Rescued Jewish Children

I was born in 1934 into the family of a white-collar worker and a housewife. My father, Leiba Levin, worked as a representative of the Czech Company Batas and at the same time he was the Director of a shoe shop in Didžioji Street in Vilnius. In 1940, during the years of occupation, the officials of the Russian authorities arrested my father and deported him to the town of Magnitogorsk in Siberia. From 1941 to 1943 my mother Fania (Feiga) Levina, my grandfather Azriel Shoag, aunt Sofa Shoag, and I were in the Vilnius Ghetto. In 1943, before the liquidation of the ghetto started, everybody was thinking of how to escape (I am writing this on the basis of my mother's words). My aunt was the first to decide to take the plunge. Once at night she left the ghetto, but a German patrol noticed her. She wanted to run away from the patrol but the latter caught up with her. Then she caught hold of a stone and started defending herself. She hit one German with a stone and the other German shot her dead on the spot. Following that event my grandfather advised my mother to try to save herself and save me. Another plan was worked out and we succeeded in escaping. This time our former domestic help, Marija Urbelevich, helped us. My grandfather refused to save himself because he was sick and could hardly walk. In 1943, when the ghetto was being liquidated, he was shot dead. Various people in the town and its environs used to hide us. In 1944, after the Germans had been driven away, I started to attend the third form of the Jewish school. Prior to that my mother taught me a little and I could already read Yiddish. Later that school was closed down and in 1945 I entered a Russian school which I attended till 1951. I started work in 1951. I got married in 1952. From 1953 to 1957 I served in the army. In 1953 my son was born; at present he and his family live in St Petersburg. They have a son and a daughter. In 1958 another son was born. He lives in Vilnius and has a daughter. Beginning in 1957, I worked as a driver in different organisations in Vilnius. My mother died in 1989 in Vilnius. My father returned from exile to Vilnius in 1948. At that time my mother was already married for the second time because she thought that my father had died in Siberia. Then my father decided to illegally emigrate to Israel, but was arrested when crossing the border and kept on the Island of Cyprus for some time. In 1949 he was released and joined the army in Israel where he attained the rank of major. He died in 1993. After the war, my nanny Marija Urbelevič emigrated to Poland and our connection was lost. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information about her. All that is left is a single picture made in 1935 of me and my nanny Marija in the summer house in Nemenčinė...
With a Needle in the Heart. Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps.
Genocide and resistance research centre of Lithuania. Vilnius. 2003.