War, deportation and trauma in the narratives of former women resistance fighters

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Deportacija; Trauma; Moterys pasipriešinimo kovotojos; Atmintis; Deportation; Trauma; Women Resistance Fighters; Memory.

ENDespite their involvement in different types of resistance, the two women described in this chapter had some things in common - their experiences of torture, betrayal and exile, the trauma of coming back from Siberia to Soviet Lithuania, and their dissatisfaction with the lack of transitional justice in post-Soviet Lithuania. Their narratives are influenced by the national meta-narrative about fighting and suffering during the postwar era (this is especially true about Vitalija's story). Neither Vitalija nor Natalija played leading roles in the resistance movement; however, they understood the.importance of being helpers. The fact that they arc women has affected the content of their narratives, especially in the case of their experiences in the labor camps (e.g., Natalija's narrative about food). It is probably fair to say that caregiving had an important role in both narratives. Natalija remembered her friendship with and the supportive relationships between other women in the labor camp, as they supported each other during difficult times. Vitalija remembered her experience as a caretaker in a boarding pre-school. (Similar observations have been put forward by scholars studying women in the Holocaust. Acts of cooperation among women were important for survival in the concentration camps. Hunger dominates the Holocaust narratives, and women's responses to hunger were different than those of men.)' Including women's stories in the discourse about resistance helps to broaden the discourse about tesistance, and (hopefully) deconstructs the image of the nation as a fighting and suffering hero (i.e., the male narrative). Women's stories raise numerous other questions, such as: What were the relations between the resistance fighters and their families? How did they cope with the trauma of betrayal? Which stories are still not heard?.According to Judith Gtecnberg, who has studied women in the French resistance during World War II, one of the most important functions of including women in the study of resistance is to make sure that' a fixed idea of resistance' is resisted. Resistance is a very complex, multi-layered phenomenon; its participants were often tortured by betrayal and trauma. This insight can be applied to the Lithuanian war of resistance and to the discoutses surrounding it as well. In her written memoir Natalija describes an interrogation session in which she tried to explain to the interrogator the affect which World War II and the anti-Soviet wat of resistance had had on Lithuanians: "I explained to him that the wars that took place in our lands confused people in such a way that it was difficult to understand who wanted what". Raising more questions about the war of resistance and complicating the national metanarrative are probably the most important contriburions of the stories of the two women ptesented in this essay. [Extract, p. 151-152]

• Sociologija / Sociology
• Istorija / History