Otrā pasaules kara un bēgšanas naratīvi diasporas latviešu dzīvesstāstos. (Latvian)

At the end of World War II, approximately 150-200,000 Latvians were located in the Allied zones of occupation in Germany. During "DP period", exile ideology was formed; the result was that Latvians did not think of themselves as emigrants or refugees anymore, but as self-proclaimed exiles. In this time, the UN official policy and Soviet accusations intensified the need to justify one's actions and to present oneself in as evident terms as possible. In order to achieve this, those versions of the escape story, which served exile purposes the best, were soon selected and developed into archetypical schemas. One of the aspects of the escape stories where commonalities can be seen particularly well, are the stated reasons of leaving, which leads to the question of the character of the escape. Most likely, Latvian refugees and their actions must be viewed as voluntary, although the possibility of choice was highly narrow. Another common aspect is that Latvian refugees' stories depict Latvia as the lost paradise. In accordance with this, the refugee stories of the pre-war time are particularly bright, highlighting the positive moments and depic-ting the overall atmosphere as highly comfortable and peaceful. Thus, the stories of wartime are yet more distinguishable as they depict the rapid rupture between peace and harmony from before and instability and uncertainty from this period. Not all the stories fit to the canonical scheme of escape. One group that can offer a different perspective are those people, who were youngsters at the time of escape, because some of them took the flight as an adventure. However, the majority of the ex-refugees depict the events of that time as tragic, regardless of the generation. In this context, it is important to speak about the transferred perceptions and emotions, which older refugees passed on to the following generations. In the result, even young children compre-hended the injustice that had been done to refugees and the destruction that had visited Latvia. That explains why the stories of the wartime and escape are quite similar in all age groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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