Deičaitė Dobė

Dobė Deičaitė was born on 24 June 1919 into the family of Enochas and Rachelė Deičas in Panevėžys, which was called the small Jerusalem of Lithuania during the interwar years. She had a sister named Šlomė. From 1928–1936, she went to a private Jewish gymnasium in Panevėžys with instruction in Hebrew and where Latin was a compulsory subject. In 1936, she finished the gymnasium and became a student in the Economics Department of the Faculty of Law of Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. After a year of studies, Dobė decided to change her field, and in 1937 applied to be transferred to the Chemistry Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Her application was granted and from 1940 she continued her chemistry studies at Vilnius University. She lived in the university dormitory on Tauro Street 4, and spent her summers with her parents in Panevėžys. In July of 1941, she was also visiting her family, but immediately upon return to Vilnius, on 19 September 1941, she was expelled from the university like many other Jewish students on the basis of the Order of 17 September 1941 of the Higher Education Department of the Board of Education, which was subordinate to the Nazis. That same year Dobė Deičaitė was killed in Vilnius during the Holocaust. Her parents, Enochas and Rachelė, were killed in Panevėžys in 1941. Dobė’s sister Šliomė was the only survivor of the Deičas family. She submitted the testimony about the deaths of her sister and her parents after the war.

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