CHAPTER 17

I am not sure that my work with the children was well paid for, but it did enable me not to work during the summer. Therefore, after completing my fourth year at university I took Iren for the summer to her grandmother's summer house at the seaside. We had a small room there and I cooked for both of us and did our washing. When she was about one year' old Iren started walking and was developing normally for her age: she played by herself in her play-pen, she started speaking some language of her own and was generally a happy child.

In autumn we moved to another apartment. It was a large and an expensive one, so I had to rent out one room. The largest room served as my children's group meeting place. Iren had a little room of her own.

We came back to Riga on the 8th of September. I remember this date so well because that was the day when Iren started to walk. Right after I had put her down of the floor next to me she suddenly started walking! I was so surprised that I could not believe my eyes. The next day she learned to walk over the threshold and she felt much more confident not only when walking barefoot, but also walking in her little shoes. She even walked well on the parquet floor which was much more slippery.

Despite the fact that all her toys, etc. were placed lower down, so that she could reach them, she knew exactly which were the ones she was allowed to play with. At the age of one and a half she could eat and drink by herself, she played with dolls, arranged cardboard pieces by color, size and form, and even "cooked" meals…

I was the only one in our company of friends who had a child and everyone liked to observe Iren, how she ate, how she arranged her toys and how she used to cry only "near her bed", where I "sent her off" when she had started to cry about something.

That year was filled with all sorts of activities. A "Pioneer center" used to gather in our apartment, and lots of people used to come over in the evening. We collected a bit of money from everyone and bought some sweets or cookies or halva and drank tea. These evenings, filled with all sorts of discussions and dancing, were very interesting. My work with the Pioneers, my university studies, the children's group,as well as skiing and underground activities in winter, and keeping house – all this took up much time and effort.

The Summer of 1939- the Spring of 1940

This was not an easy summer because I decided to organize a 'pension' (a boarding house) for children at the seaside. There were lots of applicants and Iren's nanny, Olga, agreed to come with us. Another acquaintance of mine agreed to serve as the other kindergarten teacher in my boarding house. I rented the ground floor of a summer house in Dzintari for my premises. It had three small rooms, one large room and a veranda. Together with Iren the group contained 10-12 children. It was not easy to look after them the whole day, to give everyone a bath and put them all to bed. However, this provided me and my little girl with the possibility of moving to the seaside during the summer.

In autumn we moved back to our apartment. Iren's hair (which I had completely cut off in summer because that was considered "the right thing to do" then) grew, she started to talk quite well, but she could not pronounce the "r"s and the "l"s.. She was a very good and sensible girl, with occasional bouts of stubbornness. She was also very clean and never soiled her clothes. For example, if he had to climb up the stairs all by herself she never touchetd the steps with her palms: she turned up her hands in such a way that the upper side of her hands touched the stairs, so as not to touch the dirty stairs. Whoever saw that was amazed. It was a cute sight.

In December 1939 I graduated from the university with honors and received my diploma. To mark this event I received a present: K.Stanislavsky's book "The Actor's Work" (it "survived") and a fountain pen, which was lost in Russia in 1941…

At that time Tusya lived in Riga and we sometimes went out for a walk together with the children. Here are a couple of pictures. The girls were often similarly dressed. By that time Lilya spoke very well and very clearly (she was about three and a half years' old) but she was still thin and frail. Iren, who was two and a half, was a fat and strong little girl. Iren loved to go to Tusya's house, but Lilya was rather "possessive" about sharing her toys and began to cry when Iren touched them…

Everything else went on as before: keeping house, my work with the children and the underground activities. The situation changed for the worse in the spring: there were many arrests, but this did not make anyone stop coming. All the underground groups went on meeting as they did in the past. Some of these meeting were conducted at my apartment.

Iren was growing up a clever and independent little girl. She was very happy to spend some time with my children's group and she tried not to stay behind, so to speak. This picture was taken after she had just finished putting on her shoes and tying her shoelaces. She was 2 years and 8 months' old.

The Summer of 1940

The 17th of July 1940 was a very special day. Already in the morning we learned that the Soviet tanks had crossed the Latvian border and had been moving forward into Latvia according to the agreement signed between the Soviet and the Latvian governments. Soon we were informed that the Soviet tanks have reached the square in front of the Riga railway station and that a crowd was gathering there. Iren was sick that day and in bed, she had the chickenpox. In spite of that I decided, like everybody else, to run down to the square to see what was going on, especially since we lived not very far from it.

