From a man to a man... I do not remember how I was born. My mother said it happened in a Šiauliai hospital. After I was born I found myself in the house of Mr. Ibianski – my parents rented a flat here. I, however, remember only our second residence, which was on Dariaus ir Girėno street, in the house of the wealthy Mr. Gordon, where my parents rented a flat above the cinema of the time, called “Kapitol”. On the third floor, above us, lived a music educator, whom everyone called professor Kravec. So right from the start I was kind of squeezed among the arts. Below me I would hear the sound of movies and there was always music playing above. Was this fate? This was not enough for my parents, who were intelligent people and could not ignore my cultural education. My mother, whose maiden name was Michlė (Marija) Lichtmacheraitė, went from Kėdainiai to Russia during World War I together with her whole family (her father was a house painter), she studied in the Yekaterinburg University and admired the great Russian writers. She used to read me fairytales by Korney Chukovsky and poems by Samuil Marshak when I was still a child. My father had great musical aptitude: when he listened to good music, he would act like a conductor without even noticing it. I didn’t know at the time that there were brilliant musicians in his family, some of them were even conductors at the opera. My parents were very delighted when the nice old man, professor Kravec (this is the memory I have of him from when I was a five-six year old squirt), agreed to teach me music. When Kravec asked me, what I would rather study, the violin or the grand piano, I answered straight away – the grand piano. And I proceeded to explain: I do not want to stand stretched out like a doggy and play the violin, while my teacher is comfortably sitting in his chair, beating the time with his leg and explaining how things should be done: this was right and that was wrong. The grand piano was a different business altogether. We would sit side by side as equals... I suffered quite a bit later in life because of my straightforwardness. I have too much tongue. Of course, I was properly adjusted during the Soviet era but this disease of mine seems to have never been cured. My dad, Samuelis Petuchauskas, who would constantly be elected Vice Mayor of Šiauliai during the 20-year period of independence, was not religious. He had quite a few nuisances with the rabbis of Šiauliai because of that. The latter resented that such a reputable man did not attend the synagogue. According to my mother, who was not religious either, eventually a compromise was made: my dad would come to the synagogue on the most important occasions. He used to take me with him. As a matter of fact, dad was against my circumcision too. Only after he went away, my father’s mother, Badana, my grandmother and a very religious woman, organised my circumcision. It created quite a few headaches for my sensitive mother: the circumcision was long overdue and she was worried that I might not be able to have children or have a normal sex life. (Life proved that my mother’s worries were highly exaggerated, I probably surpassed her expectations when I grew up). As far as I know, my father was a man of principle, he held to his opinion and beliefs strongly and was coherent in their realisation. He never tried to get rich (even though he could have), he didn’t purchase real estate or build houses, unlike most of the people of pre-war Šiauliai. He rented a flat for all those twenty years. Even when the municipality of Šiauliai began selling lots in the city to encourage constructions, my father bought such a lot in Tilžė street belatedly and reluctantly – he practically did it because he was following the guidelines for the expansion of the city of Šiauliai, practiced by the municipality over which he presided, and because he was urged to do so by his colleagues. The construction was not started until the Soviet occupation though. He found it strange and uninteresting. My dad was known for his honesty and low tolerance for corruption. He respected those, who had elected him. According to my mom, even if he could not help every man who came to him, he would explain everything honestly, give advice, and whoever came left dignified, never offended and always in a friendly mood. It must be a talent to communicate in a humane, sensitive and respectful manner. My father had it. The fortitude of his beliefs and his honesty in realising them was known all over Šiauliai and gained him popularity not only among Jews, but also Lithuanians. Only by the votes of citizens of all ethnicities was he ever elected during the whole period of Lithuanian independence. Mayors would come and go, nationalists replaced social-democrats, but Samuelis Petuchauskas would always be elected the Vice Mayor. Thus it was for twenty years, until the Soviets dismantled the municipalities. My dad had this opinion: if you live in Lithuania, first of all you have to know the language well. So after his son was born, he spoke to him only in Lithuanian. This is how the Lithuanian