Rescuers of Jews
Skačkauskaitė-Vaičiūnienė Antanina
Kama Ginkas about Antanina Skačkauskaitė-Vaičiūnienė
Antanina... At that time her surname was Skačkauskaitė and later, after she got married, she became Vaičiūnienė. I got acquainted with her more than ten years ago, when I lived in Moscow. One day I received a letter from Kaunas. Written with unfamiliar handwriting, in Lithuanian, with some grammar mistakes. It sounded like this: Dear Kamutis, I am sorry for applying to you, such a well known and famous person. Wasn’t it you, Kamutis, that little boy I would keep warm in my bed? I rescued you, and your father came to visit you. Don’t you remember how much you loved me, clinging to my skirt?! Even your daddy reproached me saying that I shouldn’t get so attached to the child. Isn’t it that you, such a famous director?
It turned out that in a Kaunas newspaper she read something good about two directors: my wife Henrieta Janovskaja, and Kama Ginkas. She realised it was me and wrote to Moscow, to the МХАТ, where at the time I worked as a director. The next day, according to my wife (although I think it was on a third day), I was already in the Kaunas District looking for Vaičiūnienė’s house. Behind one of the fences there was a stout elderly woman, barefoot, up to the ankles in the soil, working in her garden. I will skip the moment of our meeting... In a small and shabby house with the smell of cats and old age, she hurries to treat me to some food and keeps taking out some documents from the chest verifying that she had truly saved me. Was it because some people did not believe her, or the Soviet government had gotten everyone used to having everything documented?.. Before the war she was a nun, a sister of mercy. When the Soviets closed the monastery, the sisters started a secular life, and some of them got married. During the year when Antanina saved me, she worked in a home for mentally disabled children and hid Jewish children there. Every night, three children, five and sometimes ten children. It was another “transfer point” until a more reliable and safer place was found. They placed Jewish children together with ill children and wrote Typhus Abdominalis (typhoid fever) on the door, for example, to prevent the Germans, who were afraid of any kind of contagious diseases, from entering the wards. She was very scared and once she confessed to her mother: “I am hiding Jewish children. I could be killed for it. What should I do?” Her mother, a simple peasant woman, replied (as retold by Antanina): “Then you will know what you died for”. This elderly woman had a son. He was a priest and was engaged in similar activities, but in another district. After this first encounter I received letters from Antanina periodically and they would begin with the same words: “Is that really you, Kamutis? You have become such a well-known person!” And then she would add: “I know that now times are difficult in Russia. I can send you potatoes and my relatives from the village could give you bacon”. Sometimes, rarely, I would come and bring her money and once installed a telephone line in her house. I invited her with her daughter, a teacher, to come to Moscow but... she never had time... she had to take care of the garden...
A TV show called Пятое колесо on Leningrad television made a film about Antanina around 1992.
From the 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum
Antanina... At that time her surname was Skačkauskaitė and later, after she got married, she became Vaičiūnienė. I got acquainted with her more than ten years ago, when I lived in Moscow. One day I received a letter from Kaunas. Written with unfamiliar handwriting, in Lithuanian, with some grammar mistakes. It sounded like this: Dear Kamutis, I am sorry for applying to you, such a well known and famous person. Wasn’t it you, Kamutis, that little boy I would keep warm in my bed? I rescued you, and your father came to visit you. Don’t you remember how much you loved me, clinging to my skirt?! Even your daddy reproached me saying that I shouldn’t get so attached to the child. Isn’t it that you, such a famous director?
It turned out that in a Kaunas newspaper she read something good about two directors: my wife Henrieta Janovskaja, and Kama Ginkas. She realised it was me and wrote to Moscow, to the МХАТ, where at the time I worked as a director. The next day, according to my wife (although I think it was on a third day), I was already in the Kaunas District looking for Vaičiūnienė’s house. Behind one of the fences there was a stout elderly woman, barefoot, up to the ankles in the soil, working in her garden. I will skip the moment of our meeting... In a small and shabby house with the smell of cats and old age, she hurries to treat me to some food and keeps taking out some documents from the chest verifying that she had truly saved me. Was it because some people did not believe her, or the Soviet government had gotten everyone used to having everything documented?.. Before the war she was a nun, a sister of mercy. When the Soviets closed the monastery, the sisters started a secular life, and some of them got married. During the year when Antanina saved me, she worked in a home for mentally disabled children and hid Jewish children there. Every night, three children, five and sometimes ten children. It was another “transfer point” until a more reliable and safer place was found. They placed Jewish children together with ill children and wrote Typhus Abdominalis (typhoid fever) on the door, for example, to prevent the Germans, who were afraid of any kind of contagious diseases, from entering the wards. She was very scared and once she confessed to her mother: “I am hiding Jewish children. I could be killed for it. What should I do?” Her mother, a simple peasant woman, replied (as retold by Antanina): “Then you will know what you died for”. This elderly woman had a son. He was a priest and was engaged in similar activities, but in another district. After this first encounter I received letters from Antanina periodically and they would begin with the same words: “Is that really you, Kamutis? You have become such a well-known person!” And then she would add: “I know that now times are difficult in Russia. I can send you potatoes and my relatives from the village could give you bacon”. Sometimes, rarely, I would come and bring her money and once installed a telephone line in her house. I invited her with her daughter, a teacher, to come to Moscow but... she never had time... she had to take care of the garden...
A TV show called Пятое колесо on Leningrad television made a film about Antanina around 1992.
From the 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum