Memory Office: J. Okulič-Kazarinas
This is a story by Jaroslavas Okulič-Kazarinas, who has Russian roots and whose family lived in Kaunas since the end of the 19th century. He tells us about his great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, the life of the Lithuanian armed forces, WW2 in Kaunas that he saw back then just as a little child from up close.
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“All cadet students were mobilised. They fought against the Bolsheviks. My father was 16 years old. Just a kid, so to speak. But they were still armed, mobilised and put into an armoured train.”
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“Then, suddenly, ‘Whoosh!’ something roared. A bang. I thought that the house was swinging back and forth. We ran quickly to the shelter. I saw sparks coming up.“
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“We reached Kaunas by train, a locomotive with many platforms and rails loaded on them. Germans were retreating and when they had time, they dismantled the rails and put them neatly on the platforms. In some places they did not have time to do it. But they had this device at the back of the train: a hook hanging down that would break the rails while the train moved.”
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“In the morning, we woke up and heard the thunderstorm. My mother stood in front of the window and I saw that the sky was blue. The thunder was, of course, a strange one: “Bah-boom, bah-boom.” Mother said: “This is probably war.”
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“In one window of Laisvės Alėja, there was a map of Europe and Russia. Covering the area to Ural, maybe even further. With the flags pinned down and marking the front line. Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Caucasus, Vladikavkaz and so on. We were so interested in how much it would move. Then one day we came to see that map with a friend. And we saw that it was gone. No one showed how the front was moving back.”
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“When someone told me I was Russian, I replied that I was not. The name of Okulič-Kazarinas is not actually Russian. We can find our relatives in Poland as well.”
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Jaroslavas Okulič-Kazarinas
The Okulič-Kazarin family has lived in Kaunas since the end of the 19th century. Jaroslav was born in 1931, in the family of a Lithuanian Army officer Anatolijus Okulič-Kazarinas and Ksenija Izmailovaitė. His great grandfather Savatijus was a teacher in Kaunas Russian gymnasium. Grandfather Mykolas studied in Saint Petersburg, where he met his wife and came back to Lithuania together with her. He lived in Panevėžys, then moved to Kaunas in 1910, and lived in a house in Savanorių Avenue. Boy’s father was constantly assigned to military units in various towns of Lithuania, so the family had to move a lot. Jaroslavas saw the everyday life of the militia, the onset of war, frightening bombings of Palemonas and Kaunas. In 1941, his father was arrested and brought to Norilsk, and he returned to his family and Lithuania after almost ten years. Jaroslavas has studied radio engineering, he is a well-known mountaineer, and his wife is the late painter Giedrė Gučaitė, whom he remembers in loving memory. Jaroslavas lives in a house built in Kaunas by his grandparents.
Date of the interview: 31/03/2018