Joanna’s family orig­i­nally comes from Vil­nius, but left the city in 1945 on what were called repa­tri­a­tion trains, trans­port­ing Poles back to their own coun­try after the Second World War. Her auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal lec­ture, pre­pared espe­cially for Urban Sto­ries, will take place in her former family home, today the res­i­dency of the Nor­we­gian Ambas­sador, Gil Steinar. Joanna will tell of her familly upbring­ing there, with the image of Vil­nius as lost home­land, of the process of consciousness-​raising for a slumbering Pan-​Slavism, the notion of tuteis­hans (being from here), and the lack of debate around the Polish-​Lithuanian past and present. Even today there is still no direct train between Warsaw and Vil­nius.
 

With the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Gil Steinar, Ambas­sador of Norway to Lithua­nia, Stasys Ban­i­facius, an artist whose familly lived in the house from 1945 to 1962.