This is me, Rafael Genis, after the war, I am wearing the following medals - to the victory over Germany and the Great Patriotic War Order. I had two more medals, but didn't want to punch the wholes in a high collar jacket; at that time it wasn?t customary to put the medals on. The picture taken in 1946 in Lipetsk.
I was discharged in early January 1944 with the so-called ?white card?: I could not be in the lines any more. I had to get recouped somehow. I had to find a lodging and a job. I was recommended to be a military trainer at the vocational school. I went to Lipetsk, an industrial town, where there were a lot of schools. I was hired by one of the vocational schools right away. I rented a room. I worked hard. All I had to wear was a military uniform. Lithuania was still occupied, and I didn't care where I should live. I did well at work. I had military awards: two Great Patriotic War Orders and others. Later I was offered to run the local timber enterprise.
The war was over and I was still wearing my military jacket. I didn't have money to buy civilian clothes. Besides, I wasn?t willing to take it off. Now, Lithuania was free and I was eager to go home, but they wouldn't dismiss me. I said that I wanted to go to my motherland to help restore towns and villages, but they told me that a Soviet person had his motherland all over the USSR.
In 1947 I was on a business trip in Moscow and saw a sign on a building downtown ? it was the representative office of the Lithuanian SSR in the USSR. I went in and was stopped by the guard. I started asking him to let me in for me to see an authorized representative. The guy was compassionate. He asked me to take my military coat off. I told my story to Bachunas, the authorized representative. He made a couple of telephone calls and gave me a document for my management in Lipetsk. When I arrived, I was dismissed right away.
Rafael Genis
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
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