First childhood memory
Arrest and deportation

“My memories begin with the day of deportation. It was a lovely day and we were due to go to the dacha. When in the morning I woke and saw strangers in the flat, I thought they had come to take us to the dacha. But our destination was somewhere completely different.

So that’s all I remember, because I was only three and a half. I also remember our flat, my teddy bears, one for daytime and one for nighttime. We were comfortably off. My father was a highly successful young lawyer, he had completed his studies at the University of Latvia, he spoke perfect Latvian and he could have had an excellent career.”