Part 4: Selections from Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia

Fr Nikolajs Vieglais’ life gets a little too interesting in this fourth installment of “Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia,” as he recounts his early priestly ministry in Latvia during WWII and in the Displaced Persons (DP) Camps.

Priesthood in Latvia and the DP Camps

Q: Fr. Nikolajs, you talked about the occupation of Latvia by the Soviets after 1940. How long did that last?

NV: The Soviets occupied in June on the second day of Pentecost. In one day they occupied the whole city of Riga. Of course that day we didn’t know what would happen. The occupation lasted from June 12 or 13, 1940 until June 21 or 22, 1941, the same month. In 1940 it was on the second day of Pentecost, and the next year it was on the Sunday of the Saints of Russia.

Q: What effect did the invasion have on the church?

NV: When the communists occupied in 1940, Metropolitan Augustin went into retirement in the country. He didn’t appear anymore. And then in the meantime, after a couple of weeks or so, the metropolitan of Lithuania, Elevfery, passed away. And they sent Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky from Moscow to Vilna to replace him. Metropolitan Elevfery was under Moscow; our Latvian Church was not. Therefore it was very reasonable that they sent Voskresensky to replace him. But at the same time he was appointed as exarch of Latvia and Estonia. Maybe this was the reason why Metropolitan Augustin retired and went to his parents’ house in the country. He no longer took part in the church. Then little by little the exarch decided that there was more reason to live in Riga since it was in the center.
Once they occupied Lithuania — in communist times it was very difficult to get a special apartment — he was given a room in Trinity St. Sergius monastery where I was a priest. Of course he visited some churches, served in the monastery, and there were no big changes that were made. There were two auxiliary bishops. Those remained in their places, but they had no power. They were just serving. In the beginning it was nothing special, but little by little some priests started to disappear, a deacon disappeared or was arrested. I don’t know who he was, but Metropolitan Sergius had a secre-tary from Moscow [who had something to do with the disappearances]. The next year when the war started, the secretary went back to Russia, but Metropolitan Sergius hid in the cathedral basement [and stayed behind].

Q: Did the Soviets close the cathedral in Riga during the occupation of 1940–41?

NV: It was open, but when they came back a second time, they closed it.

Q: After the German occupation.

NV: And when the Soviets came back [in 1944], the cathedral was turned into a planetarium. At that time the cathedral was moved to the main church in the monastery. The monastery had two churches: a house church, and a main church that served as the cathedral in Riga during this time.

Q: You mentioned that some priests and a deacon disappeared. Obviously there might have been a fear then that you could be found, especially with your publishing activities. How did you feel at the time?

NV: Everyone was afraid, everyone. But not too many disappeared, mostly it was in Latgale. I think it was only one year, and then maybe they didn’t want to do too much to destroy the church because the war had started. The war was in Germany and Poland. Maybe that’s why they did not interfere too much.

Q: For those who were imprisoned, what were the reasons given?

NV: You didn’t know. Maybe for something that they had done, or for some activities before the communists came. Very good people were arrested. There was one man who was not a priest, but was very devout. He came to the church over the river every Saturday night and every Sunday. He came from the monastery. He worked as an engineer in the city hall and was very devoted to church. He was arrested! Why? Nobody knows. He was not a politician, he just disagreed. It was great terror, but it seems that they didn’t want to start too great of a terror just when they occupied. They wanted to show that they befriended you, that they freed you from your government.

Q: Did you still publish during that year?

NV: Of course I wasn’t supposed to do it! I should have given back everything, destroyed the printing, and so on. But I still published, even that last night, June 13, 1941. The war started on June 21.1 One week before that they started to take whole families and put them in trains, men in one train, women in another train and children in another train.

Q: And these people were sent where?

NV: To Siberia. Men in that direction, women in that direction, children in that direction. It started June 13, 1941. And that night I printed!

Q: Did you print at night?

NV: Usually in the evening I wrote with a special ink and during the night it would dry. And early in the morning at 6:00 or so I started to print. And there was a fence around the monastery with wooden slats. But I could see the people in the trucks over the fence, and army soldiers. The people were sitting on the truck with their hands in the air.

