaborating with the Nazi's. In Kupiskis I don't think there was more than a hand full of Nazis even present. According to an eyewitness, two Nazi officers over saw and photographed the four to five Lithuanian perpetrators. They took the photos as 'proof' that the killing was taken out by Lithuanians and not Germans. The Lithuanians who helped included local police and the police chief. So it's very odd that so few men, probably less than ten in all, were able to kill nearly every Jew in the town (the pre-war Jewish pop was app 1400), but they did. Bigots did the killing, but it was made so easy because of fear, complacents and a more passive form of bigotry on the part of average Lithuanians.

I don't know exactly why the percentage of Lithuanian Jews killed is so high, but I suspect a couple things. First, it's a very small country, you can cross it in a day and there are virtually no geographic barriers. Second, the Jewish population was large, well defined, and they were essentially the first. Though very few Jewish communities anywhere had any idea what was really coming, the Lithuanian communities had no time what so ever to react. The German attack on Russia was so fast and so successful, Lithuania was in German hands almost instantly.

Today:

Today's dialog about the Lithuanian Jewish holocaust has a very unusual character. Where we see the German national psyche has struggled for 60 years now to rectify itself, and establish an open dialog about the event, no such thing exists yet in Lithuania for two reasons. The first is that Lithuanians claim their own holocaust under the Soviets in which 130 – 300 thousand people were deported to the Gulag. Because this 'Lithuanian Holocaust' is generally unrecognized world wide, there are no museums, few memorials etc; there is a sense of competition and again, resentment, that Lithuanians should have to recognize the Jewish holocaust when no one is recognizing theirs. Rationally, it doesn't make any sense because the events were based on completely different dynamics, one was internal, one was external, etc, but emotionally, to the Lithuanians it's the same thing.

The second reason is because under 50 years of Soviet rule, the history was scrubbed clean so to speak. The Russians reoccupied in 1944 after the defeat of the Wehrmacht, put the perpetrators of the Jewish holocaust on trial, executed those they could find, built memorials then tucked the whole matter away. Many Jews who survived or returned were required to abandon their religious practices in the new atheistic Soviet Lithuania; so many of the Jews in today's democratic Lithuanian community have forgotten the old traditions. During Soviet times there was no rigor, no real research on the holocaust, so you could say that Holocaust studies only really started in Lithuania during the 1990s, and its way behind.

My Personal Perspective:

Being neither Jewish nor Lithuanian, I think people need to get past the specific labels if they're going to understand it constructively. The Israeli dialog can be extremely aggressive, and Lithuanians are very defensive and would rather stick their heads in the sand than look at reality straight. What everyone needs to figure out is that genocide is not about good and evil. Genocide, as far as I'm concerned, is a human behavior and unfortunately, it happens all the time, though rarely on this scale. In the generic western version of the Jewish holocaust, the Nazi's are evil and they used a giant mechanized system to murder on in incomprehensible scale. So how do we extract meaning from this version of an event? The character of the Lithuanian Jewish holocaust is such that I think enormous understanding can be drawn from it, constructive understanding. The motivations that stoked it, which drove it along, don't come from monsters, we all have them and we've all felt them. The abstraction of the holocaust into the realm of myth, of monsters and evil, seems enormously problematic to me, a long hard look at what happened in Lithuania and anyone can see, it's a tragedy full of average people on both sides who are just like us.

Hope this helps Sally, I"ve struggled to get a grip on what happened there. Sometimes the only way for me to understand it, is by thinking about the L.A. riot. First there's a long compression, then a spark. The difference is, in Lithuania the official effort was to keep it going rather than stop it.

Take care, Cy

Thanks, Cy,

I think it's important to get this information (and perspective) into people's heads. It's instructive and horrifying that this type of thing can happen anywhere there's a oppressed population. The scale of what occurred in Lithuania is outrageous, but I don't think people saw it coming. I wonder what they could have done, if they'd figured out what was in store for them.

The Lithuanian nationality thing is interesting to consider. My relatives were at least tri-lingual. My father and his family grew up speaking Russian, Lithuanian and Yiddish (though he never spoke those languages here in the US). My great-grandfather was a 2nd guild merchant in the Russian system and I think he was quite a wealthy man. My grandfather and siblings were rich kids, well dressed and well educated. They lived in Svedasai, then Kupiskis, then Panemunelis. I imagine the kids went to school in Panevezys and Kaunas. My grandmother's brother was an eye doctor in Kedainiai and my grandfather's sister was a dentist in Panevezys (married to a doctor). They were well settled and contributory members of their society.

Do you think that the young Lithuanians would be fearful if Jews tried to establish a presence again in Lithuania?

Is it OK to forward your e-mail to my cousin Tami in Israel, the one who first raised the issue about her mixed feelings about Lithuanians? Her aunt Dina left Lithuania in the late 1930s as a young woman, and maybe Tami can gently get Dina's perspective on the relationship between the Jews and the Lithuanians (i.e., the Litvaks and the Lithuanians) as she remembers it.

My brother works for the US Dept of Energy and will be traveling to Latvia and Lithuania next month. I'm hoping to write up some of the family history for him before he goes, in case he has some time to visit the old villages. Is there anyone in Kupiskis (or elsewhere) he should meet?

Sally

On 5/15/07, Cy Kuckenbaker wrote:

Sorry for the long delay Sally,

Yeah, please do forward this on to Israel, I'd be really interested to hear her perspectives.

About Lithuanians being fearful today if Jews reestablished themselves, I'd say yes, probably and unfortunately. Today's Lithuania has a brand of anti-Semitism that's purely mythical. Unlike their grandparents who, bias or not, probably knew a lot of Jewish people, today's kids don't really know anything about Jewish society, but a lot of the old feelings and myths are still apparent. The product is pretty aggravating since a lot of young people are bias toward a people they've never seen or heard.

In 2005 Israel released a list of (former) Jewish properties in Lithuania and it was all over the papers. It was presented as a kind of assault on Lithuania and was also a demonstration of the enormous presence that community had. Every town and village had properties on the list, most had several including Kupiskis. One of the properties there is now the vice mayors home, so you can imagine the tension that created. Capturing the momentum are a few politicians including a nut in Siaulai who established a political party based on anti-Semitism. The group is small but because they're controversial and aggressive, they were catching front page attention regularly in 2005. In the vacuum, with few counter points, these things have a disturbing amount of sway. All this said, in general, Lithuania is not a hostile place. Any person identifiable as a Jew like some of the Orthodox rabbi that have visited can expect to be cat called, but that's about it.

Would you mind if I blogged our exchange? There are some other people I like to invite to weigh in on all this.

Cy

Hi Cy, I'm happy to have our exchanges blogged. There desperately needs to be more discussion about these issues.

