rescued jewish children
Haviva Ziv-Krasnicky
My parents – daughter of Reuvenas Rolas Eshter, owner of Šiauliai stoneware factory, and her school fellow Yeheczkel Ziv, one of the most promising and handsomest graduates of the Raseiniai Jewish Gymnasium – got married in 1939. The newlyweds settled in the house of my would-be father’s mother in Raseiniai. His sister Peralle, her husband Motl and their little son Itzhak were also living in the same house. The Ziv family had a wholesale store in Raseiniai, which supported three families.
With the coming of the Soviets, the Rolas factory and the Ziv store were nationalised. My parents had no cash as all the savings had been given to my father’s brother who used to manage the store and who was exiled to Siberia before the war. I was born in October 1940. Our life was about to turn to hell...
Our house was destroyed during the first days of the war. Fortunately, we had all gone to the village at that moment. Shortly, posters started appearing in the town explaining the new order: the Jews were banned from walking sidewalks, entering shops and schools… The Jewish population of Raseiniai was moved to a temporary ghetto and men would be sent to work every day. One day, they did not return. My father Yeheczkel was among them.
The conditions in the temporary ghetto were impossible. Friends helped my mother to obtain a permission to leave the ghetto and move to her relatives in Šiauliai. There she was taken to the “Caucasus” ghetto. I was 10 moths old at that time. All we had when our house was burnt down was an old mattress, spare clothes, a trolley, three or four diapers and a bottle with a teat. My mother worked in a factory and would bring bread every day – as a payment for hard work. My grandmother would use the bread to cook thin soup.
This continued until the Black Friday – November 5 – when all children and old people, except those who managed to hide, were taken from the ghetto, supposedly to the Auschwitz concentration camp. I, my cousin Itzhak and a few other children were hidden in the basement. After this ‘selection’, during which my grandmother was taken away too, it was obvious that ghetto was no place for children any more.
My mother’s friend wrapped me into a piece of cloth, took me out of the ghetto under his arm and gave me to a Lithuanian woman who had agreed to take care of me. However, her neighbours saw my black hair slipping from under the wrap and, suspecting that the woman had received gold from the Jews for hiding the child, threatened to turn her in to the Germans. Another refuge had to be found. My mother knocked on one door after another looking for help, but nobody wanted to take a Jewish girl.
When she had already lost all hope, she heard a voice: “Madame, what are you waiting for here?” It was Vladas Drupas, a 19 years old gymnasium student, who was living with his uncle, a tailor. The boy took me to a laundress he knew and took care of me until the lady came home from work. Finally, my mother found a farmer Antanas Matuzevičius, a father of six, who took me wrapped in a fur coat in his carriage from Šiauliai to his sister Veronika Kiličiauskienė in Pašvitys village.
After three months of uncertainty, my mother met Antanas. Radiantly, he told her about me speaking words, what I was doing, and how smart I was. My mother was relieved. “God sent me two angels – two men who saved our lives,” she later described Vladas Drupas and Antanas Matuzevičius in her memoirs.
However shortly, rumours started spreading that Veronika was hiding a Jewish girl. Antanas found my mother and told her that we needed some sort of a document proving that I was Lithuanian. Šiauliai parson Justinas Lapis issued me a birth certificate of a deceased girl. Antanas took me and this document to his other sister Julija Valiukienė. I stayed there surrounded by love and kindness until the retreat of the Germans.
After the war, I, my mother, my step-father Yakov Ton, my brother, my cousin and my sister lived in Kaunas. I became an obstetrician, married Leonid Krasnicky in 1964 and raised a son and a daughter. In 1991, our entire family moved to Israel.
With the coming of the Soviets, the Rolas factory and the Ziv store were nationalised. My parents had no cash as all the savings had been given to my father’s brother who used to manage the store and who was exiled to Siberia before the war. I was born in October 1940. Our life was about to turn to hell...
Our house was destroyed during the first days of the war. Fortunately, we had all gone to the village at that moment. Shortly, posters started appearing in the town explaining the new order: the Jews were banned from walking sidewalks, entering shops and schools… The Jewish population of Raseiniai was moved to a temporary ghetto and men would be sent to work every day. One day, they did not return. My father Yeheczkel was among them.
The conditions in the temporary ghetto were impossible. Friends helped my mother to obtain a permission to leave the ghetto and move to her relatives in Šiauliai. There she was taken to the “Caucasus” ghetto. I was 10 moths old at that time. All we had when our house was burnt down was an old mattress, spare clothes, a trolley, three or four diapers and a bottle with a teat. My mother worked in a factory and would bring bread every day – as a payment for hard work. My grandmother would use the bread to cook thin soup.
This continued until the Black Friday – November 5 – when all children and old people, except those who managed to hide, were taken from the ghetto, supposedly to the Auschwitz concentration camp. I, my cousin Itzhak and a few other children were hidden in the basement. After this ‘selection’, during which my grandmother was taken away too, it was obvious that ghetto was no place for children any more.
My mother’s friend wrapped me into a piece of cloth, took me out of the ghetto under his arm and gave me to a Lithuanian woman who had agreed to take care of me. However, her neighbours saw my black hair slipping from under the wrap and, suspecting that the woman had received gold from the Jews for hiding the child, threatened to turn her in to the Germans. Another refuge had to be found. My mother knocked on one door after another looking for help, but nobody wanted to take a Jewish girl.
When she had already lost all hope, she heard a voice: “Madame, what are you waiting for here?” It was Vladas Drupas, a 19 years old gymnasium student, who was living with his uncle, a tailor. The boy took me to a laundress he knew and took care of me until the lady came home from work. Finally, my mother found a farmer Antanas Matuzevičius, a father of six, who took me wrapped in a fur coat in his carriage from Šiauliai to his sister Veronika Kiličiauskienė in Pašvitys village.
After three months of uncertainty, my mother met Antanas. Radiantly, he told her about me speaking words, what I was doing, and how smart I was. My mother was relieved. “God sent me two angels – two men who saved our lives,” she later described Vladas Drupas and Antanas Matuzevičius in her memoirs.
However shortly, rumours started spreading that Veronika was hiding a Jewish girl. Antanas found my mother and told her that we needed some sort of a document proving that I was Lithuanian. Šiauliai parson Justinas Lapis issued me a birth certificate of a deceased girl. Antanas took me and this document to his other sister Julija Valiukienė. I stayed there surrounded by love and kindness until the retreat of the Germans.
After the war, I, my mother, my step-father Yakov Ton, my brother, my cousin and my sister lived in Kaunas. I became an obstetrician, married Leonid Krasnicky in 1964 and raised a son and a daughter. In 1991, our entire family moved to Israel.