This new publication, On the Way to America (2010), is dedicated to the artist’s daughter, Guoda Kašubaitė-Burr (b. 1945), and brings together memoirs recounting the artist’s departure from Lithuania in 1944–1947, as she fled westwards during the second Soviet occupation. The text is supplemented by illustrations selected by the editor. The original English-language version was published in the Vytautas Magnus University journal Oikos: Lithuanian Migration and Diaspora Studies (2012, no. 2 [14]).

This is the second volume of the artist’s memoirs published by the Museum. The first, Child Ticking: A Memoir (2023; reprinted four times), was recognised for its literary excellence in the “Book as an Event” category at the Book Awards 2025, organised by the Lithuanian Publishers Association.

The Lithuanian National Museum of Art extends its gratitude to the artist’s daughter Guoda Kašubaitė-Burr for granting permission to publish this text –  dedicated to her – and to accompany it with illustrations selected by the editor.

To describe these memoirs as unique would be an understatement; they are far more than that. One of Lithuania’s most prominent artists, Aleksandra Kasuba (Fledžinskaitė-Kašubienė, 1923–2019), recalls the war and post-war years (1944–1947) in an impressionistic, expressive and, most importantly, immediate and sincere manner. This text takes the form of a maternal, feminine testimony to her daughter, to whom the artist dedicates it.

There is nothing banal, clichéd or evasive in these memoirs. The artist’s consciousness is not shaped by the collective patterns typical of Lithuanian war refugees’ memories. The meager daily life of the displaced persons in Austria and Germany; the loss of the homeland seized by the communists; the loss of the parents, her coming of age, the formation of her own family, and motherhood; as well as her creative attentiveness to the surrounding world – all bear witness not only to the reality of that time, but also to the clarity of the author’s consciousness and the mastery of her pen. This short book is yet another testament to the enduring power  of Kašubienė’s memory.

Norbertas Černiauskas, historian and author of 1940: Lithuania’s Last Summer (2021) and Fado: A Short History of Lithuania That Never Happened (2024).

Editor:  Elona Lubytė

Translator (from English):  Aida Martinaitytė

Language editor:  Monika Grigūnienė

Designers:  Violeta Boskaitė and Dainė Galinienė

Front cover artwork: John Jeheber

Published by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2025

Printed by UAB “Standart Impressa”

500 copies

104 p.

ISBN 978-609-426-214-2