BNS traces Valdas Adamkus’s life ahead of his 100th birthday

Lithuanian news agency BNS has selected 100 key events in former President Valdas Adamkus’s life ahead of his centenary on November 3. The account, published by LRT, follows his path from childhood in Kaunas to years in exile in Germany and the United States and two periods leading Lithuania.

Youth in Lithuania, 1926–1944

Adamkus was born Voldemaras Adamkavičius in Kaunas on November 3, 1926. His father, Ignas Adamkavičius, was one of Lithuania’s first military pilots; his mother, Genovaitė, worked at the Ministry of Communications. His stepfather, Stasys Karalis, was a Kaunas municipal employee. Adamkus had a half-brother, Česlovas, and a sister, Violeta.

He began attending Kaunas’s Jonas Jablonskis primary school in September 1933. Adamkus later said it was there that he learned not only his first lessons but also his first lessons in patriotism and love of Lithuania. He also fondly recalled the Church of the Resurrection and the Žaliakalnis funicular, which is now out of service.

In 1939, he started a five-year course at Kaunas’s Aušra boys’ gymnasium. Historian Egidijus Aleksandravičius wrote in his biography of Adamkus that his grades were average and that he was especially drawn to languages, literature and history. The school years also revealed his leadership qualities.

The Red Army entered Kaunas on June 15, 1940, stirring anxiety and a sense of patriotism in the teenager. In his memoirs, Adamkus recalled that when a new school official began promoting Stalinist ideology and played “The Internationale,” students responded by singing the Lithuanian national anthem. He said that moment marked the end of his childhood and his realisation that he was a citizen obliged to serve his country.

On June 23, 1941, the day after the Lithuanian Activist Front began an uprising against Soviet occupation, Adamkus heard a declaration of restored Lithuanian independence broadcast from Kaunas. The independence lasted just over a month. He later described the shared joy as comparable to the feeling when Lithuania regained its freedom on March 11.

During the Nazi occupation in 1941–1942, Adamkus joined the Lithuanian Freedom Fighters Union and took part in underground activities, distributing the publications Laisvės kovotojas and Nepriklausoma Lietuva. In 1943, he and classmates Gabrielis Žemkalnis and Liūtas Grinius began publishing an underground paper, Jaunime, budėk!; Benediktas Mačiuika joined them later. Grinius wrote in 1981 that they produced 14 issues.

Adamkus left for Germany with his family in July 1944 and stayed at a wartime refugee camp near Breslau, now Wrocław. The following month, he returned to Lithuania alone and joined the Homeland Protection unit, where he was appointed an interpreter at the battalion headquarters. In October, he took part in the Battle of Seda against the Red Army. He later recalled that they had no weapons and could not resist, but Soviet forces opened heavy fire.

He escaped from Seda and reached Kretinga. From there, he fled back to Germany, hiding beneath a German tank in a train. He spent the end of 1944 in heavily bombed Berlin.

Exile in Germany, 1945–1949

In 1945, Adamkus received refugee-student status and lived in various displaced persons camps as he moved deeper into the US-controlled zone of Germany, at times meeting and then being separated from family members.

In June 1946, he graduated from the Lithuanian gymnasium in Eichstätt with several dozen other students. He also met his future wife, Alma Nutautaitė, in the town. That year, he enrolled in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He left after one year and moved to Augsburg, where his stepfather and brother lived.

At the Captive Nations Olympics held in Nuremberg in July and August 1948, Adamkus won gold medals in the high jump and long jump, and silver medals in two sprint events.