Zarasai 1963 - Valentina Tereshkova

This is a maximum card of a Russian astronaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Валентина Владимировна Терешкова) cancelled in Zarasai, Lithuania S.S.R. in 1963 which is also the year this stamp has been issued. I have seen many maximum cards but most of them are cancelled in Vilnius or Kaunas so I was a bit surprised to see a Zarasai one. According to Wikipedia, Valentina  Tereshkova was the first female ever to have flown in space. But why a Zarasai postmark? I don't know...

Kaunas 1941

Bilingual Ramygala / Рамигала arrival cancel

This is a postal stationery sent in 1941 from Kaunas to Ramygala, Lithuanian SSR. This card has much clearer postmarks than the previous one and the best part, is the Soviet Ramygala arrival cancel! I think I have written before but 1940-41 Soviet postmark of small Lithuanian towns are pretty hard to find. Again, on the back there is a Hebrew text which I have absolutely no idea what is it written about.

Krekenava 1941

Krekenava 1941?

This is a postal stationery sent most probably in 1941 from Krekenava to Ramygala, both a small Lithuanian town. Actually I'm not 100% sure about the year since the postmark is not that clear. The name of the place is obvious, the readable KREKEN- on the postmark with the address Krekenava written by the sender on the bottom. The date is III (March) 19-forty something. The first Soviet annexation of Lithuania is after June 1940 so it excludes the year 1940. The postal rate of 20 kopecks for a inland postcard is valid until 1948 so it should be sometime before that. Again I'm not 100 % sure but the use of the postmarker of the old Lithuanian First Republic is likely to be during the the first annexation between 1940 and 1941. Another reason why I think it is 1941 is that I have acquired another similar postal stationery sent in 1941 to the same recipient, which I'll be posting soon as well.

Šilutė 1944

This is a P.O.W. postage free luftpost / airmail cover sent in 1944 from Heydekrug (now Šilutė, Lithuania) to Camp Ellis in New York, NY in the U.S. Heydekrug / Šilutė is known to be the location of the only major POW camp in Memelland but it is just coincidence, this card has nothing to do with the POW camp in Heydekrug. It is a cover sent from a family member of the German officer held as a prisoner in Ellis island in New York. It has traces of the censorship by both authorities, American and German. The returning address is written as the post office of Tennetal, Kreis Heydekrug. Tennetal was called Ramutten but renamed by the Nazi authotiry on May 1st 1939 until the end of the WWII. Today it is called Ramučiai.