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REFLECTIONS

Gintautas Kaminskas lives in Wollongong, Australia.  Throughout his life, since his teenage years, his dream and hope was to settle in an independent Lithuania, the country his parents fled during the Second World War. He kept the dream of his ancestors' country alive through many post-war years and in 2008 his dream finally came through; Gintautas moved to Lithuania. Towards the end of 2009 he returned to Australia, disillusioned and sad to have experienced a country totally different from what he had imagined and hoped for. I asked him to explain why.

Hello Aage

I usually don’t like to talk about my family’s story, because most people don’t understand.  But I can tell from what you write that you are an idealist and you are trying to understand Lithuania and Lithuanians so I will tell you my story, briefly.

I will start by mentioning that I have a friend in Iceland and I tell him (probably ad nauseam!) that he should be ever so grateful that he was born in his own normal (unoccupied) homeland and therefore automatically grew up speaking his native language in his home, at school at work, and automatically married a woman of his own nationality and therefore naturally spoke his native language at home with his wife and children and now grandchildren.  I had none of those privileges.

When I think back, I wish my parents had been able to stay in Germany; at least I would have grown up European, close to the languages and countries that are my passion.  But no such luck.  All the displaced persons had to go elsewhere.  Almost all wanted to go to USA, but that was not possible.  You had to go where you were sent.  We were sent to Canada.  Things were OK in Canada I guess, apart from the climate.  (We were in place a lot colder than Toronto, where most of the Lithuanians were.)  In 1959, when I was 11, my father decided we would move to New Zealand for a better climate ... and better fishing!  Ironically, it was this move that made me appreciate my Lithuanian identity and to cling to it like never before.  I was teased by the NZ kids for speaking English with a Canadian accent.  I hated that.  I started telling myself that as soon as I was old enough I would go back to Canada.  But after a few years (we were in NZ five years) I started to realise that I was cherishing a silly hope, because I wasn’t really Canadian anyway.  So I became very Europe-focused, studying my native language, insisting that my parents speak it with me, and also studying Spanish all on my own from a little textbook.  Since Lithuania was blocked to me, my dream became to live in Spain for a while.  (Which I did do eventually and enjoyed it immensely.)

Eventually (1964) my sister met an Australian and followed him to Australia, so my parents decided to join them.  We settled in Adelaide and it was there that I finished high school and did my B.A. Hons. degree (majoring in Spanish and French).  I was a lot happier in Australia because there were more Lithuanians there and I participated heavily in Lithuanian cultural and even sporting activities (basketball).  I got a scholarship to do an M.A. in Melbourne (in Spanish/Linguistics) so I left home in February 1970 (the day after I turned 22) and went to Melbourne.  It was there that I got married to my first wife, an Australian, at age 22.  We were married for 32 years.  We lived in Canberra (I was a Public Servant) and we brought up three sons.  The highlight of my career was 1979-82 when I was posted to Australian Embassies in Europe, first Rome (I also speak Italian), then Madrid.  I wanted to go on more postings but my wife didn’t.  As I approached early retirement age (55) I realised that I was never going to feel fulfilled unless I went to live in Europe again, so sadly, I got divorced and left Australia.

My plan had been to take early retirement in 2003 and go straight to Lithuania.  As it happens, I took a detour to Montréal, Québec, first.  After five years in Québec, I left and went to Lithuania in February 2008 to join my dad who had returned to Lithuania in 2007.  I did not live with him because he moved in with a lady friend, but I saw him a lot, and toward the end I was helping the lady nurse him full time.  (He died in August 2009.)  At first it was wonderful being in Lithuania and speaking my beloved native language all the time, with everyone.  But then I started to notice how unhappy so many people are, and how much dishonesty there is among crooked businessmen and tradesman and landlords who don’t pay taxes, bribe-taking public servants, policemen and doctors, people falsely claiming invalid pensions, etc.  At a higher level some major scandals have shown that even some judges and Cabinet Ministers are not beyond taking a bribe.  The Seimas members are notorious for their greed and many have been exposed as corrupt.

It is mainly my experience with the Lithuanian health system, doctors and hospitals that has caused my greatest disillusionment with Lithuania and has in fact made me too frightened to live there myself.  We could not leave my dad alone in hospital.  We had to be with him 24 hours a day.  We had to bring him food (you would die of malnutrition if you depended entirely on the inadequate meals  the hospital gives you), we had to be there to bribe the doctor every few days (the amount of attention they paid to my dad dropped off noticeably if  a new bribe was not received every few days), we had to be there to help him go to the toilet and in the end phase to change his nappy, we had to be there to make sure he got his medicine.  The hospitals were disgusting.  One single toilet on the whole floor for 50 patients!  No toilet seat! No paper!  No soap!  No fly screens on the windows – in a hospital!  No lock on the toilet door – men come in and smoke while you are using the toilet – despite the “No Smoking” signs! No facilities for the patients to have a shower or somehow wash themselves. Cold in winter and hot in summer.  Hygiene very dubious.  An absolute nightmare and disgrace.  When my dad died we even had to bribe the cemetery officials to get a decent burial site that wasn’t down in the gully where a big puddle forms and the ground goes boggy every spring.  (They deliberately offer you the lousy places to make sure they get a bribe.)

I am still an idealist, but now, belatedly, also a realist.  I understand that I will be unlikely to see much of an improvement in my lifetime, and therefore I will not be able to end my days in Lithuania, as I had hoped.  But the flame of hope burns brightly in my heart that the past sacrifices of brave Lithuanians for the homeland have not been in vain and that one day there will be a living standard in Lithuania not far behind that of the Scandinavian and leading Western European countries.  I hope I can make some contribution to the process, no matter how minor.  I value your work as a journalist, keep it up!   That’s why I have taken the time today to tell you a little about one Lithuanian’s life as an exile.

Gintautas Kaminskas
Wollongong, Australia