The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE MEMOIR OF “INHUMAN LANDS” REV. HENRY TOMASZEWSKI, MIC, BRAZIL In the evening we had more time. The pastor of Druja, the young priest Vincent Smolinski, came to me for a long conversation. We kept remembering the past month together, over and over. Things happened quickly. We crossed the Lithuanian border at Dukszty. We witnessed the first Bolshevik bombardment by vintage bi-planes, the flight of the Vilnius wing to Lithuania. In the evening, we reached Soloki. We continued our progress to Wilkomierz. The Lithuanian people were extraordinarily friendly and good to us. From there I went to Kaunas to con- tinue my studies. The Bolsheviks returned Vilnius to Lithuania. It was a great joy, but only for short-sighted people. Still, my friends didn't like to hear me when I said: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, “ Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” People began to believe more and more in the transient and illusory character of the free Lithuanian state with the imposed friendship of the Red Moloch crouched next to the Baltic states. On June 12, 1940, on the eve of President Smetona’s name day, the menacing steel birds appeared over Kaunas. This was the end of freedom and of friendship. Soon after, Lithuania lost its independence, and we then “joyously” joined the world’s “Leader of Freedom,” the Soviet Union. We experienced terrible moments in Mariampole, the center of the Marians in Lithuania. First, the communists took away the high-school building. They needed it for the Allied military. From then on, they would “defend” the integrity and sover-