Does anyone here remember, or was it ever recalled by others, what Latvia was like before the war?
From the books I’ve read I haven’t been given a vision. I’m curious what people did for fun, what daily life was like.

I’m also curious from the books as to how life changed in 1939 and 1940. Where activities no longer permitted?
Did families discuss the impending fear of war, what was the thoughts and reactions to it?

Boy did you ever ask a loaded question. My mother who was raised by servants loved it and my father who came from the poor farmers also liked it for his father was given land from the upper gentry so it all came down to politics.
You caught me in the middle of a task of putting a book on line about the occupation of Latvia by Germany up to 1943 which contains the “rights “ of Latvians in Latvia which parts of them make me laugh.
I will wait to see other responses

Courlander – what do you mean by “was given land from the upper gentry” ?

Mr. L. L.

I was born in ‘43 and what i know about miera laikiem has been gleaned
from my Oma and Opa........and stacks and stacks of “Atpūtas”.
We did get our two hectares in Jaunogre.
My paternal grandparents were from Latgale and a while after they married,
they went to Riga looking for a beter life. I surmise, that was in the
early “2o’s. Opa drove a beerwagon for Ilguciema brewery and Oma
worked as a waitress. Oma learned to make fancy dresses for fancy
ladies and stuck to that for rest of her life. She was still pedaling
the old Singer in her nineties.
On my mom’s side granny owned a bake shop.
According to soviets my folks were burzhuys, according to me
they were normal people trying to make a living.
People living in Riga had plenty of entertainment available.
Opera, museums......miles of white sanded beaches, plenty
of parks. Many Riidzenieki left town over the wekend and
they still do it now.
People living in Ogre picked mushrooms and berries for
fun and food. They also went to Riga or Vecakji.

In 1918 1% of the people in Latvia owned 52% of the land. The Agrarian Reform Act pooled all government owned land and most of the large estates (they were allowed to keep 123.5 acres) and was allotted to citizens who wanted to engage in farming by paying the government on a 41 year payment plan. This created 92,588 new farms.

Courlander – what do you mean by “ the upper gentry” ?

Mr. L. L.

Either you never went to a Latvian school or while attending was more interested in the opposite sex than learning. HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF GERMAN-BALTIC NOBILITY? I think you should look it up on the web.

courlander Posted: 21 January 2008 11:05 PM [ # 6 ]
Sr. MemberTotal Posts:  188 Joined 2003-05-25
Either you never went to a Latvian school or while attending was (sic) more interested in the opposite sex than learning. HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF GERMAN-BALTIC NOBILITY? I think you should look it up on the web.
Signature You will never Know till you find out

Courlander – your reasoning is unimpeachable !

courlander Posted: 21 January 2008 10:03 PM [ # 4 ]
Sr. Member Total Posts:  188 Joined 2003-05-25
In 1918 1% of the people in Latvia owned 52% of the land. The Agrarian Reform Act pooled all government owned land and most of the large estates (they were allowed to keep 123.5 acres) and was allotted to citizens who wanted to engage in farming by paying the government on a 41 year payment plan. This created 92,588 new farms.
Signature You will never Know till you find out

Courlander - What are your sources for this data, and where your statements can be verified?  Please? 

Thank you.

:)
Mr. L. L.

Be happy to teach you Latvian History.
I chose the easy way out and used “THE UNDEFEATED NATION” by ADOLFS BLODNIEKS Former Prime minister of Latvia printed in 1960. I could have used many other books (listed on my website) but I suggest you do some reading yourself.

After thinking about it , seeing that you are from the U.S.A. I suggest you go with the Constitution and prove me wrong. It is innocent till proven wrong. I do not subscribe to the shrub in the White House.

(hanging my head in shame)

Why is it that whenever I pose a question I create an argument?
I’m beginning to feel like a complete black sheep.
I long to know my heritage, the life of my family for I’ve no one left to tell me. It’s through you on here I find answers.
How am I to learn amongst negativity and argument?

Fellows, fellows; can we agree to disagree?
Can we all share experiences and opinions of them with an open mind?

I try to think of my mother having a normal childhood, I’m curious if she had ever rode a bicycle;
but all I have read leads me to her at age 7 in turmoil of war.
I wonder if my grandparents ever went to the movies, I’ve read there were lists of names in which peoples were threatened of being deported due to their employment and therefore wonder if they lived in fear of being one.
Can anyone give me a clear idea of what life was like in 1936 in Riga?
Did my mother grow up among whispers and fear of impending war, hence being denied a normal childhood?
What did my family experience?

courlander:  Sorry, your ramblings :

courlander Posted: 22 January 2008 05:04 AM [ # 9 ]
Sr. Member Total Posts:  190 Joined 2003-05-25
After thinking about it , seeing that you are from the U.S.A. I suggest you go with the Constitution and prove me wrong. It is innocent till proven wrong. I do not subscribe to the shrub in the White House.
Signature You will never Know till you find out

are beyond my mental capacities.  Is it how you fulfill your promise to:

Be happy to teach you Latvian History.  - ?

And how does it connect with the original premise by DisaW:
“…what Latvia was like before the war?”

Disa W: Please forgive courlander. He is known for his digressive behavior.

:-)

Mr. L. L.

DisaW - no need for shame here!

1936-1945 didn’t happen in a vacuum in Europe.

My father was born outside of Latvija in 1917. (His parents had fled to the Ukraine sometime after the uprising of 1905. There was hunger/ faminein the whole region)
The family moved back to Latvija about 3 years later- early 1920s.  So did many, many families that had fled to the east.

