rescuers of jews
Antanina Skačkauskaitė-Vaičiūnienė remembers:
/.../ After the sixth year in school, I came to Kaunas. Here, I finished the courses for nurses and in 1938 I volunteered to work in the 8th Fort Disabled Children’s Home (Apuolės St 20). I was the first nurse there so I provided medical services, worked in the reception and kept the case-histories of the children. /.../
/.../ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. I was led by the call of this love, and Brother – Bronius Gotautas – would come to me each night miraculously devoted to his risky endeavour. He would pray until midnight with his hands raised and about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning he would go an appointed spot near the ghetto fence to take a baby, a child or a grown-up from the ghetto.
Now it is funny to remember the warning from my colleague: “Such a holy nurse, and I see a man walking out of her room every night.” I accommodated Brother because the ghetto was close and he would bring the babies from the ghetto to our corridor, and in the morning I would receive them in the wards of the children’s home as foundlings left by harlots. We would lay two of them in each bed and I would enter Lithuanian names into the reception book. I would attach birth certificates of Christened babies from the church as they held true at that time. Later, Dr. Baublys would take the smallest babies to the children’s home “Lopšelis”. Some of the bigger ones with birth certificates (that was the most important thing) would be taken by childless families to raise. /.../
I have never before or since seen such heroic dedication and such preparedness to die each day going to the ghetto to save the lives of others.
/.../ Later, I gave Brother the keys to my apartment which was straight in font of the ghetto fence (Stulginskio St 31-2) so he could sleep there, bring children from the ghetto and later take them to the children’s home...
From the letter of A. Skačkauskaitė-Vaičiūnienė to Mr. J. Ronderis. Kaunas, 24 May, 1990
/.../ After the sixth year in school, I came to Kaunas. Here, I finished the courses for nurses and in 1938 I volunteered to work in the 8th Fort Disabled Children’s Home (Apuolės St 20). I was the first nurse there so I provided medical services, worked in the reception and kept the case-histories of the children. /.../
/.../ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. I was led by the call of this love, and Brother – Bronius Gotautas – would come to me each night miraculously devoted to his risky endeavour. He would pray until midnight with his hands raised and about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning he would go an appointed spot near the ghetto fence to take a baby, a child or a grown-up from the ghetto.
Now it is funny to remember the warning from my colleague: “Such a holy nurse, and I see a man walking out of her room every night.” I accommodated Brother because the ghetto was close and he would bring the babies from the ghetto to our corridor, and in the morning I would receive them in the wards of the children’s home as foundlings left by harlots. We would lay two of them in each bed and I would enter Lithuanian names into the reception book. I would attach birth certificates of Christened babies from the church as they held true at that time. Later, Dr. Baublys would take the smallest babies to the children’s home “Lopšelis”. Some of the bigger ones with birth certificates (that was the most important thing) would be taken by childless families to raise. /.../
I have never before or since seen such heroic dedication and such preparedness to die each day going to the ghetto to save the lives of others.
/.../ Later, I gave Brother the keys to my apartment which was straight in font of the ghetto fence (Stulginskio St 31-2) so he could sleep there, bring children from the ghetto and later take them to the children’s home...
From the letter of A. Skačkauskaitė-Vaičiūnienė to Mr. J. Ronderis. Kaunas, 24 May, 1990