Dad said, “Many people are trying to find a way to leave the country on ships or boats to Sweden or the west. Some have even started walking west, hoping that they will be far enough away that the Red Army won't catch them.” No one had any desire to live under the Communists again.
My parents agreed that I had three options: to stay in my country and be taken by the Russians as a prisoner of war, and probably be sent to a forced labor camp, to find a hiding place in the forest and try to live there until the Communist system might change in a few years, which was not likely, or to leave my country and try to find someplace else in the world to start a new life. Dad encouraged me to leave the country saying, “You are strong enough to take hard times and survive. The future for you here would be very dark.”
I felt very bad to leave my parents and brother. My parents had given me a good life and childhood. I loved them. Now when they were getting older and needed me, I would not be there. But if I stayed there I could not help them anyway, and would no doubt create a danger to them. I felt like I was standing on quicksand and could be sucked in at any time. The war was not over and there was danger ahead of me and for them no matter what I did.
Dad said, “Our lives are in God's hands, and we don't know what will be next.” He said a prayer for me, and they gave me one last hug. It was time for me to start running back to the base, and to let the wind dry my tears. It was the last time in my life that I saw my parents.
Soon after I got back, Salmins said, “We will fly to Liepaja's airport.” This was the same place where I was flying gliders and went skiing on the snow covered hills during winter.
Flying time was short and we landed around ten o'clock in the morning. Salmins gave us our options, and they were about the same as my dad had said; we were free to make our own decision. Everybody wanted to leave the country. Staying in Latvia was sure death or imprisonment.
We had German planes but a Latvian commander; that made decision making easier as he was one of us. Our first choice was Sweden, a neutral country and friendly to Latvia. Salmins asked us to check how much fuel we had in the tanks. Head winds were strong that morning, and we had to cross the Baltic Sea. There was not enough fuel for all the planes to make it to Sweden. Our next choice was Danzig, a sizeable city on the Baltic Sea that belonged to Poland and had been taken over by the Germans. We all had enough fuel for this trip.
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