language became my first, native language. Another principle of my dad’s: the son has to speak the language of his homeland – Israel. Therefore I was taken not to the kindergarten for Jews, but to the one for Hebrews and later I went to a Hebrew school. I was a good student, my religion teacher even commended me in front of the whole classroom as an example everyone should follow. He asked me how come I was so good at completing religion assignments, to which I answered: they are very beautiful fairy tales, and I simply love fairy tales. There was a terrible uproar. My dad was immediately called to the school to explain, why I was parented in such a liberal way. Again, trouble over my damn tongue. My dad was not mad, he laughed a lot though. My mom later remembered another slip of my tongue that caused quite a bit of laughs. One weekend a lot of guests gathered in our house, the elite of Šiauliai at the time. After waking up late in the evening, feeling sleepy, I went to the living room half-naked. Some of the guests were speaking loudly, others were playing cards, while some were having snacks. Sleepy, and probably unhappy about the racket, all of a sudden I said: “I only have to say one word and you’ll all be gone”. The guests were interested to hear and insisted that I tell them what that word was. Finally I said: “Out!” I remember an exciting trip with my father to a forest bonfire camp of Lithuanian scouts. Many of the guests at the ceremony were in uniform with epaulettes and the whole deal. I remember how proud I felt, when I got into a brand new municipal limousine next to the driver and rode through the main streets of the city. I remember the Milšteinas’ café on Dariaus ir Girėno street, across from the “Kapitol”. I remember the amazingly delicious pastries, which my father would take me to eat when he thought I was worth it. I remember when my mom told me a story of the visit of our president Antanas Smetona to Šiauliai. The latter knew our family and had met with my dad on more than one occasion to discuss the matters of the city of Šiauliai. Smetona asked my mother to dance at the welcoming party that evening. He complimented my mother’s dancing and said that she was the most beautiful lady in Šiauliai. I can’t deny it: the president had good taste. My mother was indeed very beautiful, she was Madonna with regular spiritual features and big blue eyes radiating with special light. Men would turn their heads when she walked down the street. I know many friends and acquaintances of our family, who admired her in one way or another. The most natural motif in her life, one that you could almost take for granted, was her altruism, and she preserved it right up until she died. She always came last in her own mind. She was primarily worried about others – her husband, her son, her grandson, her acquaintances and even people she didn’t really know. I do not know if my father realised this, if he appreciated it as he should have. We did not have time to talk about it, the same way we had no time to talk about a lot of things. He was shot in Paneriai when I was nine. With great pain I can remember the special scent of his hair, the same scent that I kind of breathed-in for the rest of my life while living in our apartment on Algirdo street 6 in Vilnius, from which my father was taken away in the summer of 1941 never to return.

The Order of Gediminas When three tall, well-built men from Vilnius security police wearing elegant light suits arrived to arrest my father, my mother burst into tears and brought to show them the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. She thought she could convince the Nazis, that dad was no communist. On the contrary, he was a patriot of Lithuania, who was always elected Vice Mayor of Šiauliai during the twenty years of Lithuanian independence, who was awarded the Order of Gediminas by the president in 1938 for merits to the independent Lithuania… But the men just laughed without even looking at the order and took father away. This event was engraved in my nine-year-old boy’s mind for life. Only later we found out, that we were on the list to be deported by the Soviets in June, because we were the family of the former Vice Mayor. The Soviets did not make it in time and the lists of the NKVD were captured by the Vilnius Security Police controlled by the Nazis. So this is why dad was found so quickly. Symbolic. What the first occupants failed to do was accomplished by the others. By the way, the rest of my biography was full of red and brown disasters, depending on which regime ruled over Lithuania at the time. During the Soviet times they threatened to throw me out of the Vilnius University, supposedly because its honour was tainted by the “little boy of the Mayor” of Šiauliai. It was also why I was not assigned to work anywhere after having graduated from the faculty of law and ended up unemployed with a “free” diploma. Later I somehow managed to get a job as an interpreter in the radio committee. Even later than that, after Stalin died, I went through both the brown and the red points of view, when