Q: So it was light by that time of day. These were the people they loaded onto the trucks?

NV: Onto trucks, and then in the train. I saw them that night and was surprised by what they were doing. Two or three trucks passed by our monastery, others came from the other streets. But somehow my wife got up and noticed that I was printing. My wife was very angry.
The same day, the daughter of a protodeacon came, ‘Tonight my father was arrested.’ Then I became very worried. Of course I was very sorry that I printed, but I felt that I had to do it.

Q: Was anyone in the convent arrested during that time?

NV: Yes. The principal of the school, a woman who lived close to the abbess in the same apartment but in a special room, was arrested. Why? No one knows. She wasn’t married. She didn’t want to be a nun but she worked very closely with them. She sang in the choir. She had a rough voice. It was a women’s choir and she would sing bass. She helped with many things, office duties, things like that.

Q: You spoke about some of the difficulties of that time. There were lines for basic things, and many people were arrested without real reasons and sent away. Were the people who were arrested detained somewhere nearby, or were they taken away and not seen again?

NV: Mostly, if they took somebody, they disappeared. Some were killed, some were sent to Siberia, some were put in jail, different ways. But the system was meant to make terror so that everyone would be afraid and therefore be very obedient. Of course the food started to disappear: meat, butter, cheese and other things were sent to Russia, and our stores were empty.

Q: Did you expect at that time that the occupation would last longer?

NV: [slight laugh] We had different thoughts. Some thought that it would last a long time, but most of us hoped that after the war they would go back [to Russia].

Q: What happened in June 1941 when the German troops took over?

NV: The Germans started the war on the Sunday of All Saints of Russia. The communists stayed for a while, but the Germans won very fast. On July 1 they were already in Riga. And then the Russians, communists, went back. The whole country was occupied during three weeks or so, and then the next point taken was Pskov, and then Novgorod, and so on, and they went in the direction of Moscow. But of course they were not able to occupy Moscow. It was wintertime, and they were not prepared for such cold. And then some armies that were in Siberia came back to keep the capital city from invasion.

Q: What happened to the church during the German occupation of Latvia?

NV: We were under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. But the exarch came from Moscow — he replaced the metropolitan of Lithuania who passed away at that time — and was appointed by the patriarchate. Of course there was disagreement with the government over the fact that he was to be exarch of Latvia and Estonia.

Q: When the Soviet troops withdrew from Riga, Metropolitan Sergius hid in the basement of the cathedral. Why in your opinion did he do that?

NV: [slight laugh] He was happy to be out of the Soviet Union. And he was thinking that if he went back to Russia, the communists would accuse him of some kind of cooperation with the capitalists. He was very smart. He knew what would await him if he were to go back. And so he hid in the cathedral basement, and when Germany occupied, he came out. But the Germans arrested him for a while and asked him different questions, I don’t know what the questions were, but they allowed him to stay in Riga and even to be head of the church. Interesting.

Q: Didn’t he meet a tragic death?

NV: He was killed. Because a couple of weeks before that — there we had no television; we had movies — the movies showed him in his vestments, and he was talking. Yes, because the communists threw propaganda from airplanes, ‘everything is changed and the church is free,’ and so on. And that exarch, I don’t know who organized this, but the movies showed him and they heard his voice: ‘Stalin is not Saul, and he never will be Paul.’ You know what this means? Saul was a persecutor for a while, then became the apostle Paul. He said, ‘Stalin is not Saul, and he never will become Paul.’ And therefore the communists were very angry at him and found an opportunity to kill him. And besides that, the exarch organized the mission in the Pskov area. The communists destroyed all the churches or turned them into storehouses, and by his order, priests went there, and the Germans allowed them to open the churches and perform services and even open a seminary in Vilna in Lithuania. And the exarch went for the graduation to the Vilna seminary in his own car — they gave him a car, gas, and everything; it was very special! And during the Vigil service after the graduation, those who accompanied him noticed that a couple of strange people who nobody knew from that city were watching the exarch during the service.
Then there was his driver, who was from the soldiers who were in German captivity. He wasn’t a prisoner, but a captive in the German camp.

Q: But he was a Russian?

