Rescuers of Jews
Their Brothers’ Keeper
By Philip Friedman
Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1957
Chapter One
The Heart of Woman
Anna Simaite was a Lithuanian, rather on the stout side, with a broad peasant face, and flaxen hair which she parted in the middle and braided into a coil to crown her head. In her early childhood Anna had many Jewish friends and classmates. Her grandfather, a liberal, broad-minded man, taught the girl to consider the Jews objectively and not through the distorted vision of bigotry and anti-semitism.
Soon after the break of World War II, we find Anna Simaite in charge in the cataloguing department of the old and famed Vilna University. She was counted among the best literature critics in Lithuania; her position and reputation were secure if she chose to remain silent. But Anna Simaite chose to fight.
Obsessed with the notion that only by helping the Jews could she fulfill herself as a human being, Anna turned toward the ghetto. Non-Jews were prohibited from entering this reservation where the Jews of Vilna had been immured to suffer briefly before they were exterminated. Anna, the non-Jew, was determined to breach the ghetto walls. She appeared before the German authorities and presented them with a singularly innocent plan. In the ghetto were books that had been borrowed from the University library some time before by Jewish students. Would the Germans permit her, a conscientious librarian, to go behind the barbed wires and high walls, in order to rescue the priceless volumes? The Germans granted her request, and for a few weeks Anna enjoyed a limited immunity. She prowled among the crowded hovels of the ghetto /.../, offering her aid. When the Germans declared that she was taking too much time reclaiming her valuable books, Anna contrived new schemes. /.../
/.../ she got in touch with people in the Aryan part of the city, people who might risk taking in an old friend languishing in the ghetto. There were those who nodded quick assent, and others who wavered while Anna pleaded with them /.../. And there were those who spat in her face. But she was not to be insulted, intimidated, or diverted from her mission. She sought out hiding places for Jewish children whom she later helped spirit out of the ghetto.
She obtained forged Aryan papers for Jews who determined to scale the ghetto walls. She proudly enlisted as a courier, smuggling letters from leaders from the ghetto. /.../. Assisted by a small, valiant group of friends, among them the well-known Lithuanian poet Boruta, Anna carried food for the starving Jews. For those among the decimated ghetto-dwellers who resolved to make a last stand against the enemy, she brought small arms and ammunition. It goes without saying that each article Anna smuggled inside the reservation, she carried at the risk of her life, were it a small gun hidden on her person, or a bouquet of roses for some beauty-starved woman of desolate ghetto. She came always laden with things and thus did she leave, carrying precious archives, rare books, documents and scraps of diaries of the martyrdom of the walled-in people to be preserved for another time. She hid the precious objects in the vaults of the /.../ University.
In April of 1942, Jacob Gens, the commander of the Vilna Ghetto, cautioned Anna Simaite that the Gestapo was becoming suspicious of her activities. /.../ the Germans were launching their campaign for total extermination of the ghetto-dwellers. Anna scorned the commander’ warning; her own fate seemed inconsequential in the face of the disaster threatening the Jews. She organized a rescue group in the Aryan sector of the city, determined to save as many Jewish children as possible. She worked tirelessly, bribing guards, wheedling, cajoling, her life as much in danger as the lives of the skeleton children she snatched from the ghetto /.../ For a short time she evaded the Gestapo net by taking shelter among members of the Underground, but in the summer of 1944 the inevitable happened: Anna was seized by the Gestapo. Threatened, beaten, starved, still she betrayed no secrets. Finally she was sentenced to death.
Without Anna’s knowledge, the University interceded on her behalf, bribing a high Nazi official. The death sentence was commuted, and Anna was deported to the notorious Dachau concentration camp and later transferred to a camp in Southern France, where the Allied armies found her barely clinging to life. /.../ After a period of convalescence in a hospital, Anna found a job as dishwasher in a small restaurant. Despite the fact that she lived the withdrawn life of a refugee, word mysteriously got around that Anna Simaite was in France and in need of help. Messages with offers of aid began to arrive at her flat. The offers came from organizations like the Union of Lithuanian Jews of Amerika, and from individuals to whom her name became a legend. Determined to earn her own livelihood, Anna Simaite declined the aid. When the job as dishwasher came to an abrupt end, she went to Paris and found employment first in a laundry, then as a doll seamstress, and finally as a librarian.
Anna might have remained in Paris to live out the rest of her days if the news of her survival had not reached some of her former “children”. Letters began to arrive from many parts of the world. All of her “children” implored her to come and live with them. One of the most persistent of correspondents was Tania Wachsman, a mother of two children, who lived in /.../ Israel. “My dear Mother,” Tania began each letter, “when you finally come to us?” Anna hesitated – she did not want to be a burden – but in the end she yielded to Tania’s pleas.
She arrived in Israel in the spring of 1953. Everywhere in the new republic she was received with flowers and applause. /.../. The government of Israel granted her a pension.
