Women's Portraits

Elvida Morkūnaitė Čaplikienė

Elvida Morkūnaitė Čaplikienė was born in 1935, in Kaunas. She was a child, who could receive the best education, because her father was a Lithuanian Army Officer Alfonsas Morkūnas and mother – a primary school teacher Onutė Kazlauskaitė.  But coming back to Lithuania after the exile at 26 years old, she was illiterate.

Hungry and exhausted by difficult job in the far and cold Siberia, Elvida was remembering how she was dancing at the Christmas Tree at the age of 5, dressed in a beautiful white dress, embroidered by the blue-bottles.

In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, the Lithuanian army was dissolved. Morkūnas family managed to escape from Kaunas to the father’s native village Juodžiūnai. In 1942, when Elvida was only seven years old, her mother suddenly died.

At the beginning of 1944, Alphonsas Morkūnas, along with his two brothers, chose the way of armed resistance to the Soviet invaders, they became partisans. During that moment, her, her brothers lives became full of a danger, because they were trying to escape from repressions of the NKVD, which played the role of Gestapo in the Soviet Union.

When the most of children at the same age went to the school Elvida and her brother Teisutis were hiding going from village to village and people helped them. Two children had a cow and a goose, going with them, and this was the way they were feeding themselves.

Her father was killed in 1949. Three years later she and her brother have been caught by NKVD exiled to Gulag. As all other exiles they traveled to Siberia, by the train in the wagon for animals.... She remembers that she had only one piece of bread for a thousands kilometers long journey which the forge worker gave her the last minute before leaving Lithuania.

The new period started for Elvida in Krasnoyarsk. Even she wasn’t in the age of adult, only 14, she was forced to work in the factory. The factory worked in three shifts, without any free days, and stopped only twice: before the New Year and once when Stalin died.  She had to handle the bricks: from cars to machinery, from machinery to burning stove, burned bricks back into the car.

Minus 50-degree of cold, very hard work, poor food and Elvida became seriously ill. But the fresh milk, provided by unfamiliar German family, youth and desire to live saved the life of Elvida. She came back to the job.  Elvida became strong and has worked in the brick factory for 7 years. Elvida remembers, how strong was her body, just a man’s, as an athlete’s.

In 1960, Elvida with her brother came the first time to Lithuania for a month vacation and she did not return to Krasnoyarsk any more. She managed to get nanny’s job and a temporary registration in Kaunas.

Within three years she has completed the required course of eight classes and in 1963 successfully passed the exams. Later she graduated from a two-year course of Accountants, and in 1983 she finished the secondary school. Responsible attitude to work, her willingness to learn and grow, helped her to get senior positions in the factory.

 Thanks the hard labor in Siberia, Elvida had a strong, well-muscled body, but the Siberian cold has damaged her skin in some places. Doctor advised her to go as often as possible to the Baltic Sea. The sun, sea and fresh air will help her skin to be cured. Elvida went to the sports and began to represent the factory's sport team, which during the summers have had the training camps at the Baltic Sea.

Doctor’s recommendation became true: marks on the skin of young woman disappeared. But her solution to go for sports, have had another consequences: she met her future husband Algirdas Čaplikas – the famous basketball player of legendary Lithuanian basketball team “Žalgiris”. They married, and in 1964, the son of Marius was born.

In 1985, Elvida retired.  She collected 10 books and 16 newspapers about resistance, put the table in the building of Union of Political Prisoners and Exiles in Kaunas, and soon opened the small bookshop.  Elvida collects the funds for the organization of political prisoners and exiles in this way. Books are her weapons, she wants the people to know the truth.

Now it is hard to believe that this honorable woman, who reads all books, she is selling, was illiterate at the age of 26. Once her granddaughter asked what would she change in her life if she could? Elvida answered, “Nothing”. She would change nothing in her difficult and significant life.

Jadvyga Pliopaitė