NV: Yes. And the exarch wanted to get him as a driver. And something happened — I’m wrong here, that was his first driver. At first the exarch had no car, but a horse and carriage. And that driver was taken from the camp.
But this other driver, Peter, was a pilot in the Soviet air force. He had put his wife in a small destroyer and started to fly, and landed in the Pskov airport, which was German occupied. Of course he was a hero, and he told the Germans that he would like to see the church officials. They gave him the possibility to go to Riga. And the exarch suggested to him to be his driver, and at that time he got a car.

I don’t know really if this was the reason why those spies talked with him that night in Vilna. They talked in a special way. The clergy were in one room in that church house and the parishioners in other rooms, maybe several rooms. And the driver was sitting with the host, and those spies said, ‘We are Russian people, we would like to know how everything is going here,’ maybe just to spy from Russia for the communists. They started talking with the pilot. There were two roads from Vilna to Riga through Kaunas. They asked him what kind of car he had and the make of car. In those times most cars had overdrive, though some cars had no overdrive. They asked him, ‘Is it overdrive or not?’ He said, ‘Yes, overdrive.’ And then, ‘When are you leaving?’ ‘Tomorrow morning.’ ‘At what time?’ And then they asked which of the two roads they would use, and he told them. I don’t know much more. The next day one farmer was working with his horse and noticed that one car stopped here. And one of those with the metropolitan and his driver got out and checked the tires. Why? Maybe they suggested to do it, to stop just here.

Q: The metropolitan was in the car?

NV: Yes. And then they came back, and then another car stopped. And they asked to check if they had permission to drive and permission to buy gasoline. They already knew the restrictions. And the exarch took out this booklet, and the driver put the car in neutral, not in park, in neutral. I don’t know why. And they started to shoot these machine guns. They found 36 bullets. They killed the exarch, the driver, and one singer who accompanied them and his wife, and one more. Five people were killed. And this farmer in Kaunas noticed. He was hidden in a ditch. And he went and jumped in and saw what was going on. Then he noticed one girl pass by, and they shot her too. And then, when they did their job they went on this road. They knew that the road came back together.
But people were waiting for the exarch. And they sent a car to find out what was going on, to see if there was an accident. And they found that they were killed. And the motor was working. So they somehow got them here, and then to Riga. And the next day the exarch was scheduled to have a funeral service for his friend Smirnov, an opera singer from Russia whom he knew from Moscow. Smirnov might have stayed behind [after the German invasion] in the same way as the exarch, not going back [to Russia]. He passed away, and the exarch was going to bury him. Of course he couldn’t bury him, but we had to bury the exarch! There were two singers, Protodeacon Redikiultsev who accompanied him, and Smirnov, and the exarch.

(Editor’s Note: With Metropolitan Sergius were killed Protodeacon Iona Redikiultsev and his wife and the driver. On April 25, 1944 Metropolitan Sergei and Bishop John Garklavs visited Fr. Lev Chillo and his wife Ludmilla, who lived in Vilnius during the Second World War. Matushka Ludmilla recalled that during the visit, the metropolitan sensed danger and was sad. According to the account she was told, on April 29, a Saturday, four men in German uniform came from the forest near Kovno and shot the metropolitan, Protodeacon Redikiultsev and his wife, and the metropolitan’s chauffeur. While the identity of the assassins was never discovered, it was thought that they were Soviets, as the method of assassination was not typical of the Germans.)

Q: You were in Riga at that time?

NV: I was in Riga. I was his secretary. I worked to get those things — crosses and so on — which were not so easy to get in war time. But he helped me to get them.

Q: Metropolitan Sergius was instrumental in organizing priests to go into the Pskov region. Was it only Latvian Orthodox that were sent?

NV: They were also sent from Poland, and then from the Ukraine.

Q: How many from the Latvian church went?