I worked at the Science Academy. Throughout my entire life these mindsets would sometimes come surprisingly close, as if to fuel one another (of course, this can further be illustrated by known historical facts). Sometimes the anti-Semitic attacks against a Jew, who had the nerve to write and criticise Lithuanian theatre, who had the insolence to create and lead the first Lithuanian scientific centre of art criticism, went together with my blameworthy “Mayor’s little boy” image. But let us get back to 1941. In August, my father Samuelis Petuchauskas was shot in Paneriai. After occupying a city, the Nazis’ primary objective was to decapitate the Jewish community by destroying their intellectual class: reputable scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers and societal figures. My dad was from Vilnius, his parents, the Petuchovskis family, lived in Vilnius, as did all of father’s relatives. It consisted of simple people, uneducated people, journalists, scientists, artists, doctors, philosophers and famous rabbis. Father’s family tree reaches the year 1755 as far as I know. Some of the Petuchovskis (book publishers, people of other professions) moved from Vilnius to Germany. I found out a lot about that not very long ago, from a chart, composed by my relative in Washington, Sam Petukowski, a NASA astrophysicist professor, and from documents in the National Archives of Lithuania. The events in 1989 developed as if in a movie. Sam found out about my existence by sheer coincidence, while working in the USA Library of Congress in Washington. By pressing the button “P” on the computer (he was interested in the books published by his father, Jacob Petukowski, a professor of the philosophy of Judaism in Cincinnati) he came across three of my books about Lithuanian theatre, which had been purchased by the USA Library of Congress. He found me in Vilnius, pumped me out through his letters and found out we were related. When I visited Sam in Washington, I found out that I had another relative in Israel – Jocheved Petuchovski. She travelled from Vilnius to the Promised Land in 1936, when she was eighteen, and established one of the first kibbutzes – Kfar Menachem. I found out a lot about the wide branch of my family in Germany. At its front is the chief rabbi of Berlin, doctor of philosophy Marcus Petuchowski (died in 1926), my father’s first cousin. His children are Zigmundas, a dentist in Berlin, Ernst, the conductor of the Aachen opera, “fat” Berta, married to Dr. Tobias Jakobovicz, a known historian of the Czech Jews and the director of the Jewish library in Prague, Sofija, married to Dr. Alfred Rabau – the official advisor of the Berlin Jewish community, one of the creators of Germany’s Maccabi sports organisation. Therefore, the children of Marcus Petuchovski are my second cousins and I am the uncle of Jacob Petukowski (Sam’s father). After leaving Nazi Germany, this branch of the family came to the US, where together with the aforementioned astrophysicist live his two brothers – Aron, the highest rabbi of the synagogue in Washington, and Jonathan, a lawyer. Their mother Elizabeth Petukowski, who lives in Cincinnati, forced departure from Germany did not prevent her from becoming fond of German culture, she is a professor of contemporary German literature, who visits Germany every year.

In the Vilnius Ghetto Beginning with 6 September 1941, when the ghetto was established, me and my mother started living in the street of Rūdninkai close to the ghetto gate. For two years, 1941–1943, we lived with the everyday worries of the ghetto: surviving starvation, staying alive. Not many members of our family in Lithuania managed to stay alive. Father’s mother also found her way to Paneriai – she died when the so-called Second Ghetto was liquidated. Father’s sister Čilė and almost all of her family were shot in Alytus. Only Čilė’s son Mejeris Zacepinskis survived after escaping to Russia. Two years in the Vilnius Ghetto is an entire epic – it cannot be told shortly. My childhood memory still holds horrible scenes of death, famine, humiliation and heroism. I attended a Jewish school, for the first time in my life I had the chance to learn more of the Jewish language, especially in writing. In Šiauliai I used to attend a Hebrew kindergarten and the first grade of the elementary school. In the Soviet era I had to study in the Yiddish language in Vilnius, because all Hebrew schools were closed. The first glimpses of culture and art in my mind are associated to books, which I devoured in the ghetto library every morning. The world of books and artistic fantasy helped escape the hunger, cold and fear I had to suffer every day, as well as living with twenty people in the same room: everyone would lay down on the floor in two rows, heads on the inside, feet against opposite walls. To get to the door in the dark you had to balance yourself and carefully tread between the heads of sleeping people. Famine wasn’t the only thing we had to suffer – there was also a terrible sense of helplessness: when a child hears some older people talking about the creation