My family was settled in Lithuania for at least a couple hundred years and they must have loved their home country. And they must have co-existed peacefully with most of their neighbors. When my grandmother and her 4 little kids returned home to Keidan in 1922-1923 after their exile (starting in 1915) into the Ukraine, they visited Lithuanian homes to get back some of the belongings they had to leave behind. My aunt told me the story of going to visit Lithuanian families and getting their stuff back. I had the impression that these people were their friends and they were holding family stuff for safekeeping. It had to be. My grandfather was already in the US and my grandmother couldn't have gotten the stuff back by force.

I'll send along your e-mail to my cousin and cc you and she can be part of the discussion.

Sally

Cy Kuckenbaker :: 05.28.07 :: Permalink

comments (1) dalia venckuviene:

Hello Sally and Cy , nice to hear from you both , its amazing how you Cy understand our nations mentality and other feathures of ours , we agree with your opinions about holocaust , and we really see in our nation , that we are not people of city or town , we belong to farmers , villages mentality , this is one of the main reasons why we dont want to see the reality of our history , not just connected with holocaust but in other spheres as well.But what we really are afraid of that yoth will not remember and want to hear these things , its a very painful topic , now almost everyone is involved in their material world. Well , Sally your brother is welcome to Kupiskis , we will stay in Kupiskis all June , so dont hesitate please , just write when he is coming , we will try to help as much as we can . We will be in touch .

Lithuanian Jewry, Entry #2, May 2007

On May 29th, Ann Rabinowitz wrote:

Thanks for your note.

One of things I learned from materials I have had translated from the Lithuanian is that there was a pervasive envy and underlying dislike of the Jews in the towns and villages. Why you may ask?

Due to their being restricted from the countryside and farming occupations by the Tzar, their only choice was to form the basis of the economic life of the towns and villages. This is where they usually centered themselves around the communities main squares where their businesses bloomed.

The Lithuanians felt that they were not in the same league as equal competitors in this urban economy. As a result, restrictive laws were passed that prevented the Jews from participating in a growing number of occupations.

It was not until WWI that this issue of economic competition really became apparent. For the most part, during the War, Jews were sent into Russia for several years leaving behind an economic vacuum.

The Lithuanians eagerly filled this vacuum and took over the businesses. They found that they liked being in charge and having the upperhand.

When the Jews returned, of course, they took over their businesses again. This caused much ill-will amongst certain groups of Lithuanians and one finds in the nationalist and/or anti-semitic magazines articles regarding this.

Combine this with the turmoil caused by the ebb and flow of various armies in Lithuania and the imposition restrictive laws of one sort or another and then the great changes brought about by Russian occupation, you have a significant situation for blaming someone one else for your troubles.

After WWI, the economy languished and things were tough for everyone. With the formation of various cooperatives with which Jews could not compete and additional restrictive laws on what professions Jews might be involved, this helped to further distance the Jews from competition with Lithuanians. The Jews were being compressed into a smaller and smaller segment of the economy.

Due to this, there was a mass exodus of young people during the 1920's and into the 1930's of Lithuanian Jewry to South Africa and America. It was also a time when Lithuanians also left to seek better conditions.

All this was a prelude to 1941 and what was considered to be payback by certain segments of the Lithuanian population for their long-held grudges and appetite to take over Jewish property.

In Kupiskis, the destruction of the community followed the same general pattern as was found throughout most of Lithuania. There were German agents provocateurs who came into the communities, sussed out the lay of the land and then used their connections to carryout the killings.

Those killed first were the Jewish intelligensia, professionals, leadership and the male population. This was done in various sadistic ways such as enclosing people in buildings and setting them on fire and shooting them in the forests or the outskirts of the town. After the men were killed, the women and children who had been held all the while in very poor conditions were then disposed of.

During this time, the Lithuanian population was either watching the destruction or participating in it. There were those who were children then who were affected deeply as they watched their playmates and friends killed and heard their screams of terror.

Many have never discussed their feelings or what they saw until recently when approached by Jewish visitors to their towns.

Ann Rabinowitz

Toro! Toro!

(Saturday Night) I just got into a bizarre chase/street fight with two drunk Lithuanian men about 30 minutes ago. Damn, these guys are such dumb monkeys. I guess it's a wonder it didn't happen years ago in the village. Though I have to admit, lately I've been feeling especially fed up with the idiocy. Last night some guys were yelling at me because I was walking with two Lithuanian girls, and earlier tonight some guy made fun of me by the river. Basically, and this is gonna sound harsh, but after three years I can say the 'average' guy here is a drunk coward. If they're alone they're quiet, if they outnumber you two to one they're brazen xenophobes. If you're a hardworking sober guy in Lithuania I hope you'll excuse this cause God knows I love this place, if you're a drunken loud mouth with cracked knuckles, then go to hell.

So here's what happened. It's Saturday. I'm working all day inside to get my place cleaned up cause I leave in a week. The sun is going down really late now, so around 9 I decided to go out and walk along the river to watch the sunset. It's a great walk. I walked all the way down to the Cathedral then looped back up toward Gedimino (the main street in the capital) and just as I came around the corner I see: A small guy, maybe Spanish or Italian dressed in a nice sweater and collared shirt with glasses backing into the middle of the road. Two guys in jean jackets are making threatening gestures toward him then the smaller of the two throws a sucker punch at the back of the nice guys head. The nice guy kind of stepped out of it by accident and didn't even realize the guy had thrown the punch. A big Lithuanian guy walking in front of me stopped with his girlfriend and I stopped behind them. He was really big and just kind of peeled the two bad guys back toward the sidewalk where I was. They started to go for the big guy and that's when I did something really uncharacteristic. I said f it, and jumped in. I never do that by the way. So for a second it turns into a push pull deal with all four of us, the girl friend is pissed and she's yelling, the nice guy is bailing. Then the big guy kind of brushes these two off in my direction and moves out with his girl. The two focused on me. At that point it wasn't good, but I really didn't think it was gonna get worse. They were telling me off in Russian, and I started mocking them. (Andrew and Jake this is your fault). So I was pushing them into a cafe table, they pushed me back, so I started to retreat since I can see no one else volunteering to get involved. I don't provoke the empathy like a well-dressed Southern European does. So the smaller guy runs up to kick me as hard as he can. By now I'm already back peddling and wondering what the hell I got myself into. There are people all over the place milling around all dressed up for a summer Saturday night and I'm yelling in English at these two to f off. His kick missed and he came down hard on the granite pavers flat on his back. The crowd cheered. The big guy seemed really offended by this and everything went up several notches. Not too sure what happened after that but I know I was back peddling full speed for a while. They were waiting for me to turn my back, so I just kept going up the street like that. What followed was even weirder.

