Remembering the Repressed
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31.08.2011

Part of the group on the Asia-Europe border (bus driver Pavel is first on the left, bus driver Zakhar is last on the right)

Remembering the Repressed

Several years ago I began a translation project that took hold of my imagination, namely, the translation into English of a book of life stories of people who had been deported to Siberia in 1941. The general narrative is known to most Latvians, and some feel it is time to forget these tragic events of the past and move on. Not so Dzintra Geka, a filmmaker in Latvia who has spent over a decade documenting the fates of deportees from 1941 and later deportation campaigns. Geka compiled the book I helped translate, which contained the stories of those who had been deported as children. A couple of days after the book's release in June 2011, Geka led a tour to Russia and Siberia for former deportees and their descendants. This year's tour focused on two notorious men's Gulag camps, where the fathers and grandfathers of the travelers had died.

I jumped at the opportunity to join Geka, for when else would I get such an insider's view of the land and people that had occupied my mind while translating?