Seventieth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to flee with her husband and two young daughters to her family’s house near Limbaži as the war moves even closer. Her third child, a son, was born there in February 1916. The family has now relocated (again) to a home near Valmiera, and the Russian Revolution is in full swing. For more background, see here, and click on the tag “diary entries” to see all of the entries that I have posted.

If there is mention of a recognizable historical figure and event, I will provide a Wikipedia link so that you can read more about the events that Alise is describing.

March 24, 1918 (Palm Sunday)

We were in town to visit. I also went to the cinema, where the programme really cheered me up. German order and cleanliness can really be felt in town. How unusually quickly Easter arrives according to the new calendar! The weather is still cold, the land is white. Everyone is hoping for an early spring, to save us from famine and destruction.