NV: The first group was made up of 15 young priests. Among them was Fr. John Legkij who served in the monastery. When he left I became the rector at the monastery. Fr. John wanted to go with the mission. Nobody was forced to go, everyone was happy to go. But 15 priests was as a drop in the ocean, as the Russians say — nothing for such a large territory. The exarch told me to get in touch with those missionaries to find out among the Russian people who would like to be a priest. But they did not need to ask about marital status and education. If someone wanted to be priest, they were just sent to Riga. I registered them. I had the official order not to ask about marital status. The exarch took this on his own pastoral responsibility. In Russia some were married and some were not. Some were married and then sent to Siberia, or the wife married somebody else who later could be a priest, but she had been previously married. The exarch knew this condition and decided to ordain even those who did not have a clear marital status. He took this on his own personal responsibility. And so some 60 men came from there [to be ordained]. Everyone was ordained, nobody was rejected.

Q: Where were these men from?

NV: From Russia — Pskov, Novgorod, and that area. They didn’t come all at once, but little by little, two or three at a time. And the Germans gave them the possibility to come and the use of the railroad. My duty was to get them uniforms. Vestments were easier, because in those churches there were many complete sets, and the church administration was happy to give these for the mission.

Q: Can you tell me any other names of the first Latvian priests who went on this mission? Fr. John Legkij was one.

NV: Fr. Kyrill Zaits. He had some misunderstanding with Archbishop John Pommer who was killed. I don’t know what it was. But the exarch let him be chief of the mission. Then Fr. Alexei Yonov was there. I knew all the names! I even have a booklet on the mission. There you’ll find the names.

Q: Was George Benigsen there?

NV: Fr. George was too. Right now I cannot remember, but in that booklet for sure it’s mentioned.

Q: Somebody has written about this?

NV: Fr. Alexei Yonov, one of those priests, wrote that. I printed it. There were 15 priests at first, and then 60 more.

Q: In Riga, did you organize supplies for the Pskov mission?

NV: Officially for the Pskov mission. The Germans gave some orders to the stores to provide [things that were needed].
The most interesting thing were the crosses and the silver. During the communist occupation, one man took a bag of silver Latvian money. It was unusable during the communist occupation. But everyone was supposed to give it to the bank for the communists. That man didn’t do it, and he was afraid to keep it in his house. And so he brought it to the church and just donated it for the church. ‘Do with it what you want, but I don’t need it.’ But I didn’t want to give it back to them. So I dug a hole in the ground and put it there. And this money was used for crosses. A jeweler made crosses. That’s providence, you know, everything the church provided! You couldn’t get wine in stores, but the Germans gave an order to give wine to the church. Now, of course, here in this and other western countries, Germans are seen as very bad. Of course they had their own politics. Maybe they helped the church because it was according to their politics. Communists were against the church, but they helped by doing everything for the church.

Q: Wasn’t there an old icon that was associated with the Pskov mission?

NV: The Tikhvin icon.

Q: What was the significance of that icon in connection with the Pskov mission?

NV: When the Germans were close to Leningrad, or Petrograd — of course they already occupied Novgorod — they were near the city of Tikhvin. The Russian captives had the chance to talk with the German administration. Maybe the Germans asked them to get information about what was around there. And they told them about the Tikhvin monastery. The Germans were on one side of the river, and the communists were on the other side. It was a no mans land between the German and Soviet armies. The captives told them that there was a wonderworking icon in Tikhvin. Among the German army were cultural workers who took an interest in icons and buildings. Many of them were of Russian origin, old immigrants who came to Germany after the First World War. And they took a couple of those captives and went to the church. The church was locked. They tried to break the door. And the communists heard that. They started to shoot. But it happened that nobody was shot. They opened the door at last, took the icon and brought it back to Novgorod and then to Pskov.
The icon stayed in Pskov for a while. But when the communists came back,[the Germans] brought it from Pskov, and the icon was taken from Russia to the Orthodox cathedral in Riga. And Bishop John Garklavs (who was later in Chicago) and all the priests were in the cathedral waiting for the icon’s arrival. The icon was brought in the cathedral, and he made his speech and said, ‘How has it happened that the Mother of God comes to me?’ And so that icon was under his protection all the time, even under his blessing.

Q: Was the Tikhvin church where it came from closed at the time?

NV: The church was closed.

Q: Why was the icon taken to Pskov?

NV: They knew that Pskov was the center of the mission and they understood that the real place for the icon would be there.

Q: So [the Germans] gave it to the church?

NV: They gave it, but after that, when the Germans withdrew, they ordered that the icon should be taken to Germany, not left there.

