Ch 1-1 Why Do I want to Visit Lithuania?

I was but a wee child when dragged from my home on a snowy Christmas Eve.  But wait, this story is only indirectly about me; it’s actually about my mother, her family, their lives as recounted by my mother.  And my father, he does play a big role, but I learn about his family through my mother. So, because I am telling the story of my mother’s stories, this rather does end up being about me, the narrator. Am I the product of what came before me? In reality yes due to the facts that led to my mother and father ever meeting; but what is the role of ancestral connections.

Onward! The trip is fraught with minefields. For starters, I'm traveling with my mother. Previous trips proved no matter how you try, you can't get away from old patterns of behavior. Those old resentments, hurts and sensitivities bubble up.

So why should I subject myself to this? Blame it on the fall of Communism and the internet. Countries previously off limit are now open for travel. No convoluted visa requirements to maneuver! The world wide web opens up sources of info for accommodations, sights, roads, and more. It is now part of Lithuania which really isn't of immediate interest but I wanted to know about that long forgotten piece of land known once as Memelland, part of East Prussia. In World War II the fate of this land was decided as were the other German eastern provinces. The powers that won the war were entangled in brinkmanship with the Soviet Union, the preliminaries to the Cold War. Control was given to the Soviets.

This area along the northeast Baltic Sea, closer to Scandinavia than mainland Germany, had a very different geography in the centuries before 1945. The main city and port was Konigsberg, city of Immanuel Kant. It was a thriving province rich in food production for mainland Germany.  There evolved the myth of the Prussians, an exaggeration of their 'traits' for precision and militarism. After the war the East Prussian province was split in half between Poland and the Soviet Union, who kept access to a Baltic port that wasn’t frozen most of the year.  

Lithuania was wired to the internet in 2001. I could see the country, explore, make travel plans while sitting at my desktop computer. What I could not do online was actual see in 3D, smell and experience the places my mother knew. I needed to go in person but needed her as guide.

I did have first hand experience with the Iron Curtain places. I was born in East Germany, the second place my parents had to abandon their home and flee. In my college years I studied in West Germany and was finally able to visit relatives that in communist stronghold of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) – the East Zone as my parents referred to it. My mother visited when her father died but my father didn't go back until 1971. I saw firsthand the contradictions of life under communism: travel restrictions, economic problems, rampant black market, political hypocrisy and corruption. Family living there were my only uncle, his wife and my only male cousin - separated, locked behind the heavy curtain of a proclaimed paradise.  

In the old days, visiting the GDR was complicated. First the convoluted process of getting a visa; had to be very specific on dates of entry and exit. Once I entered the country I was required to register with the police and exchange the required amount of US Dollars for East German Marks. I could shop at the local west currency store but had to pay in west currency. I had a bunch of east marks and nothing worth buying that I could take it out of the country. The only people who went to the GDR were those with relatives and students from Africa; not sure if they even had tourists from other eastern Bloc countries.