Student Marija Biekšaitė (Kibirkštienė)

Student Marija Biekšaitė (Kibirkštienė, 1926–2015) finished an accountancy course and worked as an accountant in forestry-related institutions for almost whole life. However, her dream was to study literature. Marija was born into a family of farmers in the village of Pamerkys of the Valkininkai rural district. She finished a primary school there and continued her schooling in Vilnius, where she finished the 2nd Gymnasium for Girls in 1945 and on 29 September of the same year became a student at the Faculty of History and Philology. The studies did not last long, though: on 22 March 1946, Marija was expelled from the university and arrested, and on 13 August 1946 she was sentenced to eight years in a labour camp and three years of exile. She was accused of support to partisans and dissemination of anti-Soviet literature and proclamation leaflets. Nine years after the expulsion, she filed a request for her personal documents – the gymnasium-leaving certificate and the certificate of birth – from the university archives. Marija Biekšaitė was rehabilitated on 25 April 1990.

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