rescuers of jews

Ričardas SVILAS Elžbieta SVILIENĖ During the Second World War the engineer Klemensas Kaušinis concerned himself with the rescue of Gita Judelevičiūtė. At first she was kept in the home of the writer Kazys Binkis, where at that time many persecuted Jews found shelter. Afterwards, Kaušinis decided to find a more secret place for Gita. In the late summer of 1943, he took the girl to a close acquaintance of his, the dental surgeon Elžbieta Svilienė, in Utena. Both Stefanija Puškonytė and her future husband Ričardas Svilas had studied medicine at the University of Vilnius. While a student, Ričardas was a frequent visitor to his mother’s home in Aušros gatvė in Utena. At that time he had confided to his future wife Stefanija that despite the great danger, her mother had managed to hide a young Jewish girl called Gita Judelevičiūtė on the family estate at Bikuškis by Lake Alaušas. With the front line approaching, Elžbieta Svilienė managed to take Gita to Kaunas. There the girl found her mother, and both of them were sheltered with Binkis’ family and waited for the complete withdrawal of the German army at Balsiai, the writer’s family’s estate. In 1972, Gita Judelevičiūtė, her son Genrikas and her mother Raja Judelevičienė went to Israel, where they met the father of the family, Isakas Judelevičius, who had managed to survive. Thus, though dispersed during the war years, the family was reunited. In 1946, Elžbieta Svilienė and her son Edvardas moved to Opole in Poland, and they lost contact with the Judelevičius. Such is the story of two families, a story that was complex and painful, and consisted of a series of complicated and dramatic events, which nevertheless led to a happy ending. It also shed a new light on the faces of people who had previously lived in the neighbourhood as strangers.

From Hands Bringing Life and Bread, Volume 3,
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum. Vilnius, 2005