of an anti-fascist combatant organisation, attempts to escape the ghetto, but you’re doomed to do nothing, but play the soul-chilling waiting game. I wrote and told a lot about the ghetto theatre, I organised the International days of art in its remembrance. But I want to say this again anyway: it was a bridge to life, a spark of hope, a glimpse of the human spirit, which was the main thing that helped me survive. The aura of father’s goodness followed me and my mother even after his death. Dad was very popular and well-liked in Šiauliai. He played a big role in expanding the city, taking care of constructions and the municipal economy, as well as the wellbeing of people and culture. When we got to the ghetto after his death, many well-known Lithuanian intellectuals gave us a helping hand. For example, the brother of the Lithuanian philosopher Stasys Šalkauskis, a reputable lawyer and professor Kazys Šalkauskis, who had worked together with my father in the municipality of Šiauliai, would often invite my mother to visit him in his apartment, whenever she went out of the ghetto to work. He fed her and gave her food to bring to her son. The professor was openly outraged by the atrocities committed by the Nazi and Lithuanian murderers. He was very upset and constantly reiterated to my mother that this black stain would follow the Lithuanian nation for a long time. At a difficult time, when it became obvious that the days of the Vilnius Ghetto were over, we were unexpectedly given assistance by the Ruzgys family. We did not even know each other before the war, but they were from Šiauliai and were familiar with the work of my father. With only a few months remaining until the liquidation of the ghetto, they suggested that we flee and hide in their apartment. I am not going to tell you about the “adventures” we had while escaping the ghetto (they are described in the book Mirties Verpete (In the Swirl of Death) by J. Ruzgys, the second edition of which has been released recently, after the author’s death. I also wrote about it in S. Binkienė’s book Ir be ginklo kariai (Unarmed Soldiers; 1967), not only to tell the tale of “the unforgettable Lithuanians”, but also hoping to publicly express my support for the writer Jonas Ruzgys, who had just come back from a Soviet concentration camp and was being thoroughly ignored. I did what I could to help the Ruzgys family get their house back, which was declared derelict after Ruzgys was arrested (I was helped by J. Bluvstein, who worked as a jurisconsultant in the Vilnius Executive Committee). During all those years of Nazi occupation, Stasė and Jonas Ruzgys were hiding a Jewish woman, Liza Aizenberg, and her daughter Rita in their apartment in Žvėrynas neighbourhood, so it was impossible for me and my mother to stay there for a longer period. We faced a dilemma: should we go back to the ghetto or search for another hideout, no matter the risk. This is when the name of Jackus Sondeckis came up. Sondeckis had been working with my father in the municipality of Šiauliai for a long time. He was a known humanist and an honest, open-minded person. Ruzgys agreed to the idea and took on the task of accomplishing it with all the energy he was known for. We received fake IDs and went to Šiauliai together with Stasė Ruzgienė, Marija Petrauskienė and her husband Jonas Petrauskas. Ruzgys worked in the department of health in Vilnius and got time off for a business trip, otherwise we would not have been able to buy train tickets and get on a train, because we had to pass a check of the German officer commanded patrol at the platform. And so finally, after passing the checkpoint, the three of us made it on the train to Šiauliai. Before we got time to relax, a young Lithuanian woman suddenly sat down in front of us. She had a swastika on the lapel of her elegant jacket. The woman proved to be rather talkative and right away she started boasting about working in the Gestapo and being interested in a lot of things. She was especially interested in the child (me) and would ask this or that. But Stasė Ruzgienė, being an experienced conspirator, had been prepared for a situation like this – my head was all muffled in bandage as if I was suffering a terrible toothache. I couldn’t talk and my face was hardly visible. My childish face had more than enough Semitic features. In Šiauliai, Stasė yet again proved to be a resourceful and brave conspirator. It was evening and we needed a place to stay. It was dangerous to walk around town – too many people who could recognise us. Ruzgienė took all the documents, went to the commandant of the German military hotel, which was very close to the station, and got a permit to stay overnight in this hotel. What can be safer and more dangerous at the same time, than sleeping in a hotel for German officers? In the morning, Stasė went to Dvaro street, where the Sondeckis family lived and received a blessing to go to Šašaičiai village in Telšiai district, where Sondeckis farm was, where Jackus’ sister Eugenija Sondeckytė-Kazlauskienė and her husband Juozas Kazlauskas were keeping the house.