Q: So then from Pskov it went to Riga and was received by Bishop John Garklavs. When did Bishop John Garklavs become a bishop?

NV: It was when the exarch from Moscow was in Riga. Metropolitan Augustin went to his parents’ house in the country and didn’t participate in the church. And the exarch started to look for somebody who could be in contact with the parishioners. The metropolitan was not a politician, but somehow a diplomat. He couldn’t be at every place. He asked some priests from Riga to suggest someone who was unmarried and could read well. They gave some suggestions. And then he asked me. I was his secretary at that time. I suggested, ‘We have one monk, a missionary priest in such an area. He works with some people. He is a graduate of the seminary,’ and so on. ‘He’s Latvian but he speaks Russian.’ ‘Ask him to come to Riga.’ I wrote him. He came. He came to me and said, ‘What is going on?’ [laughs] I told him, ‘You know, a very bad thing happened. You will be punished.’ ‘I don’t know, what happened?’ ‘Go to him and we’ll see!’
I was acquainted with John Garklavs. When he was a psalm reader and choir director in the church in Limbaži, north [of Riga], the priest was transferred somewhere else, and I was temporarily appointed to that church. I spent a couple of weeks there. I knew him and therefore I could recommend him because I knew what he was doing. It was before the war. And then he started to study in the seminary, and so on, and became a priest and was sent to somewhere near Riga Bay. And so I suggested to the metropolitan to talk with him at least. He met with Fr. John in Riga and asked him to go to the monastery in Vilna5 for half a year as a monk. Fr. John was raised to treasurer or assistant abbot because he was smart. And then, I don’t remember where it happened, but Archimandrite John was ordained bishop of Riga. And he stayed there until before the war. And then the Germans took the Orthodox, Lutheran and Catholic bishops by bus [from Riga] to Liepaja, a port city on the Baltic Sea. And one month after that, they took me with the icon. The icon was in the monastery. They arrested me with my family and took the icon on the carriage. They had a car, and we had to walk to the port of Riga. And then they put us in a boat, and since that boat was crowded, they put us in a place where there was coal.

Q: You and your family all together?

NV: We had two children. The oldest, Natalija, and Marina. Natalija was 12 and Marina was 5.

Q: What was the reason you were arrested?

NV: Because I didn’t want to leave. The abbess and nuns asked me, ‘Stay with us, stay with us.’ They would be without a priest, you know. And my wife agreed to stay. We didn’t think about what would happen to us because I was the secretary of the exarch who was killed by the Bolsheviks. But they arrested me, just arrested me. Of course they didn’t carry me, we just walked, following that carriage where they put the icon. The luggage was put on that carriage.

Q: Were you allowed to take much with you?

NV: Two cases and one bag with clothes.

Q: How much notice were you given?

NV: They asked me to come to the SD, which would be similar to FBI in the United States. I went there. ‘Tomorrow you should be ready to go to Liepaja.’ I tried to explain that I cannot leave the church, and so on. ‘No questions. And the icon should go with you. So tomorrow at 10:00 you should be ready.’ It was a holiday, September 27, the Elevation of the Cross on the Old Calendar. We had a Liturgy at 6:00 that day. After church was over we had some breakfast, and they came. Where was the icon? I knew that it was somewhere in the basement because I told the abbess to take it. She didn’t want to give it to them. Therefore I told them, ‘I don’t know.’ They asked, ‘But who is responsible?’ ‘The abbess.’ ‘Where is she?’ I accompanied him. The abbess lived above the house where the nuns lived. She looked at the officer, asked him something in Russian. He answered in German. He said something she did not understand. Then they started talking in French! The abbess spoke French. She was an intelligent woman from Russia. And he spoke French! I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Little by little she told one or two nuns to go to the basement underneath the church. And they put the icon in the same case in which it was brought from Pskov. Then they put it on that carriage along with our luggage. One [soldier] drove the horse, and another with a gun followed the carriage. The carriage was of course moving slowly. We had no transportation, you know.

Q: Why did the Germans want the icon to go with you?

NV: The Germans ordered us to take it with us to Germany because we couldn’t go any other place that would not be occupied by Germans. Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria were all occupied by the Germans.

