Barbara Armonas (; December 28, 1908 – December 25, 2008) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n political prisoner in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. She rejoined her American-born husband and daughter in the United States in 1960, and she published a memoir, ''Leave Your Tears in Moscow'', in 1961.

Biography

Early years

Armonas was born in a small village of near

Pasvalys Pasvalys () is a city in Panevėžys County, Lithuania, located near the bank of the Svalia River. History In 1557, the Treaty of Pasvalys was signed in the town, which provoked Ivan IV of Russia to start the Livonian War. Pasvalys has mineral ...

in northern Lithuania. She married a Lithuanian-American machinist, John Armonas, in 1929. They lived in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, for six years; their daughter, Donna, was born in Ohio. They moved to Lithuania in the 1930s, and bought a farm in ; their son John was born in Lithuania."Barbara Armonas"
''The New Herald'' (January 6, 2009).

War years and after

In 1939, American citizens were warned to leave Lithuania; her husband and five-year-old daughter left, but she and her infant son did not have the paperwork ready to join them, so both stayed behind. She and her son were

deported to Siberia From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly Population transfer, transferred populations of various groups. These act ...

in 1948, and she was tried as an American spy in 1951. While serving her prison sentence in a women's work camp, she was assigned to sew clothing in a factory, and do gardening at an exhibition camp. In 1955, she was allowed to return to Lithuania under an

amnesty Amnesty () is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet be ...

for political prisoners. She lived in a rented room in

. In late 1959, after meeting with David L. Lawrence, governor of Pennsylvania, and after years of pleas from John and Donna Armonas,

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

agreed to allow the Armonas mother and son to leave the Soviet Union. They finally left in 1960. The family was reunited in Copenhagen after almost 22 years apart.

Later years

Armonas lived in

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

with her husband and children after 1960. She completed a memoir with writer Algirdas L. Nasvytis, ''Leave Your Tears in Moscow'' (1961). "No one who reads it will fail to be moved by this courageous woman's account of her struggle for survival in a police state", said one American reviewer in 1965. Her book was translated into at least four other languages, and excerpts were published in ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' magazine. In her later years, Armonas was active in Lithuanian community activities in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

. Her husband died shortly after they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 1979. After Lithuanian independence in 1991, she was able to visit family members in Lithuania. She died in 2008, three days before her 100th birthday, in

Mentor, Ohio Mentor ( ) is the largest city in Lake County, Ohio, United States. The population was 47,450 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Mentor was first settled in 1797. In 1876, James A. Garfield purchased a home in ...

. Her memoir was published in a new edition in 2011, on its fiftieth anniversary, with additional photographs and material added by her son. Her son also published a memoir, ''How I Became a Comrade: An American Growing Up in Siberian Exile'' (2013).Armonas, John E. ''How I Became a Comrade: An American Growing Up in Siberian Exile'' (Meridia Publishers 2013).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armonas, Barbara 1908 births 2008 deaths 20th-century Lithuanian women People from Mentor, Ohio Lithuanian women writers Lithuanian Gulag detainees