The back peddle turned into a jog with looks over the shoulder. The guys are right behind me and with a pretty steady rhythm they're trying to throw punches or kick me. Thank god American kids play football cause I was thrown jukes down like OJ. Honest to god, like huge full speed sweeps across the street, from one sidewalk to the other then I'd slow down and wait for the next assault. In the middle of it I passed the Nice guy who looked seriously bewildered. I also passed the big guy whose girlfriend now seemed firmly in control of him. I was on a solo dance through the street dodging these guys. I thought they would get tired faster than me so I really started to just run down the street, fast. I got to a security car parked in front of the post office and I'm thinking 'cool, its over'. Two security guards are sitting inside, so I run up and yell 'call the police!' (which is a funny thing to yell at security guards) My antagonists barely even paused. They security guards didn't crack a window. (which supports my impulse to ask for professional help) So I put the car between them and me and I'm yelling at the guy in the passenger seat to call the cops. The bad guys come wheeling around the front end so I have to bail the whole thing and just keep running. Way the hell up street I see two huge guys walking. I'm getting really tired, and the demons behind me are keeping up, much to my surprise. All the exercise seemed to be clearing their heads. So I yell at these two giants to help me out and I'm trying to get them involved even if they don't want to by putting them between myself and the knuckle scrapers who're coming up fast. The evildoers caught up quick and I don't even remember what happened next exactly. The tall one got behind me somewhere and the smaller one ran in front of me to block me in. He was saying something and starting to square up with me to throw a punch. It's so odd. I've never punched anyone in the face in my life, not once. My hand just went on autopilot. All the fear and adrenaline took my head over. I hit him with my right hand as hard as I could and it landed perfectly square in middle of his knotty monkey grill. It was like hitting a home run, you don't even feel the ball cause it's so square off the bat. I heard one of the giants standing a few feet away exclaim and somewhere way back on the street I heard someone yell 'Geras!' which means 'Good one!' He just disappeared toward the ground, and I blazed the hell out of there. I have no idea what happened after that cause I never looked back. My lungs were on fire so I ducked into a courtyard and ended up under this weird little stoop with three homeless people for a second. They knew I was up to no good, and I actually asked them between wheezing breaths 'is there a way out of here!?' Damn, that was crazy. Thank god I didn't get the $^%& kicked out of me! I jumped the wall out of the courtyard and hustled home. Somewhere between there and home the absurdity hit me.

So here are a couple things I learned. First of all, all that crap I thought I could remember in a situation like this like 'jab with my left, then throw the right' or ‘punch'm in the throat' or 'box his ears' or basically anything I've ever seen in any movie - not one dreamy synapse awoke those ideas. The only thing I could think was 'I can't believe this. Two guys are chasing me down the street in daylight with people everywhere. What the hell am I doing?'

I would like to say one thank you. Some guy sitting at an outdoor cafe gave me a heads up that saved my ass. Half way through the chase I slowed down cause I just couldn't believe they really wanted to go through with it. I was watching the smaller guy cause he was the most aggressive and the tall guy came looping around from the back. The guy yelled from the cafe table and I ducked some kind of wild kick or punch. Thanks.

Thank God that we play football when we're kids and they don't. If those guys knew how to tackle it would have been all over for me. And thank God they didn't pull a knife. Don't even want to think about that.

I hope that guy isn't hurt bad, but I think he is. He fell like a soggy feather and unfolded on the concrete with the crackslap of a boney steak on a hard kitchen floor. Bastards.

Bush Meat

First the film stuff. I left for Africa with seven hours of tape which is way less than what I wanted. When I got there, I told Jake I’d wait a week or so then start shooting after I had an idea what to focus on. There was also an issue with camera batteries since we spent two weeks at a time in his village. It’s a full days’ journey on busted trucks and minivans to a power outlet. Initially I was shooting daily life kind of things: the soccer team, kids playing, women mashing corn. Then around the second week two guys showed up at the house with M16’s. That morning Jake had sent a report to the Game Reserve to let them know there were rumors of an elephant outside the reserve near a village. These guys showed up with guns on bicycles to let Jake know everything was fine. The leader seemed put together, but his buddy sat there sweaty and nervous rolling a joint with a machine gun in his lap. After that everything was focused on poaching. Place is nuts.

We went to interview the game scouts at the reserve about ten days later. When we got there Kennedy (second from the left) asked if they’d look better in their uniforms with their guns. So they got geared up and we walked a few yards into the reserve and did an interview with them. Malawians are the nicest people in the world. I would challenge anyone to beat them. You can ask these guys anything; things that feel rude or prying and they’ll just laugh then answer. I’ve never seen anything like it. I asked these guys if the NRC (Natural Resource Committee) were corrupt and they cracked up. I thought it was gonna be kind of a hard hitting question.

When I was getting down to my last tape I figured I better use it right. There’s a guy in Jakes village that’s pretty much in the middle of it all. His name is Koza and he’s sketchy. Jake refuses to communicate with him at all. He’s from Zambia and he came to Malawi a long time ago after he shot a man. He’s really charismatic and somehow worked his way into the local politics and landed himself damn near the top. He’s the chief’s right hand, and a top of the line poacher. According to Jake he’s got blast burns all over his forearms from firing home made rifles. He wore long sleeves when I talked to him. I went over to his house and asked him a stack of point-blank questions. The guy is smart. I caught him a little with the stuff about the guy he killed, he told me it was manslaughter and he served a year and a half for it. Other than that, the guy was slick. As good as any western politician, maybe better. Walking home, I couldn’t help but admire journalists who consistently do good interviews. It’s so hard. Regardless, I went home feeling charmed by the guy. Dangerous personality.

It’ll be a while, but I have some pretty good stuff to edit. I should be able to cut a solid half hour from the footage. The big surprise for me was that most of the poaching in that area isn’t for ivory or exotic animal parts. It’s for meat. People don’t have much protein in the diets at all. Someone goes in and shoots a buffalo, then carries out what he can. Others hear about it, then they go in and get a share. What ever you can carry out on your back, you can eat, and that’s it. There’s a network. The game scouts get spotted away from the reserve, word gets to the poachers that its clear, and that’s kinda it. The thing with Koza though is much bigger because he’s a leader. He’s tightly connected to the chief and the patron of all the local anti-poaching organizations. Just hope I didn’t make Jake’s life more difficult than it already is by provoking him.

Back in the USSR

Got back to Lithuania a couple days ago from Malawi, what a trip. Nicest people I've ever met anywhere. I'm out of here in under two weeks, back to California. Will post some more stuff about the trip when I've got the time. Till then.

Flight Through the Night

One of my best friends from the States just left the other day. A reminder of the good stuff back home. We packed it in, he got the full taste then went to Spain. Fulbright is ending, been a damn nice ride. Tomorrow I get up early and fly to Africa. Who would have ever thought. Jake was my neighbor to the North during Peace Corps here. He’s got balls, in the Peace Corps again, now way out there in Malawi near the Zambian border. No running water, no electricity, I guess the food shop is a long way away. I got a yellow fever and a typhoid shot. Money is tight cause the guys behind the Skapiskis cemetery project are lagging on reimbursements for my expenses. Should squeak through, but shouldn’t have to, hint hint people.

I noticed that I’ve been getting restless. The next transition is showing on the horizon and will pull up soon enough. In the past I got white knuckled about now, so I’m try’n not to sweat it so hard. Stress dreams started kicking up dust last week. Claustrophobic flights through the night.