Q: Why did the Germans want to take the church leaders and some of the priests away from Riga?

NV: Not only priests. They even caught young men on the streets. They didn’t want to leave those people who knew something about the Germans for the Bolsheviks. Not because they were very sympathetic, but because they didn’t want to leave those people who could somehow help the communists. And they needed workers in the factories because all of their people were in the army, all men, not just young men, but all men up to maybe 40 years old.

Q: So you were taken first to the port in Riga?

NV: Yes. We were supposed to be on a big steamer ship, but it had left already because we came too late. The soldiers had had trouble getting the icon, and so on, and so the journey was delayed. And so they put the icon in a smaller boat, but even that boat was crowded. The icon was taken up to the captain on the boat, and they put us in the place used for storing coal.

Q: Where did you go from there?

NV: To Liepaja. You know that city? [looking at map] Here is Riga Bay. Here is the Baltic Sea. Here is Dundaga where we were, here is Riga, and here Ventspils, also a port. Here is Liepaja, a port, and here is Lithuania. And so the three bishops were taken by bus, the Orthodox, Lutheran and Catholic bishops. And we went by boat. When we arrived a German officer asked, ‘Where is the icon?’ They put it in a church, and the church was guarded so that the icon would not be taken somewhere else. We were able to perform services and so on, and they gave us food ration cards. We spent maybe two or three weeks there, and then again they put us on a big steamer. We went to Danzig. [phone interruption]

Q: How were you treated on the boat from Riga to Liepaja?

NV: On the boat to Liepaja they gave us rye bread, and some coffee, not like our coffee but very simple, from local grains. It was just for one night. We entered the ship about 6:00 or so, and in the morning we arrived.

Q: Did you travel from Liepaja with the bishop?

NV: From Liepaja we were with the bishop. After Danzig we went by railroad to Czechoslovakia. I don’t know what was the first stopping point, maybe Richeneau, and then Gablonz.6 They promised that there would be some rooms for us. No rooms were given in the refugee camp in Richeneau in the southern part of Gablonz. After that they found a hotel in Johannesburg in the northern part of Gablonz, about six kilometers away. And they gave us four rooms. One was for Bishop John with his adopted son, Sergei, who is a priest in Chicago.7 One room was for my family, one for the Legkij family, and one for the priest who accompanied us from Russia. That priest who had stayed in Latvia during the occupation wanted to go with us. He accompanied us, and so he and his family were in the fourth room. And one room was for the icon. Every evening we had an akathist, and on Sundays we went to Gablonz for services.

Q: Is Gablonz in eastern Czechoslovakia?

NV: Yes. And there was an Old Catholic Church. A priest in the German army had visited our bishop in Riga during the German occupation and suggested to come to Gablonz if we should ever go west, that is, if Germany would lose the war. He was in the German army, so he wasn’t supposed to talk about those things. But he was a priest in that Old Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans in those times. It was the northeastern part that the Germans claimed was property that had been taken from them and had been given after the First World War to Czechoslovakia. The Old Catholics tried to be closer to Orthodoxy. And so that priest, dressed as an officer, had said, ‘If you go west, try to get to Gablonz. You can serve in my church, the Old Catholic church in Gablonz.’ We didn’t see him then, but since he was in the army, he gave an order to the caretaker to open the church. And he opened it. Every Sunday we walked by foot to that church, bringing the icons and everything necessary for the service.

Q: Were there other Orthodox people with you?

NV: Yes, there was the OST. These were the workers who were taken from [Eastern Europe] to work in German industries. In the Gablonz area were several factories, and they worked there. And they came to church.

(Editor’s Note: “In spring 1942, Germany began to draft occupied populations as forced laborers. SS General Sauckel, leader of the bureau in charge of this forced labor group, had visited Ukraine many times in order to establish a continuous flow of Eastern workers (Ostarbeiters) of both sexes between the ages of 15 and 60 years old. In total there were 20,000 forced labor camps spread across the Reich. The marketplaces for the sale of forced laborers (arbeitsamt) were set up in Germany, where workers from eastern countries were sold legally to the businessmen and farmers. The German authorities introduced a special brand-sign ‘OST’ (‘East’) for ‘eastern workers,’ which they had to wear on the right side of the chest.” (Source: Thompson-Gale Virtual Reference Library, www.gale.com))

Q: What did you get to eat?

