Dalia Grinkevičiūtė

Dalia Grinkevičiūtė (1927–1987) was a Lithuanian physician and writer. She is best known for her memoirs of exile and repression by the Soviet Union. These were published in multiple editions, starting in 1979. They are now part of the Lithuanian school curriculum and have been translated into English and German.

Biography She was born in Kaunas and studied at the local girls' gymnasium. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the family was exiled in the first wave of deportations that took place in June 1941. Dalia's father was separated from the rest of the family and died in the Urals. Dalia, her mother, and her brother were first sent to the Altai region and then transported to Trofimovsk , a prison island in the Lena River delta far beyond the Arctic Circle.

In 1949, together with her mother, she managed to escape and returned to Lithuania, hiding out in the homes of friends and relatives in Kaunas for a year. Her mother died and was buried while still in hiding. Dalia was rearrested and sent to Unzhlag camp in Sukhobezvodnoye in the Gorky Oblast. In 1953, she was once again exiled to Yakutia but the following year, as conditions eased following the death of Stalin, she gained the right to study medicine at Omsk. Returning once more to Kaunas, she continued her medical education there, graduating in 1960 (at the age of 33) from the local medical school. She went to work as a doctor in Laukuva in the Šilalė District. She worked until 1974, when she was dismissed from her job by the Soviet authorities and even deprived of her service apartment. It was translated into English and published in the Lituanus magazine in 1990.