Mum and her parents returned to Pakroy in the summer of 1918. They were fortunate as they travelled back to Pakroy before the pogroms started in the Ukraine. Actually, when still in Bachmut, in September 1917, there was rioting - from what I could understand from Mum it was a general unrest, not anti-Jewish - and Kerensky personally had to come to Bachmut to pacify the population, that the unrest should not get out of hand and spread. At one stage, the main liquor warehouse was raided and Mum remembered how the vodka flowed down the streets and how the local population went out with their pots and pans to scoop the stuff up while others simply lay down and drank straight from the gutters.

The situation was tricky, there was a curfew at night; on Erev Yom Kippur only the men were allowed to go to shul, with a special escort. On their return to Pakroy in 1918 they found their house intact, the keys having been deposited with Baron von Ropp for safekeeping, but many people found nothing at all and had to start from scratch as there had been widespread  vandalisation of Jewish houses and shops, many of the houses had been burnt down.

This situation was a strong incentive to emigrate and the community became smaller and poorer. A glance at the available statistics of Pakroy (printed by Yad Vashem) illustrates this situation: in 1897 the total population of Pakroy was 1,545, of whom 1,093 (71%) were Jews, this must have been the peak. It declined by 1923 to a total of 1,177 of whom only 454  38%) were Jews. This reflects the emigration of Jews from Lithuania in the early 1900's,  mainly to South Africa and the United States. (In fact a group of Pakroyer settled in Baltimore where they organized their own synagogue Mikroh Kodesh, commonly referred to as the Pakroyer Shul.). Emigration gathered momentum,  including young people who left Pakroy for urban centres in Lithuania such as Kovno and Shavel. In 1939 the total population of Pakroy had increased to 1,500 but the Jews numbered less than 25%. Not only in absolute numbers were there fewer Jews but so many of the young people had left, leaving an aging and poor community. In broad terms this was the situation when the Germans invaded in June 1941.

Not all expellees returned to Lithuania after the war. The February Revolution abolished all discrimination against Jews throughout the former Russian Empire and Jews identified themselves with this new democratic regime headed by Alexander Kerensky and were enthusiastic and optimistic – for the first time ever Jews enjoyed equal rights, all the centuries' old oppressive laws were abolished. Some examples of people who decided not to return to Lithuania: a daughter of Rabbi Chechanowsky, the Rabbi of Pakroy, who stayed on in Russia to study. Mum's cousin Velva Atlas’ brother, Eliyahu, also stayed on in Russia to study and never returned to Lithuania.