Samuel Bak’s relationship with Vilnius was a complex one, as complex as can only be experienced by a person who has lived through both paradise and hell here.
Born in Polish Vilnius in 1933 into the family of Jonas, a Jewish dental technician, and Mita Bak, the lone child Samek was spoilt by his parents and grandparents. ‘My mother convinced me that I was special, that I lived in paradise, and that I absolutely deserved it,’ Bak writes in his memoir Painted in Words. ‘My parents wanted to give me the best they could.’
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