Had my last interview for a while. Last week I met a woman named Aldona in Kupiskis. She filled in some important gaps. There are stories I’ve known about for a long time, but didn’t have on camera, in particular, the old myths about the Jews. They were kind of like ghost stories, Lithuanian adults would tell the kids a Jew would get them if they went out at night, or that Jews needed blood from a Catholic baby to make bread for Passover. I asked her about it, and with a little reluctance she told them. She also knew a kids song in Hebrew and could write her name in Yiddish.

Couple days before that I interviewed a couple, both of them had been deported to Siberia in the fifties. They met there and he found her years later back here in Lithuania where they married. She was heavily involved in the independence movement in the late 80s and was shot at as a consequence. She told me an amazing story about Siberia. Her tonsils were infected so she had to ride a ferry down the river 500km for the surgery. She got there, had the surgery, then that night started walking back to the camp. She said that if she hadn’t left immediately she could have been reported as missing. So this teenage girl walked for almost two weeks alone on the dirt roads through E.Siberia with unhealed tonsils and almost nothing to eat.

I fly from here to London to Amsterdam to Nairobi then finally, Malawi. This is sure to be the trip of a lifetime. I went up to Birzai and got some gifts from Jake’s old friends there, and other wise will only be carrying a few articles of clothing and my camera. The culture shock is gonna be severe, not to mention my lily winter complexion. I will be THE whitest man in Africa at least for a day or two. After that I’ll be the reddest,

Dim Red and Stars

The high notes are on which side of the piano? Last week was a spinal tap of shrill notes from the left side of the mouth, from the mouths of the old. This place keeps dishing its guts. Sixty years after the fact they're raw red and still hot to the touch.

Kristina's Grandma sat in a huge overstuffed brown chair in an enormous living room in one of the biggest houses in Kupiskis. Dim light. Kristine's Mom sits across the room far enough away I forget her. Tom and his girlfriend are college students. They sit deep in the sofa holding hands like they're watching a horror movie. They're helping me with the language. The house is a white silicate brick castle that sits out by the road into town. There are concrete telephone polls and hay drying racks then the road, the forest and the horizon.

Karas Laikas. - War Times. That's all you have to say, and it goes on for an hour.

The kids were curious. They went out to the hill to see what was going on. The Jews were being brought in groups from the little red brick prison in the center. About five Lithuanian men did the shooting, and a few Nazis supervised. The Nazis took lots of photographs, mostly of the 'jewshooters'. It was later understood that these were 'proof' that the Lithuanians were the ones who did the killing.

When the shooting was done a layer of lime was poured on the bodies. She emphasized this about the lime - it ran red. Then they killed the next group and they were stacked on top of the last, more lime, more red.

The big question for the children was "why don't they run?" The Lithuanian ringleaders collected the property. Gold rings and fur coats. The empty houses in the center stayed empty for a long time. The children didn't go there. A year before that, the Soviets occupied Lithuania. There were rumors about a few communist Jewish doctors torturing a Lithuanian in Panevezys. On the night of the first deportations to Siberia six or seven Jews were at the train station helping the authorities organize the deportees. People wondered why Jews had learned Russian so fast.

I asked her what the adults said about it. "It was explained to us that the Jews were being killed as punishment for the crucifixion and because they didn't believe in Christ." I give her a lot of credit for saying it straight. The note went right through my fingers and the walls, the dogs in the yard could hear it. The 'jewshooters' fell back with the German line when the Russians retook Lithuania. One of the ringleaders in Kupiskis was arrested in Chicago about three years ago. He lived a comfortable life in America.

WASHINGTON (CNN) "Bernes worked in an office near the overcrowded jail where victims were held without adequate food and beaten before being shot to death," according to a statement issued by the Office of Special Investigations. .. The Justice Department Monday initiated court proceedings in Chicago, Illinois, to revoke the citizenship of Peter John Bernes of Lockport, Illinois. Authorities in the department's Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations filed a complaint accusing Bernes -- then known as Petras Bernotavicius -- of serving as a deputy to Werner Loew, the Nazi-appointed leader of Kupiskis, Lithuania

Pokaras Laikas- After War Times. That's all you have to say and it goes on for about an hour.

According to Kristine's Grandma, the partisans around Kupiskis were young and ruthless. They were jealous of the other kids their age that had some normalcy and could go to school. They shot a boy their age because he was having fun at a party while they sat in the woods. There was a rumor that a girl in the class had family members who were party members. She appeared one day at school with a star branded into her forehead. It was attributed to the partisans, but could have just as easily been KGB. It was a KGB tactic to dress as partisans and commit crimes in an effort to sway public opinion. The girl had surgery years later, but always covered the star with her hair. The boys in class used to pull her hair back and ridicule her.

Stribai (destroyers) were the leading edge in a campaign to twist the soul out of a society. They were the locals who did the dirty work for the Soviet authorities. Everyone knew who they were. They came in the day when it was safe for them. They came to inspect the basements, to take food, to figure out who to deport. They could kill without discretion. They were rewarded with property and power. In later years they became more powerful. They lived comfortable lives. Normal people lived in the middle. Farmers had partisans coming for food at night. The farmer would be sworn to secrecy and asked to give all he could. The Stribai came in the day. If there was no food then partisans must have been there, the farmer would be required to give the names of partisans or get shot or deported, and so it went for several years.

The body of people who watched the holocaust through a crack in the curtain eventually learned to stop looking. KGB was everywhere. Guilt required only the suggestion of truth. She talked at length about the fear her generation carries. The fear of the outside, fear of change, the inability to relate to young people and the democratic shift. She was an honest woman.

I was up there all last week and I followed up on the list from the Litvaks in Israel. Turns out that the only properties than can be reclaimed are those that were public. So the synagogue, a community center and a grocery store are being reclaimed. The synagogue is a library now. The grocery store is a small building with private apartments. Turns out that the vice mayor bought a home in the building just six months ago. There doesn't seem to be any open public backlash, but there's always a lot of word-of-mouth.

The cemetery project is in the details now. Tom's father is a builder and he did a bunch of estimates last week. The main problem at the moment is the headstones. The sun thaws the soil on the south side so they're all leaning back in that direction. Nobody knows what's under them or how they're constructed so we have to dig one up. That means we need a Rabbi for any religious protocols. No big deal except that there's a battle going on in the Jewish community between the two Rabbis in Vilnius. Nobody in the states wants to get involved, or get them involved in the project. I met with the Mayor in Kupiskis and he's all for the project. I also met with the teachers at the school in Skapiskis, they're interested in whatever comes out of it. Part of the project is an educational initiative.

The tickets for Africa are all set. Jake called me two weeks ago and we talked for about 45 seconds on Tony Paul's dime. This should be damn interesting. I went up to Birzai where Jake was assigned in Peace Corps (50 km north of Kupiskis) and met with his old school director and some of his old friends. I want to get some gifts from them to take down, so next week I'll pass through again.

The woodwork opened up again. I heard about a man whose leg was run over by a Russian tank on Jan 13th. Looks like he's willing to talk to me, hopefully next week.

