Jurate kazickas biography of rory leave

Jurate Kazickas. PS: 70 years ago, when you were just a little girl you and your parents became refugees when the Soviet army began to move toward your home in Lithuania. You wound up in Germany and you spent three frightening and chaotic years in a displacement camp before you finally arrived in America. How has this family history, which is your history, shaped your life, your thinking and ultimately your work?

The history of the World War II — and what my family went through — has really been an enormous part of my life because my homeland Lithuania was under communist Soviet occupation for more than 50 years. And my father was very active in the Independence Movement to try to get independence back. Because those three Baltic countries that were occupied in — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia — were basically taken off the map.

I think that kind of refugee mentality — which is you never know what the next day will bring — slight feelings of insecurity and especially since I was with my parents — they were a tremendous security for me. Anybody who has had to give up their land — their home and often their families because of world crises lead me to get involved in refugee work over the years.

So that was one way — a very big way — that it impacted. After independence in , my father went back. He started a business, he bought a home and we started a family foundation, which I am the president of.

The questions come not

So I am going back to Lithuania a few times a year. PS: But your work with refugees is taking much further than in Lithuania. Where around the world had this commitment taken you?