NV: The Germans gave us something to eat, but they usually gave beer, not like beer here but Erzatz, as they say. It looks like beer. The usual food was Stammgericht: vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, different types together, like soup but not much water, like porridge with no meat. But when we were settled in Gablonz they gave a piece of meat like that [shows with fingers].

Q: A small little cube about an inch thick!

NV: It was for a week. Once a week you could eat meat! [Later in the DP camps,] we got food from the camp. I don’t know how they counted how much each could receive, but there was sausage sometimes, meat, cheese and margarine, bread of course, and potatoes. We could make food by ourselves, or there was a kitchen where we could get soup or something like that.
We spent one year in Czechoslovakia. The communists occupied Czechoslovakia too, but they had no power to hold us there because they somehow cooperated with the Czechoslovakian government. We arrived in November 1944, I suppose, and in August 1945 we fled to the western part of Czechoslovakia. We had a chance to go to Prague, and the Orthodox bishop, Sergius, helped us by arranging for us to be taken as workers to Belgium. He was in touch with Catholic Charities, and we were sent as Belgian workers, those who were taken from Belgium to work in German industries.

Q: Where was Bishop Sergius from?

NV: He was under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Evlogi [Georgievsky] in Paris. He was Russian. He was a bishop somewhere close to Poland, and Evlogi was in the same area as archbishop. And then during the revolution in Russia they went to France. Evlogi became metropolitan in Paris and Sergius became bishop of Prague and Czechoslovakia. He was a very nice man, very friendly, very hospitable. These were hard times. After that he went to Russia, or he was forced, I don’t know, but he was the bishop in Kazan.

Q: Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans longer than Latvia.

NV: Yes it was. The English prime minister made an agreement even to occupy Austria. But I don’t know if Czechoslovakia was occupied at the same time or before. At first of course the northern part was occupied, and then they occupied all of Czechoslovakia. I suppose they tried to have free transit during the war. [The Germans] were planning the war, of course, with Russia. They occupied those countries so that their armies could go through without the need to ask for permission. I suppose it was a well planned agreement.
We were only in Prague a very short time, maybe one week, and then there was a special train organized which went to Pilsen in the western part of Czechoslovakia. Between Prague and Pilsen there was the demarcation line— the line which divided the communist part from the West. And our train was stopped here. And the Soviet officers checked who was in the train. We were not in clerical dress, but in regular dress. They asked, ‘Who is here.’ Somebody answered them, ‘Workers from Belgium.’ They went to the next wagon.

Q: And the Tikhvin icon, was that with you then?

NV: It was there, but of course they could not see it. It was hidden.

Q: So that was on the way to Pilsen?

NV: It was in Czechoslovakia, but on one side of the demarcation line were the communists and on the other side were the Americans. From Pilsen we went to Bavaria, to West Germany, Amberg, not a very big city but a town, for one year, and then to Hersbruck. From Hersbruck I would go to Nürenberg to get supplies for the church, especially wine. We couldn’t get it [from Hersbruck], so most of the time I went to Nürenberg. From Hersbruck we visited those refugee camps with the icon and one of those camps was in Hamburg. It is in the northern part of Germany. We were in different camps. I’ve forgotten the names. In Würzberg we were with the icon close to the Netherlands and even in Munich in some of the churches of Metropolitan Anastasy. He was in the Church Abroad, the Synodal Church. He allowed our bishop to go. He didn’t object because the parishioners wanted to have the icon visit. They knew him from Russia. I lived there from 1945 to 1949. One year in Amberg, and then three years in Hersbruck. Hersbruck was somehow the center for our people who came from the Baltic States. But of course we went to any camp that invited us.

Q: So the Orthodox people would request to have you visit? Was this under American protection now?

NV: It was American, yes. And the northern part of Germany was under England.

Q: Can you tell something about life in the camps? Were people anxious to leave for the West?