As a point of reference, in 1917 (a year before Latvija declared independence) the Baltic University was established.  When independence was declared, a government was ready to start working.  So in answer to your question, it would first depend on your age/ experience/ education/ family situation etc.  at this very revolutionery stage in Latvija’s history.

My dad grew up in Riga.  He was a sports hound and there were plenty of opportunities for him to play soccer, basketball, etc, etc.  His sister (5 years younger) was somebody he sort of ignored in childhood.  Their mother died when my dad was 12, his sister 7.  There was an older brother at the time - 17 years old and just about graduating high school at that time.  I think their mother’s death marked all their lives much more than any of the political upheaval that followed.

In 1936 there were undercurrents of un-ease in all of Europe.  On a day to day basis, life went on.  All the things you mentioned - bicycles, movies, theater, concerts, museums, the zoo - all normal everyday activities went on around everybody. 

If you were an adult in those years, you remembered WW I and how hard-fought your country’s independence was.  You would have been very sensitive to all of the things going on in Europe; anything that threatened your newly-found independece/ freedom was suspect.
At the same time, you would (naturally) try to shield your children from any feelings of threat.

When the russian army came in the first time (19--? Please pardon my ignorance of exact dates) my dad was in the latvian army doing his mandatory 2- year stint. 
By now a young adult, his life had taken a dark turn.  And so started the war years - then the german army drove out the russian army & there followed a year called “The german year”.  An ugly time.  And then the russian army was back in full force - an even uglier time.
Thousands of educated/ wealthy/ powerful/ patriotic latvian (and lithuanian & estonian) people were rounded up & shot or carted off to prison camps or Siberia.  My father’s older brother disappeared that June 14th night in 1941.  This was another horrible event in my father’s life that changed him forever.  It took my father about 50 years to find out what had happened to the older brother he so admired.

Again, depending upon your age & experience, these horrible years would have had different effects on everybody.

Thanks guys!

Hum, I’m curious......... My grandfather worked for the railroad (mom mentioned her father sleeping with a hatchet under his pillow) which made me wonder when I read of the ‘list’.
It would appear from my mothers birth certificate they also resided in Majori/Jumala in the summers, so I’m curious if they had status, and if they were possibilities for the list and if so, how did they avoid deportation.

My mother had been born in 1919 in Novogrod of Latvian parents. She spoke very fondly of the opportunities that eveyone had, and of the standard of education available. She had related one story that she recalled from early childhood. She had said that at some point her family had to move because of a change in the borders. Any help out there on this one? She maitains that it happened quickly (the move) in that her father had literally buried many of the families valuables, simply because they could not haul them all.

My paternal grandfather was definately on the deportation list, in that he held a political position in the Latvian Government. He was not however deported in ‘41 - but rather in ‘49 (not positive). During the war - his two sons were both in the Legion - and he managed to ship his daughters to their maternal grandparents, there by distancing them from himself. The daughters were not deported - but they never saw their father again. In fact - they also did not attend his funeral, simply because of the stigma of being associatted with a former exile. From what I understand - my grandfather was returned to Latvija after the general amnesty that followed Stalin’s death. He appaerntly was still under a house arrest - and I have be told that he did not die of natural causes, but possibly by lethal injection.

From all that I have heard - as far as males went - one of the greatest opportunities in an independant Latvija was in the scouts. I take it from what I have heard that it was a very different organization than the North American Scouts - but once again - do not have much information. I only know that many spoke of the wonderful times they had in the scouts.

May I add a few observations, hoping that they will not be interrupted by disarranged minds? ;)

Looking back at Latvia one has to divide the time in zones.
As I can remember some things back as far as 1934, I group the past in:
1.  1918-1934 = I was told about
2.  1934-1940 = I was told / I do remember
3.  1940-1941 = The year of terror – hard to talk about
4.  1941-1945 = The war years with all the enthusiasm of a teenager
5.  1945 – on = Did not return to bolshevik Latvia.

My assumption is that DisaW’s posting #13 is about the 1940-1941 time span, bolshevik occupation.

In 1940, some people say already in 1939, bolshevik operators (NKVD) arrived with lists of names of persons to be “liquidated” or killed, and lists of families to be removed because of their influence on general population.  Killings started already in July 1940, also individual deportations.  It reached its peak in May-June when the trains bringing Red Army in preparation for war with Germany provided transportation back to Russia for “Code 58- criminals” (I did not know the code then, in our circles everybody was “criminal” ) .

Many Latvians escaped into forests to reappear with German liberation (It was liberation of the nation for a few weeks :) ) to find their family members butchered or removed into captivity. 

The number of “enemies” to be removed far exceeded available transportation which explains why many families survived and upon the return of bolsheviks escaped to Germany in 1944-45

Working for the railroad by itself could have been a crime because of contact with many other people.  Also there were possible sins of the past – was Grandfather involved in military liberation of the State of Latvia in 1918-1920? Was he the dreaded “Aizsargs”? Did he support the re-awakening of Latvian Pride in 1934?  Sorry, I do not understand what is meant by “if they had status”.

I remember very well the discussions about the future and destruction of Latvia we were proudly building up after 1934 - - - Those talks by themselves would have been a ticket to Vorkuta or similar places.

Next time, if you wish, about the years 1934-1940.
“Mes esam nu kungi musu dzimtaja zeme “ :)

Mr. L. L.