Algis moved through at least 5 bombed out or tent hospitals in a month. "I went to the operating theatre in a US field hospital. I was questioned, while on the operating table, by two German-speaking American doctors : 'So. You say you worked as a truck driver. Did you serve the Nazis well?' What can you say, when they are about to operate? I was given penicillin instead. Then, to make more space in the US field hospital for American wounded, I was packed off in my hospital pyjamas in a US army truck with other injured : a Polish civilian and two uniformed German POWs. We were carted from one hospital to another, but each time they sighted the German uniforms, they refused entry. Finally we were admitted to a Nazi-run bombed out hospital where my shoulder was operated on by a woman surgeon (as the men had mainly died). There were no medicines and the shoulder began to rot and smell foul. The German POWs with us were given a bit of food, but the rest of us were starving. Then a nurse a bit younger than me took pity and gave me some bandages. That eased the infection. But everyone around me seemed to be dying. So I walked out and located a group of about 50 Lithuanians. They were surrounded by 20,000 Russian former POWs in barracks. This was a very tense and dangerous situation, with the Russians making revenge forays into the German town, accumulating mens' watches, raping women and killing people. Later the Russians were disarmed and I saw the shoulder-high stack of confiscated weapons, such as sawn-off rifles. Balts were then gathered up by the Americans and transported to another location. I was left back at the infirmary, so I took off on foot, still wearing my pajamas and carrying a bit of food in a tin box. I came to a German staffed US run hospital. Two Russians at the entrance armed with swords questioned me. I spoke to them in French but they guessed that I was Lithuanian. I got past them and presented my patient record to the American administrator, and got treated. Days later a Soviet commissar was brought into the hospital to start rounding up people, offering them a return home to the Fatherland. 'Father Stalin will forgive you.' They were loaded onto a truck and not seen again. I explained that I was well enough to make it to the Soviet sector on foot. He gave me a pair of sailor's trousers for the walk. I set out in the opposite direction and came to a Polish DP camp. They were good. When I was better I left to locate my sister."

Dad and me matching footies, with a bonus handmade rattle.