Vincė, the Jew-killer

Thus I became shepherd Jonis and soon enough learned to speak with a Samogitian accent. I was responsible for a herd of sixteen cows, rode horses and watered them. It was the time of haymaking and I had to rake, stow and transport hay not only with the women hired by the Kazlauskas family, but also a young man by the name of Vincė. My hosts warned me to be careful and not talk too much around Vincė – he was a known Jew-killer in Alsėdžiai. It was 1943 and Vincė, having run out of his particular “line of work” (The Jews of Alsėdžiai had already been exterminated), began working on the Kazlauskas farm. He was small, had dark eyes that seemed to pierce you and a dark complexion. Vincė cursed using all possible combinations of Russian swear words, I had not heard anything quite like it before. It is likely that he did not understand much of them – Vincė didn’t speak Russian. But his most favourite and strongest swear word was “Jew”. If you weren’t eating right, he would say: “Why are you eating like a Jew?” If you were standing: “Why are you standing like a Jew?” If you were walking: “Why are you walking like a Jew?... Why are you staring like a Jew?” and so on. Although he was friendly when he met me – shepherd Jonis – Vincė used the same kind of language with me too (“Why are you standing like a Jew?”; “Why are you walking like a Jew?”)
I tried not to react to the tirades that Vincė threw at me and acted as if they were meant for someone else. That seemed to work. I made it until the end of autumn jobs, when Vincė’s employment ended and the Kazlauskas family finally managed to get rid of the dangerous hired hand.
Or so it seemed to us. But not for long. One day after coming back from Seda, Juozas Kazlauskas told us that a policeman he knew warned us to beware, because there were complaints that the Kazlauskas family were hiding Jews and Communists. That same day Kazlauskas took me and my mother to their acquaintances and neighbours, the Virketis family, who did not have a lot of land and lived away from other people in the outskirts of the forest. When we were there we hid from everyone.
We were just in time to escape. In the morning, when the night had only begun to fade, a group of policemen raided the Kazlauskas farm. There were searches and interrogations, but the “white armbands” were too late – they found nothing.

Samogitia, my love

This is when we began an odyssey of changing hideouts. It lasted until autumn 1944, when the Nazis were pushed out of Samogitia.
It would be impossible to tell about all the exciting, memorable situations and details, which describe those wonderful people, the bright-minded Samogitian peasants, who spit death in the face and risked their lives and the lives of their families to save us – people they had never known before. A book would not be enough.
A totally different life began on the Virketis farm. The Virketis themselves and two of their pre-teen children lived very poorly: crammed on one side of a small hut, whilst the other housed a small derelict animal-shed. There used to be a cow and some pigs in this shed. This tiny shed, which had not even been mucked out, had no windows and little ventilation, became our permanent place of residence, which we would only leave when after dark. The farm had no well and the people who lived there used the same ditch, which was not very clean, for drinking water and washing themselves. We had to share the food, which Kazlauskas brought us from time to time, with our hosts, who barely managed to stay alive themselves.
After a while we felt that we had been infested with lice. First on our heads. Later, when strange wounds appeared on our legs, they started multiplying beneath the crust covering those wounds.
It was a catastrophe. Even when we were almost dying from hunger in the ghetto, we managed to avoid such things. Chocking in that dirty barn half-starved, without being able to wash ourselves properly, our heads, arms and feet overrun with wounds and lice, we felt as if we were rotting alive.
One time after dusk Kazlauskas came to visit us and was appalled at the sight of us. He understood that we could not stay there any longer. The Virketis family were very honest and courageous people, but they could barely take care of themselves. I have always been thankful to them and to their son in my heart. Unfortunately, I could not find them or anything about their fate after the war.
Kazlauskas tried to settle us in at his neighbour, a wealthier peasant by the name of Dokšas. After hiding us for around a week, the good-hearted Dokšas had a nervous breakdown.
“Do what you want, I can’t take it anymore,” he said to Kazlauskas.
Finally Kazlauskas managed to arrange for us to live with the Šimkus family, who lived rather far away from Šašaičiai. They had no children, lived in a farmstead in the middle of the forest with no neighbours. The farmstead could only be reached from one side where the road was and surrounded by forest and swamps on all other sides.
I can almost see them today. I became a “secret” shepherd of the only cow the Šimkus family had. The latter proved to be a wild one and the same was even more true for the swamp. Even though she had a bell on her neck, the rufous animal could disappear from my eyes almost instantly. She knew every hard spot in the swamp and would quickly vanish among the livery parts of the swamp. I found myself in an unfamiliar place with endless water of the swamp all around me, shuddering with fear and breathless I hopped from one hump to another with tears in my eyes, occasionally submerging myself in water. I would search for my new friend all day, wet from head to toe.
