Sara Ushpitsene with her colleagues

This is I, Sara Ushpitsene, with my colleagues in the period when I was the director of the department store. At that time we were given a horsed cart for work-related trips and we took pictures by that cart. Sakiai, 1952. After the War I found a job right away. At that time literate workers, fluent in Russian, were in need. I was in charge of the army provision warehouse, where there were both groceries and primary goods. At that time there was a regulation for all peasants to submit vegetables, meat and other products to that warehouse and I was supposed to receive those goods from them and then distribute them to the military units. We lived comfortably. I got a good ration at the warehouse. Father and Meishe also worked. They became translators from Russian into Lithuanian for the KGB in Luksiai. They didn't speak about their job at home. I think they fought with the Lithuanian resistance, who had been fighting with the Soviets for a long time. My brother is still afraid that some of his Lithuanian neighbors might find out about his service in the security agency. That is why he refused to be interviewed. I was respected at work and was promoted. In 1949 a new department store was built in Sakiai and I was appointed its director and given a plot of land for construction. My parents sold their house in Luksiai and moved to Sakiai. Here we built the house, where I am still living. I did well at work. I was called in to the municipal Communist Party committee and offered to join the Communist Party. I kept refusing. I wasn?t afraid to lose my job. Even if I was fired, I would still find another job. The management decided not to put any pressure on me. Thus I remained in my job without entering the Party. In 1952 I was assigned to courses for sales agents in Kaunas. I studied there for half a year and then came back to Sakiai. At that time our store had motor bikes on offer. One of them was to stay in our stock to service the department store. I was a brave lady and thought that I could ride a bike myself. I fell off the bike, broke my arm and leg and was out of kilter for a long time. In a year I had to undergo an operation in Vilnius and was jobless for almost half a year.