NV: Those people who came from Russia were afraid because the communists put pressure on the American and English governments to get their people back to Russia. But it was not so for Poland and the Baltic States, because the United States recognized them as occupied unlawfully. And therefore we had no such fear. But some of the Russian captives tried to be in our camps. They became acquainted with some girls, and so on. Maybe there are other reasons, but they had in our camp several such Russians.

Q: The Russians had their own camp?

NV: Yes, but they didn’t exist a long time because they were taken back to Russia.

Q: Do you have any memories of serving among the Russian people?

NV: We just went to the camp. They would have a service — Vigil and Liturgy— and then usually we visited all the rooms with the icon and said a short prayer in each room. Then if they would ask us to stay longer, if the next day was a holiday, we would perform a service again.

Q: Where did you have services? Did people make temporary churches?

NV: In every camp there was room for a church. Of course, the government did not do it, but the people, because everyone had something. But, for example, in Regensburg we had services in a Lutheran church. In another place we had services in a Catholic chapel, not the main church, but a chapel. And so we were in Munich. There was a Synodal Church monastery. They got a Protestant church and remodeled it. We served there. There were many places all those three years. Some camps were not very far from us. We had services there on a regular basis, maybe once a month or so. Sometimes with the icon, sometimes without the icon.

Q: Did you stay in the same camp as Bishop Garklavs?

NV: In the same camp.

Q: Did you have any children in the camps, your own family?

NV: From Latvia I had two in Riga, then in Amberg one son, and in Hersbruck a daughter, and then in Pennsylvania one more daughter.

Q: Besides you and the bishop, there was Fr. John Legkij. How big was his family?

NV: Matushka and two daughters. Because they had no choir director, I was choir director. And then one priest from Riga, Perehvalsky.9 Fr. John Legkij, me, and that priest from Russia. The priest from Russia left us one day because he got a parish somewhere, and after that Fr. John Legkij joined the Synodal Church.

Q: Where did Fr. John join the Synodal Church?

NV: In Germany. He was at first with us, but even when we were there in Czechoslovakia he tried to make contact with Metropolitan Anastasy of the Synodal Church. We were in the northeast part of Czechoslovakia, but the metropolitan was in the southwest part, and he went there to see him. And when we went to Pilsen we were together, even in Amberg we were together. And then they suggested that he go to Munich, and he was priest in one camp there in Munich. It was maybe 1946, because in 1947 we went to Hersbruck. He left from Amberg.

Q: While you were in the camps, did you receive news about what was going on in Latvia?

NV: Not too much.

Q: You spent one year in Amberg and three years in Hersbruck. From there, where did you go?

NV: To Schweinfurt for a while, and then in August 1949 to Bremerhaven, a port on the North Sea. And from that port we went to New York.

Q: How long were you in the port there?

NV: Not long. We stayed in Schweinfurt for a couple of weeks or so, and then went to Bremerhaven. And then, maybe the next day or so, maybe a couple of days, we went to New York.

Q: Why did you decide to come to the United States?

NV: [laughs] Everyone tried to get here. But some couldn’t get an invitation. For example, my brother and my sister and her husband went to England. One of those who cooperated with me in publishing — he made the pictures, letterheads — went to Belgium. Some went to France and even to Africa. Engineers were put to work watering the desert, and they worked there, not only from my country, but different people from Europe. But most tried to get to the United States.

Q: How did you receive news that you were being taken to New York?

NV: The easiest way was if somebody gave you an invitation, and our bishop was in contact with Bishop John Shahovskoy who was at that time bishop of Brooklyn. Bishop John Shahovskoy was under Metropolitan Theophilus as an auxiliary bishop. Because he knew us, he helped [arrange for an invitation from] the metropolitan.

Q: How did he know you?

NV: When he was a priest in Berlin he sometimes visited Latvia and Estonia as a visiting missionary. He gave lectures, and he stopped at the monastery where I was a priest, so I knew him from that time very well. And of course he had a chance to see Bishop John Garklavs.

Q: How were you taken from Bremerhaven to New York?

NV: It was special steamer for DPs, Displaced Persons.

Q: And the icon was with you?

NV: And I could take everything for printing! Those letters are very heavy, and the books that had been reprinted in Germany. I took everything! I was able to buy paper icons from Danzig. There was a special German printing house. And we could take everything!

Click for the other parts in the series:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8