George Matulaitis Journal

Yesterday evening the Bolsheviks arrested Jonas Verzaitis, my brother and servant, as he was walking along the street, coming home from evening classes. Near the Gate of Dawn shrine a woman handed me a note from him. He is suspected of spying for me. It turned out that the evening classes, the so-called high school courses, had been organized by the Bolsheviks to train agitators. Consequently, the Bolsheviks could not understand why the bishop would send one of his own people to attend them. But perhaps the Bolsheviks wanted to take revenge in general, especially because the people had driven them out of my house. It is true that I had sent Brother John 1 to attend these classes because I wanted to find out what was being taught there and how. These courses were attended mostly by Jews. Besides them, in John’s class, there were a few Russians and two Catholics. From Brother John I found out that one of the teachers, a Jewess, had spoken out against religion and especially against honoring the Blessed Virgin—this was during a lesson in geography. Unable to stand this, John had asked to speak and had sharply protested against these attacks. All the Jews had turned and stared at him; then they took him down to the station. Although I tried very hard, I could not find out where they were holding him. Yesterday, that is, April 26th, 2 I got a letter from Marijampole from which I gather that John is in Marijampole. Perhaps he got away from the Bolsheviks and made his way there. I thought that they might have taken him to Mi<sk or Smole < sk and even asked Father Cikoto about it, but was unable to get any information. We all felt very sorry for John and were concerned about him. I invited one or two Lithuanian priests in charge of teaching religion and tried to find out how things stand with the Lithuanian schools as well as their attitude towards the Bolshevik decree. The Bolsheviks had sent notices to all the schools stating that priests would no longer be allowed into them. I have one such letter. From 244 1 Matulaitis calls him “Jonukas,” an affectionate diminutive like Johnny. 2 There is a slight discrepancy in the date: if this record of events were written April 28, the day before would be April 27th. This slip may be the author’s or the transcriber’s.