The grey and white blindfold of winter has completely vanished. Spring is here, people are smiling, ice cream cones bob down the street, the gym is packed and all my energy has returned.

Equinox

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/7112702/ If you've ever doubted resurrection, spend a winter in Lithuania. Snow on the ground now for five months. When it's not snowing its gray. When its not gray its too cold to stay outside. My first year here I was sure I was dying by this time in March. I'd never seen my face so pale. I got so thin. During spring break that year I watched Gintaras and Lili's kids cause they had to be out of town for the week. So with no work and nothing to really occupy my time I hung out with the boys in a region of Kupiskis everyone calls Kamchatka. The Kamchatka of Kupiskis is a Soviet style region made up of gray blockhouses and a great big smoke stack. Not such a bad place really, but with five months of winter already under my belt, I was under serious strain. What had looked like a planned community in workers paradise that Fall, by late March looked like a leaden demon ship lost from the inferno on its way through a frozen southern ocean to sink somewhere silent and painful. My face was plastered to the kitchen porthole, by the second day the boys were taking care of me. I fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon and when I woke up Gintaras' younger son was looking at me from a couple feet away. 'Your eyes are red like a rabbits' he said. They stayed like that for another month. I couldn't stop looking out the window. I kept thinking that it should have already ended, but it was still gray and cold. On Easter I was with Gintaras and family on their farmhouse about 10km out of town. No sounds. Just us and the babble of a little tiny T.V. This was even worse than the demon ship. It was a demon dinghy lost from the ship, white knuckles and icy waves. It started to snow and I started to pace. Gintaras asked me repeatedly if I wanted something to eat or drink. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling over the table spitting spindly anemic glare all around the room. Musty damp wood, small windows bleeding weak light and yeah I'm being dramatic about it, but I'd never witnesses my own decay before. It snowed two feet, and I went out of my tree. The next day was Easter and the boys and I ran around outside making big snowballs. We kung fu kicked, karate chopped and body slammed each of them to bits. In my heart I was cursing that frozen white fluff from hell that had been smothering me for half the year with great might. The bashing of the snowballs was very very violent and highly visual. I'm sorry that Pagan blows were delivered on that Christian day, but lost souls will do what they must. Then it snowed the rest of the day.

All of that internal drama happened before I learned about spring. I'd been in San Diego for seven years before I came over here. Spring in San Diego means you change wetsuits. You go from the one with long legs, to the one with short legs.

There is a single tree in the middle of a big field on the way to Kamchatka. It was along my familiar path to visit Gintaras. On a dreary day in April I passed under that thing and noticed that the branches were well covered with unbloomed buds and I almost wept. Seriously, it was the most beautiful thing I'd seen in months. It was really over. The great cosmic machine wasn't broken after all, and after just a few weeks this whole country exploded in tender tones of green. Then cabin fever yielded and was immediately replaced with Spring fever. All the meters spiked. High energy and libido are not the traditional allies of young single male teachers. The rest of the school year I spent tied to the mast, and thankfully remained there till summer.

These days are completely different. I'm a little sad to see winter go cause I know this means I have to return to the States soon. The novel days will give way to normalcy, and at first I'll resent that, then it'll lull me in. I'll wake up sometime next year very happy to be home, but it'll take a while. In the meantime, I have a lot to do.

This week I'm going up to Kupiskis and Skapiskis and hopefully I'll get a bunch done. The newspapers just released 'the list' from Israel made by the Litvaks there who want their property returned. There are three places in Kupiskis on it, they look like the addresses of private homes, so I wanna go see who's there. I doubt they'll talk to me about it but I'll try anyway. I'm also trying to Interview Kristina's Grandmother who witnessed the murder of the Jews in Kupiskis as a little girl. Then there is Sandra who has all the writing and recordings her Grandfather made during fifteen years in Siberia. And lastly, everything in Skapiskis remains to be done. I have to find the mayor(s) and talk to them about the cemetery project and I also want to get some shots of the cemetery before the snow is completely gone. Beauty the car, has been rolled off the front sidewalk and towed to the shop. They're putting a new starter in it, so I should have wheels to roll around Spring in.

Rome Drops the News

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4930145073/ I shot the hotel room scenes over the weekend and I'm relieved to have it done. Without Dave's help its much more difficult. Last night at three in the morning I woke up and realized that part of Ervynis' dialog is all wrong and should have been adjusted. Its too much for one person with the performance, story and all the tech crap, but I think I managed.

The scenes span the three nights the characters are in Berlin. The first and second night Ervynas invites a dancer to the room. It worked out alright, but it is a very strange thing to try and get a belly dancer to actually come to your house to shoot. How do you explain with a thick accent what your doing. She was really adament that she wouldn't do it, and in my explanation it was tough to make it clear and sound safe without saying things like "two old men", "hotel room" even saying the word "film" in that context comes off sleazy. In the end she brought her Mom along and she sat in the living room reading a Russian novel while we shot.

Ervynas the over aggressive was all over her Mom when it was time to say goodbye. I was trying to collect all the junk in my room, put away the camera etc, when I came around the corner and Ervynas has his face in this womans hair nuzzling her neck saying, "I'm like a cat, I'm like a cat!". She wasn't phased, but I think I was. They left and he says to me, "You see Cy, you can learn from me how to meet a girl, I've never seen the woman before in my life!" Whatever Ervynas.

Herring Suites (forth day in Berlin?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4930145491/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4930145885/

Forth floor, go right, down the hall next to the crappy robot-chandelier, beneath bad rip offs of Keith Herring figures you'll find the entrance to the Herring Suite. A hundred bucks a night, sleeps four, not named for the deceased artist, instead it takes its name from the ripe odor of the herring fish. Atlantic born, ripened in warm plastic for days, released in the tight quarters of the Warsaw train, and at the moment, the fifth, and most potent, member of our traveling cadre.

Everybody is wiped out. I finally started to lose it today with Ervinas. We wanted to film in the Berlin TV/Radio tower (kinda like the space needle) a very important set of shots. With all the problems with security and terrorism I was nervous they wouldn't let us shoot inside. I asked Ervinas to translate since he speaks German. At the ticket booth he immediately started chafing the hell out of the woman who worked there which bugged me out. Not a soft touch - from where I was standing it looked like he might be blowing our chance blatantly and I got kinda bent. I said some stuff a guy forty years younger should not say. We seem to have recovered but still awkward.

Rome on the other hand is the coolest guy ever. The natural protagonist, and most natural actor I've ever done anything with. After how ever many days I find myself constantly wondering if he's hungry, if we're walking too much, and generally feeling grateful toward him. Then there is Dave, the guy the police talk to first since he's got the camera. Also the guy most affected by the herring smells, the sight of chopped up smoked fat, the sight of sour milk (chunky sour milk, this stuff has texture) being consumed after three days without refridgeration (the guys drank it for breakfast). His camera broke last night, he is often cold, but all the same he keeps trucking and got some really nice shots. I have a feeling thoughts of romance in near by Vienna (he met a nice girl there last month) keep him buoyant, more power to her.

