Rescuers of Jews

     Priest Zenonas Karečka was born on December 20, 1890, in Plungė. He studied at the Palanga Progymnasium, attended the Samogitian Theological Seminary in Kaunas in 1908–1913, and was ordained a priest in 1914. He served as vicar in various Lithuanian churches, in 1926–1927 was a notary of the Curia of the Panevėžys Diocese, in 1929 was appointed administrator of the Klovainiai church, and on June 9, 1941, became pastor of Palėvenė parish.        The people of Palėvenė parish remember pastor Zenonas Karečka as a very bright and selfless personality. The priest was able to help each person and understand their troubles. On the very first day of World War II, several parish men were arrested and executed in a clearing near the Panevėžys sugar factory, among them the organist of Palėvenė church, Povilas Grakauskas. His widow was left with three young children. Fr. Zenonas Karečka took care of this family: he housed them in the monastery, giving them an apartment, and provided the widow with work as a washer of church vestments. Povilas Grakauskas’s daughter, Birutė Grakauskaitė-Simonaitienė, grew up under the same roof with the priest, knew him well, and recalls how he loved and cared not only for them, the orphans of Povilas Grakauskas, but also for other children, and during the Nazi occupation rescued Mira Burde and her foster child, ten-year-old Irma Degon, who had escaped from the Vilnius ghetto.

From the memoirs of Birutė Grakauskaitė-Simonaitienė about priest Zenonas Karečka and his help to persecuted people in 1941–1944:
       In 1941, when Fr. Zenonas Karečka arrived in Palėvenė, he extended a helping hand to people scattered by the war and harmed by one or another occupier. I remember: the door of our room opens, and pastor Zenonas Karečka enters. Our room was the last cell in the long northeast wing corridor of the monastery, right by the now bricked-up door. The pastor, as always, simply dressed, asked: “Has your mother not returned yet?” My brother and I, embarrassed, in the messy room, danced on the untidy beds – we had been alone since morning. Mother had been summoned to the militia for questioning about her husband, Povilas Grakauskas, executed in Panevėžys in 1941. The pastor gave us each a candy and left. <...>
       In that monastery corridor, I once saw a young, fair-haired woman and a dark-haired girl. She never joined our games. They were two Jews who had escaped from the Vilnius ghetto – Mira Burde and ten-year-old Irma Degon. They, too, were sheltered by the priest’s kind hand. Like fluttering shadows, they timidly walked through the monastery corridors. They survived and after the war left for Israel.

       Reaching Palėvenė was made possible for Mira Burde and Irma Degon through the help of the pastor’s relatives. The journey was not easy: when the train from Vilnius was bombed, they had to walk a long distance before reaching the Palėvenė rectory, where they were hidden by priest Zenonas Karečka until the end of the Nazi occupation. After the war, Mira Burde and Irma Degon emigrated from Lithuania and settled in Israel.
       The large household of the rectory at different times faced difficulties from one authority or another. Fear constantly hovered over the rectory. During the Nazi occupation, priest Zenonas Karečka risked his life by hiding Mira Burde and Irma Degon. After the war, soldiers from the Russian garrison and Soviet collaborators (stribai) frequently visited the rectory. One night, crawling in through a first-floor air vent, they dragged the pastor’s housekeeper out of bed, pressed a rifle against her back, and ordered her to lead them to the priest. They searched the rectory all night. Although they found nothing, the security service interrogated priest Zenonas Karečka for a long time, and on December 18, 1945, he was arrested and deported to Komi, on the banks of the Pechora River.
       When it became clear that priest Zenonas Karečka had not participated in any anti-Soviet organizations and that during the war he had saved people from destruction, on October 18, 1946, he was released and, having somewhat regained his strength, returned to Lithuania.
       After his release from the Soviet camp, priest Zenonas Karečka again settled in Palėvenė. It is likely that his release was also influenced by a petition from lawyer Zalecka to the Chief Prosecutor of the USSR in Moscow, in which the lawyer wrote: During the German occupation, priest Zenonas Karečka did not take part in any anti-Soviet activity, but instead helped Soviet citizens, especially those of Jewish nationality, from German persecution. (from the letter of the Panevėžys Diocesan Curia, January 17, 2008, to Birutė Grakauskaitė-Simonaitienė).
       On September 13, 1952, priest Zenonas Karečka was transferred to Krinčinas, where he served as administrator. He died on October 10, 1954, and was buried in the churchyard of Krinčinas church.
       After Lithuania regained independence, in 1992, Mira Burde visited Lithuania in search of relatives of priest Zenonas Karečka. Unfortunately, she was unable to find any of his family members at that time, but in Kaunas she visited the widow of Balčiūnas, a former employee of the Vilnius passport office, and expressed gratitude for her husband’s help in providing forged documents, with which the fugitives from the Vilnius ghetto reached priest Zenonas Karečka in Palėvenė.
       In 2025, during a ceremony, priest Zenonas Karečka, rescuer of Mira Burde and Irma Degon, was awarded the Life Saviour’s Cross.