Rescuers of Jews

       Anelė Skirvainytė was born in Butnalaukis village, Rozalimas district, Pakruojis region. Before the war, she moved to Šiauliai and worked as a nanny for Rita, the daughter of Lithuanian Army Captain Jonas Frankas and his wife, Lidija Frankienė (née Šapiraitė). Tragically, the Frankas family faced great hardship when Lidija Frankienė was diagnosed with an incurable illness and became paralyzed. Anelė Skirvainytė became her devoted and caring nurse. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Captain Jonas Frankas was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. On June 14, 1941, he was deported to a labor camp in Norilsk, Russia, and later transferred to Siblago camp in the Kemerovo region, where he was murdered on December 28, 1944. He was 44 years old at the time (from Lietuvos kariuomenės karininkai 1918–1953, Vol. 3, p. 119, Lithuanian National Museum, 2003.) From the very first days of the Nazi occupation until Lidija Frankienė’s death in 1949, her main guardian and rescuer was her daughter Rita’s nanny, Anelė Skirvainytė.
       Rita Frank, now living in the United States, recalls that she and her mother survived only thanks to Anelė Skirvainytė. As the front approached and bombing intensified, staying in Šiauliai became unsafe. Lidija, Rita, and Anelė decided to leave the city in search of a safer place. Once they were outside the city, they were caught in crossfire from both sides. Because she was paralyzed, Lidija asked to be laid on the ground and told Anelė and Rita to hide in a ditch. With great effort, Lidija managed to crawl to the ditch herself – all three survived uninjured.
       Due to her illness, Lidija could no longer care for her daughter, and Rita’s father was imprisoned in Soviet camps. During the war, Rita was adopted by Captain Jonas Frankas’s sister, Ksavera Žilinskienė (née Frankaitė), and her husband, Dr. Jurgis Žilinskas, a doctor of medical sciences. Jurgis Žilinskas’ older brother, Mykolas Žilinskas, secretly took Rita out of Šiauliai and brought her to the Žilinskas estate in Vaiškonys near Kėdainiai, risking the lives of his entire family. Mykolas kept in touch with Lidija, helped her as much as he could, and protected the secret of both mother and daughter. After spending a few weeks at the estate, Rita was taken to Vilnius, to live with her new adoptive parents Ksavera and Jurgis Žilinskas. She became known as Rita Žilinskaitė.
       In 1944, as the Nazi army retreated from Šiauliai, the Žilinskas family fled Lithuania along with other refugees. They took with them their adopted daughter Rita Frank and her cousin Lėja Rosenfeld (Liucija Statkevičiūtė), whom they had also saved. Back in Lithuania, Rita's terminally ill mother Lidija Frankienė remained under the devoted care of Anelė Skirvainytė until her death.
       During the Nazi occupation, Anelė Skirvainytė also rescued other Jews, some of whom she had known before the war. At one point, she lived in a house in Šiauliai that belonged to Sara Ronder and worked as the housekeeper for the Ronder family. She grew very close to them and even learned Yiddish. On July 12, 1944, as the Nazis prepared to liquidate the Šiauliai ghetto and deport its remaining prisoners, Sara Ronder’s nephew, Zelig Gilinski, managed to escape and went to the shoe store where Anelė worked. She was overjoyed to see the boy and immediately brought him to her apartment. At first, she hid him in the bathroom, but as Soviet bombings increased, she decided to take him to her relatives in the village of Kužiai. The journey was dangerous, with Nazi patrols along the way, but resourceful and determined, Anelė successfully reached her relatives' home. That first night, she didn't let Zelig enter the village – she wanted to ensure everything was safe. He spent the night in a secure outdoor spot. In the morning, Anelė came to get him. When Zelig entered her relatives’ house, he was astonished to find other familiar faces from the Šiauliai ghetto already hiding there. After the Nazis retreated from Šiauliai, all the ghetto escapees returned to the city. Zelig Gilinski was deeply grateful to his rescuer and supported her in any way he could. After repatriating to Israel, he continued to correspond with Anelė until her death in 1974. He mourned her deeply and sought to honor her memory. Thanks to Zelig Gilinski’s efforts, in 1980, Anelė Skirvainytė was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
       After Lithuania regained independence, Rita Frank – the daughter of Lidija and Jonas Frankas, adopted and rescued by Ksavera and Jurgis Žilinskas during the war – came to Lithuania from the United States. She met with Anelė Skirvainytė’s granddaughter, Vida Ščeponienė (Vida ter Horst), and together they visited Lidija’s grave in the old Šiauliai cemetery. Rita shared memories of her childhood and parents – Lidija Frankienė and Lithuanian Army Captain Jonas Frankas – as well as of the devoted nanny Anelė Skirvainytė.
       Rita Frank’s memoir “Our Life Together”, recounting her childhood, parents, miraculous wartime survival, and the dramatic and dangerous escape from Lithuania with her adoptive parents, was published in 2005 in Atsiminimai, the memoir of Jurgis Žilinskas, issued by the Lithuanian National Museum.
       During a 2025 ceremony, Anelė Skirvainytė was posthumously awarded the Life Saviour's Cross.