Then there is me, worn to the bone with Ervinas' nonstop anecdotes, talk and relentless knowledge dropping, but otherwise pretty happy to be here doing what we're doing. Each day it gets a little clearer what the story is, each day I'm a little more impressed by the dynamism of Berliners (very friendly, helpful, tolerant, diverse AND people almost never look into the lens when we're shooting in public, where did they learn that?) Tomorrow we wrap it up, shoot the last scene in Berlin. I'll shoot the hotel scenes and the belly dancer stuff back in Lithuania. The scene tomorrow is much like the first scene at the hill of crosses, so hopefully it'll go well.

Nearing Berlin

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4930734422/ Almost to Berlin now - another hour on the train yet to go. Last night we left Vilnius around 9pm - we had some shots to get in the station, but security came running out and interrupted. Ridiculous - there was talk about terrorism etc...me and Dave and two old men, come on. These guys took themselves way too seriously and were ready to get physical. Dave and I played dumb while Romas and Ervinas argued with them, we couldn't shoot anymore but otherwise got off the hook. The rest of the time we were there Ervinas and Romas spent making fun of the two guards. At one point Romas had his retirement identification out telling the guy he had important political friends. These guys love to b.s. I was afraid they would try and take the tape or the camera, or both.

Once we got going, went pretty well. Before we left Vilnius we went across the way to a grocery store to steal some shots of Ervinas buying beer. Local drunks and security again interrupted, but Dave got some nice shots none the less.

The scenes on the train look nice and went pretty well - still lots of concerns with Ervinas' indicated acting, drives me nuts.

Got a few hours of sleep after a dinner of crackers, cheese, mineral water, and a great big smoked herring that Ervinas brought. Had a good laugh at the fishes expense. Dave was not seduced by the fishes rich natural perfume. The guys used a sock to clean the oil of their hands and mouths, more laughs.

Warsaw Main is a pretty big station. We got our tickets at around 6am then looked around for a shot. There's a strange waiting room with people sleeping all over the place. We shot for four or five minutes before the cops showed up again. The Polish cops were much nicer. Down by the tracks another good shot, Ervinas again pulled some crap, when he hits he hits big, but when he's playing for the camera its terrible.

Made some discoveries last night. Romas is a healer. He does that energy field thing where he passes his hands over an injury. He tried it on my back - no difference, but it'll make a very interesting scene for the film. We also discovered the ages of the guys last night, but born in 39'. Dave and I were shocked. Americans the same age look so much younger. Wasn't an easy life for them. We also found out last night that both guys were orphans. I'm curious about Ervinas - he's got a tattoo on his wrist - not all that common for a guy from his place and time, may mean he did some prison time. Berlin in half an hour.

Day One

Here are some words from day one. Today went well, i feel like we got what we planned for and got what we needed. Up and early to remind martznas and romas to wear good shoes bring xtra socks-shots in deep snow.

930, met with sound guy out on the street to deliver wireless lavs, like a drug deal out of a Mercedes, plastic bags and envelope with cash exchange. Next hour testing mics with actors. (reminder: have to buy duck tape)

left late, two hours plus to drive. haul ass through crappy weather, neither dave nor i ate breakfast, arrive at hill of crosses at 145. Set up for opening shot tough with out tripod (1st shot of film always tough?). Martynas keeps doing bad theater stuff (indicating everything when just walking will do) Got his hands to stop talking and the main body of the scene looked great. Romes acting is on point.

Dave and i were extra cold w no food to burn, but our brains lasted long enough to get some shots - though still worried about martynas indicating. shot till dark. guys are tough, no complaints though it was less than freezing.

martynas told me jokes all through dinner, some good some terrible. all and all a good thing though it wastes me mentally, jokes in Lithuanian waste me mentally, takes way too much concentration to get it.

back out to snow for pick up and some transition shots. regret letting martynas off the hook for some of the indicating. 120am now, dizzy tired, tomorrow promises to be less taxing in terms of temperature, but still full of unknown and interest.

Hill O'Crosses

The hill of crosses started something like a hundred and twenty years ago (don't quote me) when people started putting crosses up to honor loved ones deported by the czar. Under the soviets it continued even though they bulldozed it with regularity. Its an unusual place. A little hill completely covered in crosses. We start shooting there tomorrow. Dave and I sat down today and hammered out the frame for the story, it starts serious and moves toward irreverence. The guys are going to visit the grave of a dead friend. They carry his picture with them along on the journey with the intension of placing on his grave. They get lost in Berlin, never find the cemetery, sight see, and meet a belly dancer. I won't tell you the end though, you'll have to wait for that.

Today was good. We want to use wireless mics so we can shoot the guys from long distances and still get dialog, and it looks like we may have actually found them. On top of that, we found and XLR cable AND and S video cable. Very boring, very important things. Last night we went sleding on this crazy little hill so iced up you can just sit on the ground and slide down it. I bombed the first run on a plastic sled and almost broke the sound barrier and my back. Took a tough shot at the bottom but had a great laugh. Love sledding.

We have a reservation for the Thursday night train to Warsaw. Stay tuned.

New Beginning

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/4930145119/ So this morning Martynas and Romas came over. I gave them a lame little task to improvise just to see what they would do. I told Martynas he was in a hurry to go buy some flowers for a party later. Romas was also going, but his leg was bothering him. We did that and it wasn't bad. They were both indicating a lot, but not bad for something super loose and fast. Before we got home I asked Dave to start stealing shots of them when they weren't acting, so he followed us inside still rolling, then the three of us had a normal conversation about my Russian camera and drank some tea. After that we watched some of the tape and talked about it. Dave played the natural/real stuff and we tried to explain what we're going for, just completely natural style, understated. Then they did another improvisation, a conversation about some specifics I gave them, and that was great. They got it.

They're coming back over tomorrow to talk about scheduling. They seem really excited. When I told them we wanted to take them to Berlin, I'm not sure how to read their reactions, but I think they're excited. More tomorrow.

What's Cooking

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm in a dark internet cafe with Duran Duran rocking, its dumping snow outside. Dave is going into a blood sugar crash, so I have to make it quick. Yesterday we met with Martynas and Romas. These guys are both about 65, both retired television directors. Tomorrow we're going to do a little practice run to see how this thing works. I'll give them a little mission, a little information, then we'll follow them with the camera and let them improvise a scene out on the street. If it looks good then we'll try and go big. Last week they told me they had been celebrating the birthday of a friend who died fifteen years ago. We'll take that and make it bigger. Hopefully we'll be able to spin it up into a road story. Two old guys going to Berlin to see a friend. I'll probably try and tweak it a lot harder than that. One of them knows he's dead and doesn't know how to tell the other. One of them dies. You get it. Some of the scenes we're talking about are: Starting with one of them at the hill of crosses. Starting the other in a basement full of potatoes. The two guys out in the forest finding an old AK47 that still works. Them in an abandoned monastery telling stories about when they lost their virginity. Of coarse the long train ride, then monstrous Berlin. Maybe some shots from the radio and television tower. That's the hope, we'll see what cooks up.