It ached my heart to think: this is it, I am not going to find the Šimkus family’s source of food, and, God forbid, our hosts might throw me and my mother out… But when I brought the cow back in the evening all wet and cold, I felt happy, as if I had beaten the greatest obstacle in my life.
Šimkuvienė was a good knitter. The family’s livelihood depended on her knitting. Luckily, my mother was also good at knitting and she worked from morning until evening, hidden on the other side of the hut, knitting Šimkuvienė’s orders. This way we could repay our do-gooders to some extent. (Frankly, this was the only way we had: we had no property. Everything now belonged to the people, who started living in our flat on Algirdo street in Vilnius).
Compared to hiding at the Virketis farm, this could almost be called a sanatorium. The Šimkus family were hard-working, friendly people. We spent one of the most peaceful periods in hiding here.
But soon the fat was in the fire: the people around us started talking about some mysterious people living on the Šimkus farm and we had to run again.
Autumn of 1944 came. The frontline near Šiauliai electrified Samogitia, which was overrun with Nazis ravaging and tormenting the region. The Nazis, their henchmen, former policemen, Jew-killers, anyone who had any amount of power in Lithuanian Security and other collaborating structures suddenly gathered in Samogitia, settled in its villages, warmed up the Nazi hysteria, bred suspicions and fear among peasants. It was getting harder and harder to find anyone who would risk hiding a Jewish woman and her child under those circumstances.
This time Kazlauskas used the help of his relative, uncle Laurynas, and somehow managed to find a place for us. Again, it was a homestead in a forest, where a woman lived alone with her son Stasys of around 26 years of age. Everything happened so quickly that we did not even find out what their last names were. We were brought secretly and left there.
It became clear right away, that our new hostess was no conspirator. She was sincere and honest and thought that everyone around her was just as honest so she believed there was no reason to hide. In a few days there were probably no neighbours left, who did not know that we were hiding there. The hostess’ son Stasys realised how bad of a situation we had gotten into, but it was too late. We had to disappear quickly and as far as possible from the homestead of these naïve and gullible people.
Stasys kept running about somewhere all agitated, until he came back in the evening and said he had found a perfect hiding place. There was a hut in the forest where an old gentleman lived by himself. Even the mistress of the house had left him. The bachelor agreed to take us in. We would travel after dark.
Dusk was becoming more and more gratifying with each passing day and gave us hope: every night the sky was red from the glow of the battlefield, the cannonade roared closer and closer, there were more and more heavy bomber planes humming in the sky on their way to the West and all the country roads, even insignificant forest paths, were overrun with fleeing Nazis. They fled in massive numbers, day and night, on their tanks, horses and requisitioned carriages, any way possible.
God, what joy it was. Finally! Hidden in the depth of the forest I would prowl close to the road, abandoning whatever sense of caution I had. I could not catch my breath overcome by emotion, which was special somehow, mixed in the confused soul of a twelve-year-old together with hatred for the occupants and the waiting for impending retribution. The spark of hope, which had never died, started burning brighter and gave me and my mother strength.
After the long trip through the forest at night, through the brushes, avoiding all roads and paths, we finally found the hut of our host-to-be. He was an old man of about 60 years of age with a kind face. He took us to the other side of the hut, put us to bed, happy that it would be easier with a woman in the house, who was so necessary to him now that the former mistress of the house had left.
Juozas Kazlauskas constantly took care of us, brought food, found us new hideouts whenever we had to flee for one reason or another. This man deserves a separate book.
Having married a wealthy widow, Kazlauskas turned her farm into one of the most mechanised farms of the time. He was an uneducated farmer with a bright head as of a construction engineer and hands of gold. And a heart of gold. He had a fearless heart of a hero and a mind of a humanist philosopher. The fate of this kind of people is frequently tragic.
He did not go to church and therefore had the reputation of a godless atheist in Šašaičiai, in the beautiful land of Varduva, in Žemaičių Kalvarija – this and the information about him saving Jews could have predetermined his tragic fate. In accordance with the soviet order, a “kulak”, owner of 40 hectares of land, hiring farm-hands had to be eliminated as a representative of the class. But in the end he was killed by those who fought the Soviets.
