Tag #116324 - Interview #78774 (Fania Brantsovskaya)

My father's younger sister Etha, born in 1916, was a shop assistant at the jewelry shop on the main street in town. During the tsarist time this street was named Georgievskiy Prospect after St. George. During the Polish rule from 1920-1939 this was Adam Mickiewicz [11] Street, named after the popular Polish poet. During the Soviet rule the street was called Stalin Prospect. During the Nazi occupation it became Hitlerstrasse. After the war and until 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev [12] denounced the cult of Stalin, the street was named after this great tyrant [Stalin]. Then the avenue was given the name of Lenin, and only in 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet Union and establishment of the independent Lithuanian state the street was given the name of Gediminas [13], the founder of Vilnius. I remember my mother and me went to the shiny store where Etha was working. Mama enjoyed looking at the jewelry in the window, but she couldn't afford to buy any. This was a store for wealthy people.