Black Thursday (and Friday)

Kid got TKOed. The project is still standing, but I took a beating this week. On Thursday morning I woke up early to get a jump on what was to be a big day. The plan was to meet the art director at the studio at 8, go through all the art direction with her, be home in three hours with the uniforms to meet a couple of the actors to give them the last version of the script. After that we were off to Panavezys to meet with Darius, the primary actor. We were gonna meet his wife too, she's an actress and I thought maybe she could play his wife in the film. I got up at seven to a strange looking red sky. The sun is coming up late now, so it was full night still. I came into the living room, and Dave (who's been sleeping on the crappiest hide-a-bed ever made with a jacket under his head) told me it dumped snow all night. I thought he was joking. Out the window the trees were all dressed in perfect white, about four inches on the ground. We were late to the studio about twenty minutes because of traffic (I bought a car. Its an Opel, which is German. Dirt(y) cheap). The art director was late another twenty. When we got going I asked to see the guns first. There is very little actual shooting in the film, two shots on screen, but a lot of scenes call for guys with guns, and they have to look just right. We got in there and they told us they were all gone. The day before Tom (one of about five film production students "helping") told me all was well. All was not well, all was really bad. No weapons till Dec fifth they said. All the pyrotech guys are in Latvia till then on a shoot. So here is what was going through my head (mom and dad look away if your reading this).

Deep breath. Holly F@#$%@$%@$%@$%@$%@$%@$%@$%CK!!! Deep breath. Repeat till exhausted.

I'm scheduled to shoot in five days, finally got the script just right, finally got the actors lined up, got a good makeup artist, got the locations, the uniforms, the accommodations, the camera man, the cameras, the sound man and the whole goddamn thing is gonna go in the toilet because of a shoot in Latvia? And the "producers" are standing there telling me its going to be OK? So where's the punchline? Its a foreign country, so there is always a cool punchline. After some talk, the guy says, "WELL, there ARE some WOODEN guns we use." Hopeful, myself and the clutch of clowns followed him through the stacks of props to the back where he produced: 1 plastic laser gun toy, 1 broken plastic six-shooter toy gun, and 2 wooden AK47s that look exactly like; really fake looking wooden AK 47s. It was a very very bitter moment. I should have had a video camera. Its not a good feeling when you realize the documentary about making your film would very likely be way better than your film.

Terry Gilliam eat your heart out.

So the only thing I could do is focus on the next thing. We were late at the studio, so I left David behind to run home and meet Martynas and Romas. These two guys are great. Both in their seventies, both cool. I gave them the last version of the script and then back to the studio. Now its noon. The art director doesn't know what she's doing and it seems to me the now Dave and I are really doing all the art direction. She tells me she has to go to the doctor but her replacement is on the way, nothing to worry about, we'll be able to take everything away when we're done selecting it. (gotta skip a bunch of details here cause I can't really find a way to couch them so you'll get it, long story short) we can't take anything till Monday. I need a letter with a stamp on it that nobody told me about. Without that, no deal. I call Tom, one of the producers. "Cy I'm in (some other city) call Ingrida, she'll help you." I call Ingrida, he phone is unavailable. I call Greta, she's not having it, turns her phone off while its ringing. OK, I'll wait till Monday to take all the props. But what about the guns? The guy tells us that there's a television station that also has a gun handler.

We go across town looking for the station. I took Ieva with. She's the replacement for the original art director who now has pneumonia (but can still blaze up a couple cigs on a coffee break?). Ieva is cool, but probably knows nothing about film and is probably a little freaked out by how intense I'm getting. The polyester clad people at the front desk at the TV station look at us with a warm blankness. I can see immediately they are trained to handle people like us, she has "ah ha ha ha" written in italics all over her face. "Here's a number, call on that phone over there". We call, nothing. "Try later, or try on (you guessed it) Monday." Moving on. We dropped Ieva off, grabbed a bunch of equipment and clothes and jumped back in the car (by the way, the cars name is Beauty, I'll explain later) and high tailed it for Panavezys (the fourth largest city in the country, two hours north of the capital). By now its about four and almost dark. We get on the highway, which is well iced by now, still alive, still optimistic that a miracle can happen. A snow storm happened. It dumped like crazy. Sounds bad, but to be honest is was cool. I like it when it snows, so don't count it as another bad thing. But we were late cause Beauty almost ran out of gas.

Darius, the actor we were going to see called to tell me he left two tickets at the front for us when we arrived. We went to the wrong theater first, but this also was not a bad thing. Neither Dave nor I have much enthusiasm for theatre. In fact, I can't ever recall seeing a play I liked (except for when Dave N drove his car onto the sound stage at school), so showing up late was kind of a good thing. Anyway, it was what we expected. Darius wasn't bad, but in general the acting was cheesy and big. We met Darius outside after the show. We went to his favorite restaurant. At first everything was honkey dorey. He asked about the show, we lied, he recommended the squid (no joke) I ordered it to be polite. Then the talk turned to my project, then to his opinion of the script, then (the bad turn) to a bunch of nonsense about my connection to Hollywood which I have yet to sort out, then to money, then to my credibility, then (he's drunk by now) to my options (as a film maker looking for actors in Lithuania) which went like this: "Cy you can go to Kupiskis, maybe find some school children to play this character, maybe some man who works there, you can shoot the film, but what about the results huh? Take some students to the forest, make the film, you'll have a film, but what about results?" I'll spare you, it was a very uncomfortable lecture. We left around midnight headed for Kupiskis. It was a Lost Highway moment. High beams blazing into the snow encrusted blackness, and that was just inside my head, outside it was completely iced up hellbent country blacktop for an hour plus. Was feelin mighty low. Went to sleep with a weird twisting feeling in the middle of my chest, like my throat was all tangled in my heart.

Answers, whether you like'm or not seem to come with sleep. That lonely confrontation that only a ceiling view can provide. The resources don't match the scale of the project. The talent isn't local. Transportation issues. Scheduling nightmares. Lack of rehearsal time. Unease about certain personalities. Signs of alcoholism lingering on the fringes of key actors. Serious concerns about the weather. Inexperience on the production side, rotten gut instincts. So in the morning I pulled the plug. It felt really really bad. I haven't really dealt with a serious failure in a while. Dave and I talked it over in the morning, then we went out to get some food at the grocery store. Beauty was acting weird. I habitually pull the e break when I park. I stopped fifty yards from the house, the rear left tire was locked. The undercarriage completely frozen. We poured hot water on it with flower pots for an hour and it released the break. Tough rolls. We made spaghetti and I started breaking the news to people. We went over to Dalia and Algirdis's house. They made us tea and we talked it over with them, and they understood and foresaw a lot of the problems. Dalia wanted to pour me a vodka shot. Medicine. We went around and around for a while. Algirdis seems disappointed which for some reason really gets me down. He emphasized the local resources again and part of that turned to a conversation about a local guy I know who runs the TV station. Algirdis thought he may be able to help and Dalia mentioned that his wife had just died. I taught both his kids when I was here before. I guess they'd just buried their Mom the day before. That's a check. A film is no big deal, and that's that. Poor kids. So I left it at that.

