Rescuers of Jews

     Chaja Roza Šeraitė was fourteen years old and living in Varniai with her parents and younger brother when the army of Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania on 22 June 1941. On the third day of the Nazi occupation, pogroms began in Varniai. All of the town's Jews were driven to the village of Viešvėnai. On one occasion, twenty-three young Jewish men were separated from the others, taken behind a fence, and shot. Roza's father was among them. Later, all of the remaining men, elderly people, and boys were murdered, while the women were taken to a camp established in Geruliai. There they joined women and children from other towns in the Samogitia region, including Luokė, Salantai, Tverai, Tirkšliai, Laukuva, and Telšiai. At the end of August 1941, the Geruliai camp was liquidated. Several thousand women and children were led out and divided into two groups. The stronger women were told that they were being transferred to Telšiai, while the others were told they were being taken for “a walk.” Most understood where they were really being led – to the deep trenches that had already been dug. As if sensing what was about to happen, Roza crossed over into the first group, while her mother and younger brother remained in the second. “As our column of about 500 women was marching towards Telšiai, we heard bursts of machine-gun fire and heart-rending screams. We understood: they were shooting those who had been taken for „a walk“. My mother and brother were there…” Roza later recalled. Thus, Roza Šeraitė found herself in the Telšiai Ghetto.
     The Jews imprisoned in the Telšiai Ghetto received no food. Desperate people discovered a loosely fastened plank in the ghetto fence, pulled it aside, and slipped into nearby villages, where they begged for work in exchange for something to eat. The Samogitian farmers sympathised with the innocent victims: some offered a little milk, others a piece of bread. On Christmas Eve of 1941, Roza knocked on the door of a farmer she had never met. The farmer's wife let her in and gave her food, while the farmer said, “Run back to your people as quickly as you can and warn them that their graves have already been dug.” When Roza returned to the ghetto, everyone there already knew – the warning had also come from other compassionate Lithuanians. She quietly lifted the loose plank in the fence once again and fled, following wherever her feet would take her. She reached the Rainiai forest and, exhausted, collapsed beneath a spruce tree. She was trembling – not so much from the bitter midwinter cold as from the screams coming from the direction where the prisoners of the Telšiai Ghetto were being executed. (From: A Needle in the Heart. Memoirs of Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps. Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Vilnius, 2003)
     Having miraculously escaped execution that day, Roza made her way through the surrounding villages, hoping to find refuge with farming families. She went from one homestead to another. Some people gave her food; others, fearing reprisals from the occupiers, slammed their doors in her face. She experienced every kind of response. Eventually, she decided to return to Varniai, where her grandfather, a fisherman well known to the local people, had lived. Perhaps someone there would take pity on her. On the way, she stopped at the small house of Juozas Mikutis by the roadside. The farmer's wife bathed her, gave her clean clothes, and fed her. During the day Roza was hidden inside a wardrobe and was allowed outside only at night to breathe the fresh air. Roza realised that although life with the Mikutis family was good, it was not safe. She decided to leave of her own accord.
     In the village of Karkliškiai lived the fisherman Vladas Vasiliauskas, who had known Roza's grandfather. As soon as Roza knocked on the door of the Vasiliauskas family home, she was warmly welcomed. Vladas Vasiliauskas, Stasė Vasiliauskaitė, Pranas Vasiliauskas and his wife Veronika, together with the father of Vladas, Pranas, and Stasė, Jonas Vasiliauskas, took pity on the orphaned girl and hid her from outsiders for almost a year. Whenever strangers came to the farm, Roza would run to a nearby grove and remain hidden there until the family called her back. When it became too dangerous to keep her, the Vasiliauskas family entrusted the girl to their relatives Danielius and Juzefa Radavičiai, who lived in the village of Govija.
     According to the testimony of Chaja Roza Šeraitė, the Vasiliauskas family also did everything they could to help other Jews imprisoned in the Šiauliai and Telšiai ghettos, bringing them fish and bread.
     Roza never forgot the parish priest of Varniai, Juozas Gasiūnas, who, at different times, sheltered seven Jews in his home. Among those whom Father Juozas Gasiūnas helped were Šalomas Kacas and his sisters Feigė, Chana, and Ita. After the war, Šalomas Kacas emigrated to Israel, while the others, including Chaja Roza Šeraitė (later Goldinštein), remained in Lithuania.
     To ensure that Roza would never be discovered, Father Juozas Gasiūnas made certain that she never stayed in one place for very long. To achieve this, he enlisted the help of two young women – Elzbieta Dužinskaitė (later Servienė) and Genovaitė Pupšytė (later Laurinaitienė) – who, whenever danger arose, hid Roza either in their own homes or in the homes of their parents. From the memoirs of Elzbieta Servienė:
     Before the war I did not know little Roželė (that is what we called the girl). It was only after the shootings of the Jews began that I learned a young girl had escaped and was hiding with the Vasiliauskas family. My acquaintance Bronius Baltrušaitis brought her to me while I was renting a room in Varniai. I hid the girl in the kitchen. My landlords knew nothing about it because my room had a separate entrance. I told Roželė not to go anywhere and not to let anyone see her. Armed soldiers constantly patrolled the streets and carried out searches. If they found anyone, they would shoot them or deport them to Germany for forced labour. That is why I took Roželė to my parents' home in the village of Dvarvyčiai, near Pavandenė. After we had left, my room in Varniai was searched. Bronius Baltrušaitis came to Pavandenė and told me what had happened, so I never returned to Varniai. My parents, Jurgis and Stasė Dužinskiai, as well as my uncle, neighbours, and friends, helped me hide Roželė. Their assistance was indispensable to me in those days <...>.
     On 26 May 1997, the Yad Vashem Memorial Institute recognized Vladas Vasiliauskas, Veronika Vasiliauskienė, Stasė Vasiliauskaitė, Danielius and Juzefa Radavičiai, Juozas Gasiūnas, Elzbieta Dužinskaitė-Servienė, and Genovaitė Pupšytė-Laurinaitienė as Righteous Among the Nations.
     Some of Chaja Roza Šeraitė's rescuers had already been awarded the Lithuanian state decoration, the Life Saving Cross. In 2026, the Life Saving Cross was also awarded to Jonas Vasiliauskas, Stasė Vasiliauskaitė, Vladas Vasiliauskas, Pranas Vasiliauskas and his wife Veronika Vasiliauskienė, as well as Elzbieta Servienė (née Dužinskaitė) and her parents, Jurgis and Stasė Dužinskiai.