Healing wounds between
LT-Americans and homeland Lithuania

Our debate topic in VilNews Forum, with the above headline, has now attracted more than 200 comments. Here is one of the posts, written by Rūta Bražiūnienė.

By Rūta Bražiūnienė

While I noticed that the above 156 comments argue about passports, I just have an issue with the first post, that I have not noticed be addressed, yet. "Many here in Lithuania still believe that those who left, whether for economic or political reasons, had very comfortable lives compared to those who stayed behind and had to fight through several decades of inhuman oppression and abuse by the Soviet occupiers."

I totally assume, based on my own previous experience, that people who think that those who left Lithuania had a comfortable life, are sadly mistaken. My parents fled within hours of occupation. They saw close relatives, neighbors, friends be killed by Soviets. They fled to save their lives.

It's hard not to generalize, as we all seem to do that quite well. That generation, who had to make decisions to flee, thought that they would be back in days. Then weeks. Then months. And before they knew it, years passed. They lived in DP (displaced person) camps. There was no luxury there.

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