When I used to paint there was a moment that arrived before every single finished piece that really defined it and it always was the same. I'd have an idea, then start planning it out. Sketch it, lay out the base coats, pencil in the lines, lay in the color until I'd arrived at a moment where the plan ended and the piece should be finished, but it never was. The idea was executed, but it wasn't there. So at first I'd get nervous and angry trying to figure out what was wrong, then I'd decide that I don't care. I'm gonna do something and after that its either gonna be great or I'm gonna toss it in the dumpster and start the next one. That was always the best moment, and something much better almost always came out of it. So I think I'm there now, and here's the plan.

I already told everybody we're not shooting it. Cut all the deadwood off. The producers in Vilnius are gone. The academy is gone. Tom is gone, Elena is gone, the art director is gone, and most of the actors - gone. Dave is here till mid Dec, I think I've got two actors who are free, a car and a little bit of money. We're gonna meet with Martynas and Romas (the old guys) this week and learn some stuff about them, then we're gonna write a step outline for a road movie in Lithuania, then the four of us are going to do the trip and have the guys improvise the scenes. Dave'll shoot it and I'll shape the performances as best as possible, use some of the locations I've already checked out and enjoy the process. That's the idea. Dave is the absolute ultimate trooper. He's put up with a ton of crap, so at least he'll get to see the rest of the country this way. I'll at least get the satisfaction of having something to edit, and the guys will have a project that they can really call their own.

Darius, the theater actor from Panevezys thinks I can't make this film with talent from Kupiskis, after Dave leaves in Dec I'm gonna start the work to prove him wrong. Punk

Missing

Hmmm. Its midnight here and I'm trying to plan for what could turn into disaster. Right now I'm still two actors short, the art director has been missing for a week without a sign, and Dave has to be out of here by mid December. We were scheduled to start shooting two days ago, that got pushed back to the 24th, now that's looking naive. What to do? I'm trying to get in touch with all the actors in Panavezys (nearby city)through the local theater. If I can find some actors there, that would actually be ideal since its much closer than the capital. Scheduling should be easier.

I don't know what to do about the art director. That's a big job, important. Last I heard she was having a health problem. Can't get mad at her for that, but it would be nice to hear from her. This film is stacked with work for her, so if she's out I'm in a tight spot.

Winter has yet to close in. Today was sunny and pretty warm, an absolute impossibility for a normal Lithuanian November. I don't know what's going on. It may buy me some time, but if need be, I'll shoot in the winter, I don't care. At this point I'm in so deep, there's no turning back. Just getting down about this last minute crap.

Tomorrow I'm putting an ad in the paper for a local casting call in Kupiskis. I need lots of people for little roles, half days work. They've got to come from here. The more I think about it, the more I think I should cast the whole thing from here. Don't know if it would be possible, but it would iron all the logistics right out of the equation.

Halls of Government

We've got the cameras, the tape, some of the locations, casting starts next week, the script is almost done, producers, props, housing for cast and crew, sound personal, camera assistants, make-up artist, gun handler, the camera man, editing equipment, costumes and extras. What's left to secure is a big church, a big truck, an old car, a wagon, a country house, a potato cellar, enough food to feed 15 people three times a day for over two weeks and a bus of some sort to move them around in. Madness! If we pull this off its gonna be amazing, especially with the money I have. But I have to pull it off, so I guess I have something to look forward to. I told Greta the producer exactly how much money I had for the film and she didn't look enthused. Especially after I talked for ten minutes about how I didn't want the crew to have to eat bread and water for two weeks. In the meantime, things are cooking without my help. One of the members of the Lithuanian parliament heard about the project and I had lunch with him today. The translation of the script will be finished tomorrow, so I'll forward it to him, and if he likes it, I can attach his name to the project. He's an expert on the topic. I guess he wrote a book about it. I have no idea if it'll really help, but why not. Tomorrow I go up to Kupiskis to meet with the mayor. He could make or break the whole thing, we'll see.

After lunch I met another parliament member who's convinced the Pentagon wasn't hit by an aircraft on Sept 11. He says it was a missile or a truck full of explosives. His opionon was based on internet photos. Makes me wonder where the leaders in my country are getting their info?

Something I Found

Here's something I found in my journal I wrote while still a Peace Corps volunteer in Kupiskis, Lithuania.Sept 14, 2001:

...Today Gaf and Regina picked me up and we went to Skapiskis. Regina is good at her job. A guide for Jewish people interested in their heritage here. She asks the locals if there are any old people around. Eventually she finds someone who can tell the whole thing. A man named Jonis. Great guy, 80, a character. Healthy! We went into the local cafe/bar, the pensioners received money today. Twelve noon, three tables of the six are full. Vodka bottles, beer bottles, one man sleeps drunk in his own arms, another's eyes roll around like egg yolks (Faulkner), sinister sounds bark around the concrete walls. We are taken to another room. Jonis and a woman who was a Lithuanian language teacher, now retired, begin to talk. When the Russians were here they came into the villages to collect men. They were used to dig defensive lines. The Germans got here so fast it was useless. The Jews saw the German aircraft flying above and knew it was over. That afternoon some fled Skapiskis on bicycles. A few got away. Most were intercepted in the larger communities. In Rokiskis, on the way to Latvia, the militia forced Jews into a pond, jabbing them with sticks if they tried to climb out, beating them, torture. Lithuanians formed this militia, wore white bands on their arms, rounded up Jews, marched them to pits, told them to give them all their money, to take off their clothes, everyone, old women, to humiliate them, then they shot them and buried them with a thin layer of earth, more people would be buried on top of them. Jonis was told by an eye witness that the soil was moving because many people weren't actually dead. He was a young man when this happened, 21. He was gathered with the other young people in town when one of the white bands, carrying suitcases full of Jewish clothing and wearing fur coats walked by them. He pulled a machine gun off his shoulder and fired into the air to scare the kids off. Jonis said the motivation was property and jealousy. The Jews were the shop owners and generally better off. They supported each other and that produced resentment among some Lithuanians. In the community at large, there was an undercurrent of misinformation and rumor about the Jews. Stories about breads made during a major Jewish holiday requiring the blood of a Catholic child. A dead baby wrapped in cotton sheets and rolled over nails. The blood soaked the sheet, which was then cut into small squares and distributed among the Jews for the recipe. That was a story Jonis heard from his grandmother who was in her eighties when he was a small boy. We walked around the village for a while; Regina interviewed quite a few people. They really want to talk, to tell their stories. I think it must be part of the human condition. Stories and story telling. Gaf gave each of these people a gift. Really generous guy. The last thing we did was visit the Jewish cemetery. Hebrew and Yiddish on the stones, old, some 1850, a lot are illegible, much much older...