Balys Sruoga (1896-1947)

Death: 16th October 1947
Location: Rasos Cemetery (Rasų kapinės), Vilnius, Vilnius County, Lithuania
Photo taken by: arz
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Lithuanian poet, playwright, critic and literary theorist. His best known work is the novel Dievų miškas / Forest of the Gods, based on his own life experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, where he was sent in March 1943 together with forty-seven other Lithuanian intellectuals. 
In The Forest of Gods he revealed life in a concentration camp through the eyes of a man whose only way to save his life and maintain his dignity was to view everything through a veil of irony and humor, where torturers and their victims are exposed as imperfect human beings, being far removed from the false ideals of their political leaders. Originally the novel was forbidden to be published by Soviet officials; it was ultimately published in 1957, ten years after the author's death.

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