Olkinaitė Matlė / Matilda

Matlė Olkinaitė was born on 6 June 1922 in the town of Panemunėlis (Rokiškis District) into the family of the pharmacist Nojus and Asna Olkinas. In 1939, Matlė graduated from the Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas Gymnasium in Rokiškis (with instruction in Lithuanian) with the highest grades. That same year she applied to the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas to study French language and literature in the Philology Department of the Faculty of Humanities. Later, she continued her studies at Vilnius University. In her circle, Matlė was known as an excellent poet. She wrote in Lithuanian and published her poetry in the children’s magazine Žvaigždutė (Little Star) from the age of thirteen. Matlė’s diary and notes with her poems have survived. Because she was a Jew, Matlė was expelled from Vilnius University 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 and enforced their policies. Matlė Olkinaitė was murdered during the Holocaust in Panemunėlis. Unlike many Jews, she was buried in a separate grave with other members of her family and with the Jofė family. In 2016, the sculptor Vidmantas Zakarka created a wooden sculpture to memorialise the childhood of the Olkinas children. Neringa Danienė, the Rokiškis theatre director, produced the play Tylinčios mūzos (Silent Muses) after Matlė (Matilda) Olkinaitė’s diary and poetry.

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