After a long search, his body was found in a forest hanged on ribbons. His face was so deformed, that only his wife was able to recognise him. In his last letter in 1946, Juozas Kazlauskas wrote to us, that it was “getting hot” in Šašaičiai and he was going to move to Vilnius, where we would meet soon. But he could not make it. The irony of fate was that his both sons – Gediminas and Algis, who participated in underground movements – were repressed by soviets. It seems to me, that the horrible history of this family is a reflection of the tragedy that befell all of Lithuania at the time.
The tragedy touched everyone in different ways. For example, J. Sondeckis’ father – the old Laurynas. Was it easy for an old man to risk the lives of his daughter Eugenija, his son in law J. Kazlauskas, and finally, his three grandchildren – little Alina, Gediminas and Algis – for us, people he didn’t know before? But we heard no complaints, no doubts and no sign of resentment. Laurynas was respected by everyone. We all called him Papunis in our local dialect. He was a short-spoken man, it seemed he never interfered in farm matters, but his eyes were so deep and expressive, they seemed like a mirror of all the things happening in the farm. I will never forget how he took care of a starving ghetto child. And the skilfully carved clogs he made for me – I learned wearing them soon, those were great for cold winters too. And the fur coat he gave me. I could not part from these clogs and the fur coat for a long time. Even when I came to Vilnius in the autumn of 1944, I came over Ruzgiai to Žvėrynas wearing Papunis’ clogs and the coat already in holes...
Isn’t Laurynas the true righteous among the nations? I met many people like him while wandering in Samogitia, the place I fell in love with for the rest of my life.
Other Sondeckis family members did not avoid tragedy either. Jackus Sondeckis helped the Šiauliai Ghetto and its residents a lot during the occupation. A humanist who despised Nazism, and one of the creators of the Lithuanian Social-Democrat party, Sondeckis left Lithuania as the front got close, leaving his wife and two children behind.
And suddenly, after almost 5 decades since we had parted, I saw his unforgettable pleasant face next to the former ghetto theatre at a Sąjūdis meeting organised in remembrance of the victims of the ghetto. I squeezed through the crows and I asked him: “Are you Sondeckis?”
Jackus visited my mother as well. It seems not so long ago they both still were among us…
A read a lot of warm words about my father in Sondeckis’ book, Gyvenimas Lietuvai, that was released after he died.
Sondeckis’ words about me are the highest of any praise I ever got. When he lived in the USA he wrote: “The man is probably not only clever, but also a good person… My sister (Eug. Kazlauskienė – M. P.) told me, that the young Petuchauskas had come to thank her for saving him and his mother. This is an extraordinary deed. Those who get help from someone rarely say thanks the way they should. Mark’s action is a rare exception.” (Gyvenimas Lietuvai – “Delta”, 1993, Šiauliai, p. 198).
For me this was a testimony from my father’s friend and comrade, that I had not abandoned my father’s principles of honesty.
I was moved by the photos in the book: my father alongside J. Sondeckis and other reputable residents of Šiauliai at the time (Naujalis, the Venclauskis family, etc.) There are photos of Sondeckis, S. Petuchauskas and other town leaders welcoming president Smetona when he came to visit Šiauliai.
There was one picture where I saw Papunis for the first time in years, together with other members of the Sondeckis and Kazlauskas families (Juozas, Eugenija, the kids) saying farewell to the emigrating Jackus.

