The Cirksis Family

There are many more photos to come! I am quite eager to have the scanning part of my project done so that I can get on with some "real" in-depth  research. It was with that in mind that I hired a professional scanning service  at a local shop. The scanning was to have been completed about a week ago. Unfortunately, the shop mistakenly scanned the photos at a very low resolution. Obviously this has put a bit of a spanner in the works as I can't invest any money in the software and services I will need to obtain until I am sure the scanning is complete and paid for. Rest assured that I will continue to post something at least once a month. As I mentioned in a past post this will mean that some of the commentary will be a little superficial at times. As new information comes to light, I will update these posts. I am also aware that some of the photos appear a little on the small side in the posts. If you haven't tried it already, they are all "clickable" an...

For most people born into families that have enjoyed several generations of freedom and democracy  -as is the case for most people living in Western society - it is difficult to even imagine the day to day fear and depression of living under an oppressive regime.  The closest I can ever hope to come to understanding is through the photos of some of my family members that stayed in Latvia during the occupation. Not all of the photos are depressing, some show how difficult it is to crush the human spirit. The following few photos illustrate: I believe this photo was taken in the 1970s in Latvia. It shows My grandmother, Katrine CIRKSE in her house.  While it is a relatively new tradition to smile for photographs, the look on my grandmother's face speaks to me of a deep sadness. By this stage of her life she had outlived her husband and two out of three of her children.  It must have been difficult for my farther to see photos like this and not be able to return to ...