Vaira vike freiberga biography of christopher

The little girl who fled from war-torn Latvia spent more than 50 years in exile - but soon after returning she became president. Not only that, Vaira Vike-Freiberga became the first female head of a former Soviet bloc state. She has vivid memories of that chaotic time, especially , when Russian troops - the communist Red Army - marched back into Latvia.

So at one point, as one of them marched by, I raised my fist in the air and shouted 'hurrah!

Dr.

This is a very sad day for Latvia'. The family's odyssey westward took Vaira, aged seven, first to devastated Germany. Then they moved to French-ruled Morocco, then to Canada. She did not return to Latvia until , aged 60, and became president within eight months.

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga GCB OC OQ (née Vīķe; born 1 December ) is a Latvian politician who served as the sixth President of Latvia from to She is the first and to date only woman to hold the post and the most recent to be re-elected for a second term.

Vaira remembers her father listening to the BBC World Service in , desperately trying to fathom where the war was heading. Later that year her parents made the agonising decision to leave Latvia. It was a transport ship with troops and with armaments and of course if it gets torpedoed it's going to blow it up. But they have taken a certain number of civilians with them, who also want to flee from communism at any price.

Latvians gathered on the deck and sang the Latvian anthem. The family reached the refugee camps being set up across Germany. The conditions were very harsh and her baby sister fell ill with pneumonia and died, just 10 months old. Within a year Vaira's mother gave birth again, to a baby boy. But for Vaira the event was overshadowed by another cruel life lesson.