Šašaičiai Time and time again I see Šašaičiai, the beautiful Varduva curving by the homestead of the Kauzlauskas family. You just have to go a dozen steps down the bank. The firmly rigged two-sided Samogitian hut with bright white windows, a huge garden, beehives, which Juozas so skilfully tended to. He used to work slowly with a special kind of pleasure, as if he was trying to fulfil a very important scientific mission, or maybe a church ritual. A huge fenced-in yard with a pond in the middle, sties behind it, a barn and an animal-shed on the other side. This is where every day at dawn I would turn out the large herd belonging to the Kazlauskas family – sixteen cows, a few heifers, a powerful bull and forty black-headed sheep. There was also my enemy – a huge angry ram (or so it seemed to me when I was twelve). The minute I put the herd to pasture, our endless struggle would begin. The ram would lick his lips (this was a sign that he was already angry) and attack me, trying to do whatever it takes to hit me with his powerful forehead. I would try to run as best I could. When the ram got dangerously close, I would jump to the side and the ram would run past me with rage. There was no end to this. It was difficult for the ram – his efforts were especially hampered by his genetically bred bell-like genitalia. When we both got tired, I would lie down on the grass and let the ram approach me. He would feel victorious, but it was a lot more difficult to attack a lying target and when he came I would grab his neck with all my might and jump on his back as quickly as I could. This marked the beginning of round two. The ram would follow the herd, constantly trying to throw me off and I would ride it victoriously towards home. In the morning and in the evening, when I would water the beautiful horses of the Kazlauskas family, I would get to ride not only the ram. It is difficult to imagine the things I learned there. Mowing the lawn, ploughing in the potatoes, harrowing, piling and transporting hay. Praying and choiring during the feast while going on my knees along the Stations of the Cross of Žemaičių Kalvarija. The best compliment I got was near the beautiful church of Plateliai. I once took our hosts there driving the spruce britzka, which belonged to the Kazlauskas family. “What an intellectual shepherd you have,” an acquaintance, who had watched me in church, told the hostess. I was really trying to do my best. I learned to eat traditional Samogitian porridge for breakfast. Eugenija Kazlauskienė would prepare it every morning for the whole family in a large cast iron pot, and it was delicious. By the way, this also reminded me of a ritual. The master of the house sat in the middle of a long table. Only after he had sat down could the rest of the family take their places. Kazlauskas would press a huge loaf of fragrant bread to his chest and cut it into pieces the size of two palms with a bayonet-like knife. Everyone would take one piece and eat the porridge on his or her side of the large metal bowl (which appeared to be originally intended for washing-up) using a wooden spoon. The master would make a deep dent in the middle of the bowl and fill it with hot cracklings from the pot. Everyone dipped the porridge in the cracklings, ate it, and washed it down with sour milk. While I managed to learn a lot of things, there was one thing I could not accomplish: to overcome my innate “genteel” sensitivity. I could not eat porridge from the same bowl as everyone. Eugenija was quick to realise that and would give me a separate bowl, but the porridge was simple, with no potatoes and no flour. She explained to the family that the city boy was not used to the traditional porridge the villagers ate. Thus an “incident” was avoided. No one got offended. I remained a respected member of the family. Šašaičiai, the hosts, the whole big family, the hired hands – I can see them all today as vividly as if we had parted only yesterday. When I lived in Vilnius I could never loose my own Šašaičiai. My love for nature and earth. This nostalgic attraction has been stalking me all my life. I am in constant need of my own Šašaičiai. A village hut on the shore of a river, a forest, earth that breeds fruit. At least in summer, at least when I’m off work. My best texts were written in such places. My books about the theatre were the easiest to write the same way that these lines were written – on the bank of the Neris River, in a wooden village hut, a homestead, which reminds me of Šašaičiai as closely as possible. Decades have passed. A lot of water has flown beneath the bridge. Soviet empire collapsed. Lithuania became independent. The 21st century came. A lot of things happened that one would not have even dreamt about the day before. And so finally the day has come. I am overcome with joy, the feeling of historic justice, when after my long efforts finally the moment of truth is before me. Even if it is belated. The medals of the Righteous Among the Nations have been given posthumously to Jackus Sondeckis and the Kazlauskas family – Eugenija and Juozas. At the time this happened, the Lithuanian Jewish Cultural Club, which I have established and am in charge of, had already been opened. It organised quite a few cultural and art programs, trying to recreate the memory of the Litvak culture, revitalise Lithuanian and Jewish relations and, probably the most important of all, to help people comprehend the principles of spirituality and humanity. At that time, me and Saulius Sondeckis, the son of my savers Jackus and Rozalija, were preparing art programmes together. The Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra directed by Saulius, took part in the International Art Days in 1997 and 2002, which were organised by me in remembrance of the Vilnius Ghetto Theatre. While talking to famous artists, more and more I began to think: maybe this is the true continuity of generations and nothing is too big a sacrifice for that, whether it be time, work or strength. Cited from the almanac Žydų muziejus. Chief editor Dalija Epšteinaitė. The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, Vilnius, 2005