Anna Simaite was a Lithuanian, rather on the stout side, with a broad peasant face, and flaxen hair which she parted in the middle and braided into a coil to crown her head. In her early childhood Anna had many Jewish friends and classmates. Her grandfather, a liberal, broad-minded man, taught the girl to consider the Jews objectively and not through the distorted vision of bigotry and anti-semitism.
Soon after the break of World War II, we find Anna Simaite in charge in the cataloguing department of the old and famed Vilna University. She was counted among the best literature critics in Lithuania; her position and reputation were secure if she chose to remain silent. But Anna Simaite chose to fight.
Obsessed with the notion that only by helping the Jews could she fulfill herself as a human being, Anna turned toward the ghetto. Non-Jews were prohibited from entering this reservation where the Jews of Vilna had been immured to suffer briefly before they were exterminated. Anna, the non-Jew, was determined to breach the ghetto walls. She appeared before the German authorities and presented them with a singularly innocent plan. In the ghetto were books that had been borrowed from the University library some time before by Jewish students. Would the Germans permit her, a conscientious librarian, to go behind the barbed wires and high walls, in order to rescue the priceless volumes? The Germans granted her request, and for a few weeks Anna enjoyed a limited immunity. She prowled among the crowded hovels of the ghetto /.../, offering her aid. When the Germans declared that she was taking too much time reclaiming her valuable books, Anna contrived new schemes. /.../
/.../ she got in touch with people in the Aryan part of the city, people who might risk taking in an old friend languishing in the ghetto. There were those who nodded quick assent, and others who wavered while Anna pleaded with them /.../. And there were those who spat in her face. But she was not to be insulted, intimidated, or diverted from her mission. She sought out hiding places for Jewish children whom she later helped spirit out of the ghetto.
She obtained forged Aryan papers for Jews who determined to scale the ghetto walls. She proudly enlisted as a courier, smuggling letters from leaders from the ghetto. /.../. Assisted by a small, valiant group of friends, among them the well-known Lithuanian poet Boruta, Anna carried food for the starving Jews. For those among the decimated ghetto-dwellers who resolved to make a last stand against the enemy, she brought small arms and ammunition. It goes without saying that each article Anna smuggled inside the reservation, she carried at the risk of her life, were it a small gun hidden on her person, or a bouquet of roses for some beauty-starved woman of desolate ghetto. She came always laden with things and thus did she leave, carrying precious archives, rare books, documents and scraps of diaries of the martyrdom of the walled-in people to be preserved for another time. She hid the precious objects in the vaults of the /.../ University.
In April of 1942, Jacob Gens, the commander of the Vilna Ghetto, cautioned Anna Simaite that the Gestapo was becoming suspicious of her activities. /.../ the Germans were launching their campaign for total extermination of the ghetto-dwellers. Anna scorned the commander’ warning; her own fate seemed inconsequential in the face of the disaster threatening the Jews. She organized a rescue group in the Aryan sector of the city, determined to save as many Jewish children as possible. She worked tirelessly, bribing guards, wheedling, cajoling, her life as much in danger as the lives of the skeleton children she snatched from the ghetto /.../ For a short time she evaded the Gestapo net by taking shelter among members of the Underground, but in the summer of 1944 the inevitable happened: Anna was seized by the Gestapo. Threatened, beaten, starved, still she betrayed no secrets. Finally she was sentenced to death.
Without Anna’s knowledge, the University interceded on her behalf, bribing a high Nazi official. The death sentence was commuted, and Anna was deported to the notorious Dachau concentration camp and later transferred to a camp in Southern France, where the Allied armies found her barely clinging to life. /.../ After a period of convalescence in a hospital, Anna found a job as dishwasher in a small restaurant. Despite the fact that she lived the withdrawn life of a refugee, word mysteriously got around that Anna Simaite was in France and in need of help. Messages with offers of aid began to arrive at her flat. The offers came from organizations like the Union of Lithuanian Jews of Amerika, and from individuals to whom her name became a legend. Determined to earn her own livelihood, Anna Simaite declined the aid. When the job as dishwasher came to an abrupt end, she went to Paris and found employment first in a laundry, then as a doll seamstress, and finally as a librarian.
Anna might have remained in Paris to live out the rest of her days if the news of her survival had not reached some of her former “children”. Letters began to arrive from many parts of the world. All of her “children” implored her to come and live with them. One of the most persistent of correspondents was Tania Wachsman, a mother of two children, who lived in /.../ Israel. “My dear Mother,” Tania began each letter, “when you finally come to us?” Anna hesitated – she did not want to be a burden – but in the end she yielded to Tania’s pleas.
She arrived in Israel in the spring of 1953. Everywhere in the new republic she was received with flowers and applause. /.../. The government of Israel granted her a pension.