Vilnius 1939

Postal stationery - Kaunas 

Postal stationery - Šaukėnai 

These are postal stationery cards cancelled in 1939 at Vilnius Geležinkelio Stotis/Railway Station post office. Both sent to the same address in New York but written by different people. The first card with the picture of Kaunas has been cancelled on November 13th 1939 and the second one on the 16th of the same month. Finding Lithuanian postal stationery used in 1939 is definitely not the easiest thing, given the fact that Vilnius was handed out back to the Lithuanians by the Russians only on 28 October 1939 after the Mutual Assistance Treaty that has been signed on 10 October. It was part of Stalin's "theatrical" friendly act to hide the real intention of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was already signed on August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. According to the autobiography of Juozas Urbšys, the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time who signed the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty (Lietuvos-Sovietų Sąjungos savitarpio pagalbos sutartis in Lithuanian), even this so-called "friendly" act was done under lots of pressure, he was called several times to meet Stalin in the middle of the night during his stay in Moscow. He has been told over and over what will happen if Lithuania would not sign the treaty. I guess this was the communist technique to intimidate someone in order to make that person do what they want. If you read the autobiography of Alexander Dubček, the former First Secretary of Czechoslovakia, you will almost feel like a Déjà vu of Urbšys when he talks about how was his stay in Moscow, after his Spring of Prague in 1964 was put down by the Warsaw Pact army.