National Day of the Rescuers of Lithuanian Jews to Be Commemorated at Vilnius University

Approved by Seimas and added to the list of commemorative days, the Day of the Rescuers of Lithuanian Jews will be commemorated at Vilnius University (VU) for the first time. At 4 p.m. 15 March (Wednesday), in the Simonas Daukantas courtyard (Universiteto g. 5), names of 1,785 people who saved the lives of Jews will be read out loud by the state leaders, politicians, descendants of the rescuers, representatives of Lithuanian Jews, ambassadors of several countries, VU professors, staff, and students.

Jewish Rescuers' Day was chosen on March 15, in memory of VU librarian Ona Šimaitė, who on 15 March 1966, was awarded the honorable title of Justice of the Nations of the World. To honor her memory and celebrate the Day of Jewish Saviors, on the same day, from 3 to 7 p.m., an exhibition will be held in the Faculty of Philology, in the leisure area next to the Kristijonas Donelaitis room.

During the Nazi occupation, Jews were rescued by common people who, dignified in their values, maintained their virtue even under the most severe circumstances, saving others at the risk of freedom and the lives of their own and their loved ones.

To name just a few, Jews were rescued by Lithuanian President Kazys Grinius, writer and poet Balys Sruoga, the Landsbergis and Sondeckis families, and the famous VU librarian Ona Šimaitė. She used her official position to rescue Jews during World War II. As a librarian, she received permission to enter the Vilna Ghetto to collect VU books from Jewish students allegedly. She would come to the ghetto bringing as many essentials as possible and leave with valuable cultural materials that the Jews of the ghetto were trying to preserve – documents, manuscripts, and rare books. They were hidden in Vilnius University or other safe places. In doing so, she saved the diary of Grigory Schur, the ghetto-era poems by the poet Abraham Sutzkever and other items of priceless Jewish cultural heritage. Using her own resources and donations from others, she bought food, forged documents and stamps, hid ghetto refugees, collaborated on providing hiding places for Jewish children, and tried to help people imprisoned in the ghetto recover their belongings left outside the ghetto.

O. Šimaitė is one of the many brave people of Lithuania who kept hope and light alive during one of the darkest periods of history. After rescuing dozens of people from the Vilna Ghetto, she became a martyr herself, deported to the Dachau concentration camp.

O. Šimaitė, humble about her courageous missions, will be forever remembered by Jewish people. A tree was planted in her honour in Jerusalem, on Yad Vashem Avenue of the Righteous. In 2002, Šimaitė was posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross, and in 2004 a memorial plaque was unveiled in the Simonas Daukantas courtyard in Vilnius University, commemorating her work at the VU Library in 1940-1944.
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