In July 1944, he was among 1,200 people transported to Germany and interned in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

He tried to return home through Poland, where he was arrested and held from May until September in an NKVD filtration camp in Hrodna.

The time he spent in these camps and prisons is reflected in his literary works, especially in his novel Yet Icebound Rivers Flow.

First, because I knew all the people in it, good and bad, and was present at the funeral of those two whose bodies were burnt.

Second, because it would have been unjust to allow the heroism of true enthusiasts to slip into oblivion, to forget those who gave everything for the happiness of their people.

I only hope that the events described here will never repeat themselves, so that I may continue to live in Cēsis, a little town on the Gauja, and cure people with weak lungs, and write humorous short stories.