rescued jewish children
Ilya Levy
Ilya Levy
From: Solomon Abramovich and Yakov Zilberg “Smuggled in Potato Sacks”, 2011
When Yaska (Yakov Zilberg) involved us in this project we were in the apartment of our mutual friend, Israella Blatt. She and her sister Liba, also survivors of the Holocaust, were saved by righteous Lithuanians, in the Telšiai region. Until that evening, we never talked about our past. We were busy and happy building a future.
Tamara and I first crossed paths in the beginning of 1945 when I was 5 and Tamara was 4 years old. Tamara lived in the Jewish Orphanage established immediately after the liberation of Kaunas from the Germans. My mother sent me to the kindergarten that had opened in the orphanage. Naturally, neither of us remembers if there was any hint of the future friendship. Very soon we were 'separated' when my family moved to Vilnius in 1945. In Israel in the early 1970s we were invited to a meeting of the children of the Kaunas Jewish Orphanage. There somebody pointed out to us that we had attended the same kindergarten.
I was born on 30 May 1940 in Kaunas to Sheina and Yaakov (Yankale) Levy. During the First World War, my father's family was forced by the Russian czarist government to evacuate to Russia, where all his relatives died from typhus.
My father Yankale was a teenager when he made his way back to his village alone in the vain hope of finding some relatives. He lived in the village until he went to Kaunas to study photography, where he was taken into the household of his teacher. My mother, Sheina Baron, was born in the small town of Gelvonai to a poor tailor's family. At the age of 16 she left her parents and moved to Kaunas. My parents met, fell in love, married and too soon found themselves in the ghetto.
I can remember that in our room in the ghetto there was a secret door through to our neighbours. The door was blocked by a footstool with a pail of water on top of it. When somebody knocked at the door my mother and I crawled under the footstool to the neighbour's flat. I can also remember my third birthday party; Mother made pancakes from carrots and invited the neighbours' children.
My father, Yankale Levy, was one of the bravest and smartest liaison officers for the ghetto underground and the detachment. In the book ‘Unarmed Fighters’ he is described as follows: 'Short in stature, hunchbacked, leaning on a stick, with a long moustache and a pipe in his mouth, a typical old Lithuanian man, he would wander around the streets of Kaunas, without arousing the suspicion of the police.' To be on the safe side, my father carried a passport in the name of Antanas Gudauskas, a farmer. Father was a cool, but very energetic officer and so he was always sent to perform the most dangerous tasks.
One of my father's many duties was to look for trustworthy people who would agree to harbour the ghetto children; he was involved in the rescue of many ghetto inhabitants. Eventually, with the assistance of Dr Kutorgene, he found a family willing to keep me, a 3-year-old boy. A local woman named Emilija Vasiliauskiene took charge of delivering me to the childless Petkevichius family. This couple would have preferred to adopt a girl, but when they saw me - a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy - they compromised. They prepared documents that stated that I was an abandoned Polish refugee child; I was baptized and given the name Aleksas (Aliukas) Petkevichius.
My mother visited me twice. The first time was a couple of days after I had been brought to the Petkevichius family. They told my mother that had she come a day sooner, they would have asked her to take me back. I had cried non-stop and spoke only Yiddish. Fortunately Petkevichius knew some German and could communicate with me and calm me down. I remember how my adoptive parents were disappointed that they had received a boy instead of girl: they even dressed me like a girl and forced me to sing and dance.
Now that they knew I was safe, my parents joined a partisan detachment. Several days before they escaped from the ghetto my mother came to see me once more. I remember this visit very well; I recognized my mother although she was disguised as a beggar. She stood behind the entrance of the house looking at me; I already understood that I shouldn't talk to her.
I saw the burning ghetto from the Petkevichius' house as the Germans liquidated it.
The last incident I remember from my time with the family was when Petkevichius chased me with a belt in his hands, because I did not want to eat soup with pork in it. This chase resulted in a broken leg when I fell down from the porch. I was taken to the hospital; this took place a few days before the liberation of Kaunas by the Red Army. I can remember lying in the bed with a stretched leg. When shells began to fall in the vicinity, everybody who could move fled and only a few patients were left in the huge ward. Then, suddenly, my mother appeared.
Several days later, when I recovered and a plaster was put on my leg, Mother took me home; Petkevichius was angry with her. He came to us drunk and shouted, accusing her of 'stealing' me; Petkevichius hoped my parents would not survive, and that I would stay with them forever.
Father was killed just a few days before liberation. He and Shlomo (Solomon) Abramovich, were sent on a reconnaissance mission. They entered a small manor, but the owner of this manor alerted the Germans; the manor was surrounded by German troops and in the confrontation my father and his friend were shot.
Petkevichius' wife visited us once after we moved to Vilnius, but it was my last meeting with a member of this family. We did not keep in touch after that.
I graduated from the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute in 1962. My friendship with Tamara was renewed during our student years, and in 1965 we married and settled in Vilnius. My mother Sheina married Yakov Bloch who had fought in the 16th Lithuanian Division. His first wife and three children were killed in the small town of Daugai. He and my mother had a daughter, my half- sister Masha; Yakov Bloch later died when we were still in Lithuania.
In 1972 we emigrated to Israel with our two children, Rafael and Asia, two grandmothers and my half-sister Masha. I started to work immediately as an engineer in Mekorot, the Israeli institution responsible for water supply and eventually held a high managerial position. My mother passed away aged 94. Tamara was a highly respected paediatrician in Ashkelon, loved both by her small patients and their parents. Besides Tamara's clinical work she was for many years in charge of medical services for the southern districts of the General Health Fund, responsible for provision of medical care to 120,000 people.
Until we became involved in the project on the hidden children of Kaunas, we never talked about our past. We were busy and happy building a future.
Kfar Sava, Israel, 2009
From: Solomon Abramovich and Yakov Zilberg “Smuggled in Potato Sacks”, 2011
When Yaska (Yakov Zilberg) involved us in this project we were in the apartment of our mutual friend, Israella Blatt. She and her sister Liba, also survivors of the Holocaust, were saved by righteous Lithuanians, in the Telšiai region. Until that evening, we never talked about our past. We were busy and happy building a future.
Tamara and I first crossed paths in the beginning of 1945 when I was 5 and Tamara was 4 years old. Tamara lived in the Jewish Orphanage established immediately after the liberation of Kaunas from the Germans. My mother sent me to the kindergarten that had opened in the orphanage. Naturally, neither of us remembers if there was any hint of the future friendship. Very soon we were 'separated' when my family moved to Vilnius in 1945. In Israel in the early 1970s we were invited to a meeting of the children of the Kaunas Jewish Orphanage. There somebody pointed out to us that we had attended the same kindergarten.
I was born on 30 May 1940 in Kaunas to Sheina and Yaakov (Yankale) Levy. During the First World War, my father's family was forced by the Russian czarist government to evacuate to Russia, where all his relatives died from typhus.
My father Yankale was a teenager when he made his way back to his village alone in the vain hope of finding some relatives. He lived in the village until he went to Kaunas to study photography, where he was taken into the household of his teacher. My mother, Sheina Baron, was born in the small town of Gelvonai to a poor tailor's family. At the age of 16 she left her parents and moved to Kaunas. My parents met, fell in love, married and too soon found themselves in the ghetto.
I can remember that in our room in the ghetto there was a secret door through to our neighbours. The door was blocked by a footstool with a pail of water on top of it. When somebody knocked at the door my mother and I crawled under the footstool to the neighbour's flat. I can also remember my third birthday party; Mother made pancakes from carrots and invited the neighbours' children.
My father, Yankale Levy, was one of the bravest and smartest liaison officers for the ghetto underground and the detachment. In the book ‘Unarmed Fighters’ he is described as follows: 'Short in stature, hunchbacked, leaning on a stick, with a long moustache and a pipe in his mouth, a typical old Lithuanian man, he would wander around the streets of Kaunas, without arousing the suspicion of the police.' To be on the safe side, my father carried a passport in the name of Antanas Gudauskas, a farmer. Father was a cool, but very energetic officer and so he was always sent to perform the most dangerous tasks.
One of my father's many duties was to look for trustworthy people who would agree to harbour the ghetto children; he was involved in the rescue of many ghetto inhabitants. Eventually, with the assistance of Dr Kutorgene, he found a family willing to keep me, a 3-year-old boy. A local woman named Emilija Vasiliauskiene took charge of delivering me to the childless Petkevichius family. This couple would have preferred to adopt a girl, but when they saw me - a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy - they compromised. They prepared documents that stated that I was an abandoned Polish refugee child; I was baptized and given the name Aleksas (Aliukas) Petkevichius.
My mother visited me twice. The first time was a couple of days after I had been brought to the Petkevichius family. They told my mother that had she come a day sooner, they would have asked her to take me back. I had cried non-stop and spoke only Yiddish. Fortunately Petkevichius knew some German and could communicate with me and calm me down. I remember how my adoptive parents were disappointed that they had received a boy instead of girl: they even dressed me like a girl and forced me to sing and dance.
Now that they knew I was safe, my parents joined a partisan detachment. Several days before they escaped from the ghetto my mother came to see me once more. I remember this visit very well; I recognized my mother although she was disguised as a beggar. She stood behind the entrance of the house looking at me; I already understood that I shouldn't talk to her.
I saw the burning ghetto from the Petkevichius' house as the Germans liquidated it.
The last incident I remember from my time with the family was when Petkevichius chased me with a belt in his hands, because I did not want to eat soup with pork in it. This chase resulted in a broken leg when I fell down from the porch. I was taken to the hospital; this took place a few days before the liberation of Kaunas by the Red Army. I can remember lying in the bed with a stretched leg. When shells began to fall in the vicinity, everybody who could move fled and only a few patients were left in the huge ward. Then, suddenly, my mother appeared.
Several days later, when I recovered and a plaster was put on my leg, Mother took me home; Petkevichius was angry with her. He came to us drunk and shouted, accusing her of 'stealing' me; Petkevichius hoped my parents would not survive, and that I would stay with them forever.
Father was killed just a few days before liberation. He and Shlomo (Solomon) Abramovich, were sent on a reconnaissance mission. They entered a small manor, but the owner of this manor alerted the Germans; the manor was surrounded by German troops and in the confrontation my father and his friend were shot.
Petkevichius' wife visited us once after we moved to Vilnius, but it was my last meeting with a member of this family. We did not keep in touch after that.
I graduated from the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute in 1962. My friendship with Tamara was renewed during our student years, and in 1965 we married and settled in Vilnius. My mother Sheina married Yakov Bloch who had fought in the 16th Lithuanian Division. His first wife and three children were killed in the small town of Daugai. He and my mother had a daughter, my half- sister Masha; Yakov Bloch later died when we were still in Lithuania.
In 1972 we emigrated to Israel with our two children, Rafael and Asia, two grandmothers and my half-sister Masha. I started to work immediately as an engineer in Mekorot, the Israeli institution responsible for water supply and eventually held a high managerial position. My mother passed away aged 94. Tamara was a highly respected paediatrician in Ashkelon, loved both by her small patients and their parents. Besides Tamara's clinical work she was for many years in charge of medical services for the southern districts of the General Health Fund, responsible for provision of medical care to 120,000 people.
Until we became involved in the project on the hidden children of Kaunas, we never talked about our past. We were busy and happy building a future.
Kfar Sava, Israel, 2009