Rescuers of Jews
Testimony by Hirsh Osherovich
Elena Kutorgienė was a well-known eye doctor from Kaunas. She was a Lithuanian. She graduated from Moscow University and began to practice medicine at OZE, where mainly impoverished Jews were treated, when she came to Lithuania in 1922. Persecuted Jews began approaching Dr. Kutorgienė from the very first days of the Nazi occupation in June-July, 1941. /.../
After the systematic extermination of Jews began, seven or eight Jews could often be found spending the night in her office. Taking the greatest precautions, they arrived in the evening as patients and remained until morning. On the eve of the Great Action, on October 28, 1941, twelve people spent the night in her practice. Dr. Kutorgienė took an extreme risk because there was a German officer living in her apartment. The smallest noise or mistake could have cost this brave woman her life. Once her neighbors saw a person heavily wrapped up in clothing leaving her apartment at dawn. From then on, she began receiving anonymous letter warnings that if she didn't break off her relations with Jews she would die. The letters didn't frighten her.
After some time a search of her premises took place. Fortunately there were no people in her apartment during the search.
Dr. Kutorgienė kept a diary. The diary is a shocking history of Nazi persecution and sadism against Jews. “The situation in the ghetto is horrifying,” she wrote. “It's intolerably difficult to live, knowing that people are suffering so and experiencing such horrible degradation right next to me.” /.../
“Черная книга”. Ed. Vasilij Grosman and Ilja Erenburg. Vilnius, 1993
Elena Kutorgienė was a well-known eye doctor from Kaunas. She was a Lithuanian. She graduated from Moscow University and began to practice medicine at OZE, where mainly impoverished Jews were treated, when she came to Lithuania in 1922. Persecuted Jews began approaching Dr. Kutorgienė from the very first days of the Nazi occupation in June-July, 1941. /.../
After the systematic extermination of Jews began, seven or eight Jews could often be found spending the night in her office. Taking the greatest precautions, they arrived in the evening as patients and remained until morning. On the eve of the Great Action, on October 28, 1941, twelve people spent the night in her practice. Dr. Kutorgienė took an extreme risk because there was a German officer living in her apartment. The smallest noise or mistake could have cost this brave woman her life. Once her neighbors saw a person heavily wrapped up in clothing leaving her apartment at dawn. From then on, she began receiving anonymous letter warnings that if she didn't break off her relations with Jews she would die. The letters didn't frighten her.
After some time a search of her premises took place. Fortunately there were no people in her apartment during the search.
Dr. Kutorgienė kept a diary. The diary is a shocking history of Nazi persecution and sadism against Jews. “The situation in the ghetto is horrifying,” she wrote. “It's intolerably difficult to live, knowing that people are suffering so and experiencing such horrible degradation right next to me.” /.../
“Черная книга”. Ed. Vasilij Grosman and Ilja Erenburg. Vilnius, 1993