Rescuers of Jews

       When on September 6, 1941, the Jewish ghetto was established in Vilnius, Zinaida Keilsonienė together with her children – Anusia and Mateusz – were imprisoned in the Vilnius Ghetto. For some time, they managed to avoid the mass extermination actions, since Zinaida Keilsonienė and her son Mateusz had Nazi-issued work permits that protected them, but Anusia was in increasing danger. Fortunately, Zinaida Keilsonienė’s relatives succeeded in contacting Prof. Antanas Žvironas, who during the war had provided much help to persecuted Jews, and it was agreed that the Žvironas family would take Anusia into their home once she managed to escape the ghetto. In January 1942, Anusia was brought to the apartment of Professor Antanas Žvironas, where his sister Emilija Kirvelienė lived with her husband Jonas Kirvelis, and they took responsibility for Anusia’s further care. Emilija Kirvelienė warmly welcomed Anusia and gave her shelter. However, since the Žvironas apartment was located near the ghetto, in a very busy area, soon Emilija Kirvelienė took Anusia to Kaunas to her friends – Steponas and Ona Kairys. Onutė and Steponas Kairys had no children of their own, they loved and cared for Anusia as if she were their real daughter. As Anusia could not attend school, Steponas and Ona Kairys taught her themselves. Steponas Kairys, a signatory of the Act of February 16 (Independence Act) and always an active participant in Lithuanian politics, knew he was under Gestapo surveillance, so it was also unsafe for the Kairys family to hide Anusia in their home, and they looked for another place where the girl could stay. At the end of 1942, Steponas Kairys recommended Anusia Keilsonaitė as a maid to a family that did not know she was Jewish. Anusia stayed with that family until March 1943, when one day Emilija Kirvelienė’s niece Veronika Janonytė visited and saw that Anusia was working far too hard for her age and was not being properly cared for. Veronika took Anusia and brought her to her mother Ona Janonienė in the village of Norvaišiai, near Užpaliai (Utena district). Ona Janonienė and her children – Jonas, Veronika, and Genovaitė – knew that Anusia was Jewish, but risking their lives, they hid her until the end of the Nazi occupation in Lithuania. In a 2004 letter to the museum, A. Keilsonaitė wrote about her wartime hiding: “You cannot count how many places I had to change. And only in Norvaišiai I felt at home. I was cared for by Ona Janonienė and all her children: Vera, Genutė, and Jonas. I loved Emilė Kirvelienė very much as well. Later, I often visited Norvaišiai, where I was always warmly received.”
       All of Anusia Keilsonaitė’s close relatives – her father, mother, brother, and other family members – were murdered. For some time after the Nazis retreated from Lithuania, Anusia, together with her friend, the author of “Tamara’s Diary,” Tamara Lazersonaitė, lived in Kaunas with Emilija Kirvelienė’s and Ona Janonienė’s sister Veronika Žvironaitė. In 1948, Anusia found her distant relatives in Moscow and left, but she never forgot her rescuers and maintained long-lasting connections with them.
       At Anusia Keilsonaitė’s request, in 2005 Ona Janonienė and her children Jonas, Veronika, and Genovaitė were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, and their names were inscribed in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem.