‘Kind Sir’, he appealed to Paukshtys, ‘all my life I treated and saved Lithuanian children, please help me this time to save my own son.’ The priest, who was a very tall man, looked down at my father and warned, ‘But your son would become a Christian’. ‘He can become anything, even a Chinaman, as long as he remains alive’, was Father’s reaction.
I remember my arrival at the priest’s house because, strangely enough, there was a fox tied to his porch. Mr Juozas Timoshaitis, the priest’s servant, took me to the monastery located in Kaunas, where I stayed until the liberation. There I was kept in a barn together with pigs, hens and other animals. I spent most of the time eating and sleeping with my new ‘neighbours’. There was not enough food, I felt constant hunger and I remember taking some food from the animals. Ever since then I have been fond of pets, especially dogs. I later bred them in my house and was even awarded some prizes.
I do not remember if I was fed, washed and cleaned by somebody. I never cried and would stretch my arm and beg for food when adult people occasionally appeared in the barn. Since that time I cannot throw away food, especially bread, and we never waste it.
I learned to pray and sometimes helped the priest during mass. I had no contact with my parents at all throughout the time I spent in the monastery. Later on, the German authorities recognized that I was forced at the age of 3 or 4 to perform labour (a Jew serving in the church!). However, by German law only persons who were engaged in labour from the age of 5 and upwards were entitled to receive compensation, so I got nothing.
During my stay in the monastery I also learned to be afraid of people. Some came to the monastery, probably looking for their children; I remember when one Jew appeared, I ran away, I did not know if I was allowed to speak or even to be seen at all. I did not know, or I had forgotten, that I was a Jewish child. I was like a small animal, some kind of Mowgli.
My parents managed to escape from the ghetto and found shelter with a Lithuanian family in a village, where they carried out all kinds of agricultural work and survived. When they came, I did not run away but was hiding behind a corner, peeking at what was going on. Mother saw me immediately and started to cry, but I refused to approach her. My father took out a pocketknife and with this trick he succeeded to persuade me to come. Since this episode I am very fond of all kinds of pocketknives: maybe I even chose my profession as a physician in the field of surgery because of scalpels.
After the war my parents started to work and our life settled down. In 1946 my younger brother was born. Paukshtys, the priest who saved me, was involved in the rescue of many other Jews, five of whom I know personally; among them are my two cousins, Matias (Matetiahu) and Riva Tafts. They were actually my cousins twice over: our fathers were brothers and our mothers were sisters.
Matias was born in 1938 and Riva in 1934. Father Paukshtys organized a hiding place for them with a Lithuanian family, but the neighbours of this family betrayed them. The children were caught and transported to the Ninth Fort. They told us how Lithuanian policemen were mocking and teasing them, singing a song about how the poor children would be killed. By some miracle, I do not know the details, Matias and Riva survived. Their parents were killed and they came to live with us as our brother and sister.