Rescuers of Jews
Urbonienė (Dabulevičiūtė) Marija
Directed by the underground organisation, I was taken from the ghetto by a 17 year-old Jewish girl who did not look like a Jew. It had been agreed with Dr. Baublys that I would be left at the doors of his foster home early in the morning. I was put asleep with the help of medication and one early winter morning I was taken on the sleigh like a bundle of clothes. I was lucky that the Germans did not check otherwise we both would have been dead. In this bundle my fictitious first and last names were written, and I grew up with this name at the Lopšelis foster home managed by Dr. Petras Baublys.
From Lopšelis I was taken by Marija Urbonienė, who is also not alive anymore... Of course it was a great joy for me. She did not have her own children and brought me up like her own daughter. She soon realised that I was not a Lithuanian girl as when I was little I talked Yiddish. Marija lived with me in a small town and the neighbours soon started talking that I am “an ikke” – a Jew and that Marija should take me back...
The war was not yet over and she feared for me and for herself. Then they moved to a distant Lithuanian village where nobody knew them. This is how I grew up in their family...
I discovered the true story of my life only 26 years later.
I was a Mother myself...
My real mother Frida died in Germany, in the Dachau camp...
My father survived and lived in Vilnius after the war.
He looked for me for many years but found me only after 26 years...
This incredible woman Marija Urbonienė brought me up, loved me like her own daughter and with her help I returned back to my nation, as she wished only the best for me…
From Lopšelis I was taken by Marija Urbonienė, who is also not alive anymore... Of course it was a great joy for me. She did not have her own children and brought me up like her own daughter. She soon realised that I was not a Lithuanian girl as when I was little I talked Yiddish. Marija lived with me in a small town and the neighbours soon started talking that I am “an ikke” – a Jew and that Marija should take me back...
The war was not yet over and she feared for me and for herself. Then they moved to a distant Lithuanian village where nobody knew them. This is how I grew up in their family...
I discovered the true story of my life only 26 years later.
I was a Mother myself...
My real mother Frida died in Germany, in the Dachau camp...
My father survived and lived in Vilnius after the war.
He looked for me for many years but found me only after 26 years...
This incredible woman Marija Urbonienė brought me up, loved me like her own daughter and with her help I returned back to my nation, as she wished only the best for me…