rescued jewish children

It happened more than 64 years ago, so I remember most of the things very vaguely, and I do not know or cannot remember most of the surnames either. During two years of war, I lived in nine different places. In many of them I was introduced as an orphan who needed shelter. I had a valid certificate of birth issued to Ona Janonienė’s daughter under the name of Marytė Janonytė. I was born in 1930. I was living with my parents in Vilnius, when on 24 June 1941 the city was invaded by the German army. Then we – my mother Zinaida Keilson, my brother Mateusz and me – were moved to the Vilnius Ghetto. I cannot remember when I was taken out of the ghetto: it was either in December 1941 or January 1942. Someone took me out through the gates of some yard and quickly tore off the yellow stars. It was terribly cold, so I got my hands frostbitten. I cannot remember who took me out. I was taken to professor Antanas Žvironas apartment. There, I met the professor’s sister Emilija Kirvelienė. I cannot remember how I got from there to Onutė and Steponas Kairys’ flat in Kaunas. In the Vilnius Ghetto, I survived two actions and several raids. My family – my mother Zinaida Keilson, my brother Mateusz, my mother’s sister Raisa Epstein and her husband Lazar – survived the first actions in the ghetto because they were working and had their “Ausweiss” (identity cards). My mother worked as a nurse and my brother at a disinfection chamber. My reminiscences are very faint, but they have left several letters dated February 1942. I spend nearly all the year 1942 with the family of Onutė and Steponas Kairys. They did not have their own children, so they loved me and took care of me like my true parents. When I lived with them, I studied things under the school program and enjoyed working in the garden. My memory failed to keep the facts where and when I would move later. I only remember that I spent the Christmas of 1942 in a village the name of which I cannot recall, where I worked on a farm (nobody knew who I was). I was obliged to work as an adult, since I looked older than my real age, and according to Marytė’s papers I was two years older than I really was. I remained in that family until March 1943, until one day Emilija Kirvelienė’s niece Vera Janonytė came to visit me and saw that I was working very hard, not like a girl of my age should, and that no one was taking care of me. Then Vera took me to her mother Ona Janonienė in Narvaišiai village close to Užpaliai (in Utena region). Ona and her children Jonas, Vera and Genovaitė knew that I was Jewish, so they hid me until the liberation from the German army in July 1944. During the occupation, I also lived shortly with Bronė Pajedaitė, but I cannot remember when and for how long. I am very grateful to the people who helped me stay alive. After the war, I lived for some time with Emilija Kirvelienė’s and Ona Janonienė’s sister Veronika Žvironaitė, and in 1948, I found my distant relatives in Moscow and left Lithuania. My father, mother, brother and the rest of the family persihed.