Story of my grandfather Jānis Martuzāns

My grandfather Jānis Martuzāns did not worry at all when Soviet troops entered Latvia in June 1940. He calmed my mother, who was quite disturbed, saying: Nabādoj, meit, krīvam maizes pīteik - that means in translation from Latgalian dialect: "Donna worry, daughter, Russians have plenty of bread". And told her a story - how they, Latgalian workers in Petrograd, used the strings of barankas as a tool to defend themselves aqgainst aggressive dogs. Maybe you do not know what a baranka is? It is a sort of bakery products in the form of torus with a hole amid. To understand the story, one should remember that barankas are baked of white flour i.e. of fine wheat-flour. In Latvia,  especially in Latgale, people did not cultivate wheat for making fine flour of baranka quality and had few mills to mill this sort of flour, so one could not bake barankas at home and they were brought from a town visit for children only as a delicacy.

My mother was very upset that her father-in-law was so unpatriotic. She thought that the freedom and similar things were much more important than bread. As a teacher, she taught patriotism to her pupils and, of course, became more patriotic than it could happen at another job.

I do not think my grandfather had ever starved in his life to that moment, though maybe he not always had good food of the best quality. However, he knew quite well from the stories of his parents about the periods of real starvation, and all his life he was fighting for having enough food for his family, which was the primary criterion of the prosperity. So no wonder, he put bread in the first place before all other things. By the way, he was quite right about bread in Russia. The Russia Empire had no shortage in bread, and grain was exported, however in the socialism time it was claimed that this export of grain went on in spite of the regular starvation of peasants, which maybe was right, but so catastrophic famine as in the USSR at the beginning of the 1930s had hardly taken place in the Russia Empire. Of course, my grandfather had no information on this famine.

My mother remembers that quite soon her father-in-law discovered that the time had changed, and the situation in 1940 did not seem similar to that in 1917. But in any case, he had no serious objections to the new regime and continued his daily work. He had a farm, and what was pretty supportive for the family, he was a skilled blacksmith, and was known in wide vicinity of Kuprava where he lived (about 20 km from Vedenieši, where lived my parents). So he did not doubt that he would be able to earn his living at any regime. In reality his skill brought the greatest trouble in his life.

In August 1944, after the German Army was pushed out of Latgale, the draft of young men was initiated by the Soviet authorities, and many men joined the Army including my father (See his story). However, there were also quite many draftees who hid themselves in forests. Maybe some of them did not want to serve in the Soviet Army for political reasons, but as far as I understand, most of them hoped to wait for the end of the war there. Quite clear that the Soviet authorities did not accept such a decision. The guys in forests were hunted down and punished severely according to the laws of war time.

Just one example. In winter 1945 my mother visited Viļaka on some business. She did not have much time, because we, three kids, waited for her at home (the father was still in the Soviet Army). But she went to the market square where several dozens of corpses of the deserters shot in forest - as it was said - were exhibited to demonstrate what would happen to those who would not obey the laws. The most surprising for my mother was the character of the wounds. All the men there were hit by a bullet in the back of the head! How could it happen in forest that all fallen in a battle were wounded identically? And why the men living in forest did not wear any suits - just underwear and overcoats?

As far as I know, Viļaka was not the only place where the corpses of people killed in forest were publicly demonstrated. May be sometimes it was done because of the need to identify the people, however in the case of Viļaka it seems that the MGB men were ordered to demonstrate corpses next day morning just for educational purposes, and, as no extra corpses were in their disposition, they produced some from the material they had at hand. I know now but did not know when I heard this story for the first time, and my mother does not know even now, that the technology of killing of people sentenced to death in MGB was to shot them in the back of head. The technology is rather convenient if the shooter follows a victim, and it guarantees the desired result.

No wonder that the people in forest gradually armored themselves how it was possible for them. So the sons of my grandfather’s neighbor Bindris did and also hid in forest. They have got some fire arms that needed repair. Then they went to my grandfather, and asked him to do the job. He agreed. I do not know why he did not refuse, may be he did not realize how dangerous the business was, maybe he thought he should help a good neighbor that Bindris family really was, maybe on the contrary, he was forced by somebody to do that, maybe the problem challenged him, because he was thought to be capable of solving any problem of this kind.

In any case he repaired the arms. I wonder sometimes what for a problem it was, but I have no concrete information. Only from the knowledge of the arms used in the WW2 and of the possibilities of the countryside smithy my grandfather had, I can conclude that the problem was not very complicated - may be some wooden parts remade. In any case, when the group was captured by MGB in the winter of 1945, the chekists discovered without much investigation that the firearms were repaired. "By whom?" was their question.

The members of the group told the truth and named my grandfather. I do not know what was their situation, why they did not say that the repair was done by themselves (nothing worse could happen to them). Quite possible that they could not coordinate their stories among the members of the group, or maybe, as my mother supposes, they thought that this information would not make any harm to the father of a Soviet Army soldier. As for me, I guess they simply had no necessary skills in lying - when they were asked by an official, they told the truth, they could not imagine that something else could be told.

My grandfather was arrested and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. After some appeals the term was decreased to 10 years due to the age of the accused - he was 67 years old.

I know nothing about the life of my grandfather in a camp near Archangelsk city where he was moved to. I remember my family dried bread for him to send in parcels, but, as far as I know, it was not allowed to receive many parcels in prison, may be a parcel per month.

I even do not know if an official notification about his death was received. I think, it was. However, we have received the information on his decease from his campmate Gibala long time before an official paper reached Kuprava.

I have not had a possibility of visiting Archangelsk, and it is quite clear I shall not be able to went there in my life. But when I hear the name Archangelsk, I can not help remembering my grandfather.