There was a huge crowd of people there. The tanks were standing there, without making any moves. There were lots of policemen around, they had truncheons but did not touch anyone. Suddenly we heard the "International" being sung somewhere. The singing grew stronger and the crowd started to move. It appeared that the policemen wanted to disperse the people. There was some shouting and then we heard a shot. Mounted police appeared in the square and I was told to leave. I ran back home to see Iren and to await more news. And then suddenly the doorbell rang. I ran to open the door and saw Sashen'ka, who held up one of his arms by the other and whose shirt was all covered with blood…

Lots of important events took place between the 17th of July and the 21st of July, when a huge crowd of people marched to the Central Prison building in order to free the political prisoners. The most vivid of these events for me was a telephone call I received. The caller said: "Lyuba! The Komsomol and the party are coming out of the underground! We are now completely legal! I decided right away that this was a provocation and put down the receiver. The phone rang again and I was told in a jubilant voice: "This is true! Lyuba, it really means a complete legalization!" I found it hard to believe this. After nine years of underground work it was hard to imagine that this was the end of our underground activities and that our whole lives will now change.

This is when my legal Pioneer activities started. Unlike the past I now had large groups of children and we held our meetings in a school on the corner of Dzirnavu St. and Kurmanovskaya St. (now Birzniek Upisha St.). We sang songs and I told them everything I knew about the new regime and about our future work.

However, I had to move to the seaside with Iren, I rented a room for us in Avoty. One of the girls from my childen's group, Nina Levin, who has been living with us during the past two winters, was supposed to come with us too. So, we moved to Avoty in the beginning of July, but two or three times a week I went back to Riga in order to conduct my Pioneer meetings.

One day O.Markushevich, who was then working in some organization responsible for the liquidation of all sorts of Fascist organizations, came to visit me and said that a Pioneer summer camp will be organized in Ropazhi, at the location of a former Fascist colony. He asked me whether I would agree to go there to work as a kindergarten teacher and a Pioneer leader. I agreed right away, but I kept thinking of what I would do about Iren and Nina and how would I move our things there. When I very hesitantly mentioned all this to Osip Markushevich, he replied right away that the two children will, of course, come with me and I will get help with moving our belongings. He said that I will be informed when this will take place. Soon enough a young man appeared at our place. He was a second-year student at the Agricultural Academy, Yuris Bumeister. It transpired that he had been appointed as the Director of the new summer camp. Yuris helped me to pack out belongings and to send them to Riga and then to Ropazhi. He also helped me to move there with Iren and Nina and to settle down in one of the rooms at the colony.

After a medical check-up the children were brought down in two decorated trucks to the Ropazhi school that was decorated with a large placard greeting the children in Russian and Latvian. Their beds and their meals, everything they needed, had been prepared for their arrival and all those appointed to work with them were out to greet them. The children stood there, keeping close together, not knowing what to do and what to expect.

This is how the first Pioneers' summer camp or, as we called it "the first Pioneer colony" in Latvia was established in July 1940. It was later named after Pavlik Morozov. Our "staff" was small. It included our Director Yuris Bumeister (who is still alive and well), our physician Cecilia Dembo (now retired), the Pioneer leader or guide Liah Liepinya (they say that she had left Latvia after the war together with other pro-Nazi Latvians), another Pioneer leader Mark Lipert (also alive and well), the kindergarten teacher Maria Zak (she died after the war) and me, the Pioneer leader/kindergarten teacher and also the "political director" in charge of the camp. " Comrade Lyuba".

The children were divided into groups, different study groups and workshops were set up, we selected an editorial staff for the camp newspaper and organized different activities, like they do in all Pioneer camps.

The following picture shows the former primary school in Ropazhi which is now the intermediary school of Garkalni, where the first Pioneer camp in Latvia was once established. The picture was made in May 1972, when the 50th anniversary of the V.I.Lenin-named Pioneer Organization was marked all over the USSR.

In the meantime, Iren and Nina lived with us in the camp. Iren was only three years' old, but she did not interfere with my work. She played alone in the garden when I was busy and later joined other children when they went to the forest or down to the river. This picture of both of us was made in September 1940. Iren is three years and two months' old and she is wearing a blue knitted coat, knitted for her by Tusya. I am wearing trousers and a dark navy cardigan, its lapels decorated by pink angora threads...

This Pioneer camp would have been completely forgotten if I had not written about it and had not told about its history later. I was asked for the first time to relate the events connected with our first Pioneer camp in the spring of 1941, just prior to the opening of a number of Pioneer camps all over the Latvian Republic. I later wrote about it in books and newspaper articles and history. The item included the name of the camp and my name too. So, its memory has been recorded for posterity.

In 1967 I was invited to the school in Ropazhi to attend a Pioneers' assembly and tell about our summer camp in 1940. I told the children how the red flag was lowered down and removed from the pole on the day the camp closed and how our best Pioneer, Misha Rot, folded it and handed it to me. I remembered how I felt then: I literally felt "that I was holding in my hands the symbol of the blood of the workers…"

In 1972, during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the All-Union Young Pioneers' Organization, I was again invited to Ropazhi, to attend a festive general assembly and to address the Pioneers. I was also asked to speak at the dedication of a memorial stone dedicated to the first Pioneers and Pioneer leaders of our republic.

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