Rasma Sudmalis Mount was born in 1933 near Vainode, Latvia, in an idyllic setting on a fifty-hectare, self-sustaining farm she shared with her parents and an older brother. In a few short years, everything would be in turmoil-a turmoil that would last over ten years, beginning with the occupation of Soviet troops. She and thousands of other Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians would lose their homes and identities and end up in Germany in the closing months of World War II in a sea of humanity.