Saved by the Nazis Vivita was eight years old and a young child when the Soviets first invaded Latvia in 1940. When they would leave for the last time in 1991, she would be nearly sixty. Vivita was one of the lucky ones. She left before the Iron Curtain trapped people inside the Soviet Union and its territories in 1945. However, the four years Vivita spent living in Riga, Latvia was enough time for Latvia to be occupied by both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and for tens of thousands of Latvians to be deported to prison camps by the U.S.S.R. and Germany.
Europe Before WWII Vivita’s homeland, Latvia, is one of the Baltic States. The Baltic States include Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. They are located on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and lie between Russia and Germany. When Hitler …show more content…
On June 14th, 1941, about 15,500 Latvians were deported to labor camps in a mass deportation by the Soviets. Vivita’s uncle, his wife and his daughter were deported that day. Their son was in the hospital that day and stayed in Latvia only because of it. With the status of Vivita’s father, Vivita’s family were lucky to have avoided being deported that day. However, the Soviet Union was planning another mass deportation to take place soon. Only week after the mass deportation, the Soviet Union rapidly retreated out of the Baltic States as the Germans advanced. Vivita’s family welcomed the Germans as liberators because of the way the Latvians had been treated by the Soviets. Unless someone was Jewish, they were unlikely to experience problems with deportations with the Nazis. Fortunately for Vivita, her family was saved by the German advance. They didn’t know at the time, but Vivita and her mother were on a deportation list for Turkmenistan the upcoming week, and her father was on the list without a destination, suggesting