The Fathers Over There

Andris Caune Ojārs Grensbergs Imants Grāvītis and Jānis Zemtautis spent many years in the Gulag camps They survived In 1954 a riot broke out in Jezkazan Kazakhstan The mens camp and womens camp joined together and held on for 40 days Then came the tanks that killed more than 1000 of them Austra Vērpe met her future husband there They were lucky to stay alive The dream of the musician Zigfrīds Muktupāvels was to find the grave of his paternal uncle in faroff Kazakhstan He was named after his uncle who never came home Zigfrīds and a cousin headed off into the steppes to look for a monument reading Zigfrīds Muktupāvels The next round of deportations occurred in 1949 and whole families were sent to Siberia Fathers were tried in court a great many ended up in punitive camps in Vorkuta and Inta Skaidrīte Jostmane and Māris Landers travelled to Vorkuta to find their fathers gravesite