Rescuers of Jews
Kazys Kęstutis Šimas about Ona ŠIMAITĖ
Ona Šimaitė was born on 6 (18) January 1894 in Akmenė, then Mažeikiai County, in the family of landless farmers Kazys and Ona (Daujotaitė) Šimas. Pressed by poverty, her parents moved to Riga and her father started working in a railway car factory. At the age of eight, Onutė goes to Riga too accompanied by her mother. Until then, she was living with her grandfather Daujotas, who socialised a lot with the Jews and taught Ona to love this nation despite the lies that were being told about them.
In Riga, Ona Šimaitė went to a primary school under the church of Polish catholic monks and later finished gymnasium. During the World War I, the entire family moved to Russia. Šimaitė spent a few years in Moscow studying and working in various jobs. She attended Dmitryi Tikhomirov’s pedagogical courses, courses on children’s education organised by the famous Russial defectologist Vsevolod Kashchenko, Prof. Bielski’s and Gernek’s lectures in Faculty of Law in the university, worked as a tutor in the Moscow colony of homeless children. After the October revolution, she attended Anatoly Lunacharsky’s lectures on ballet. Those were difficult but merry times that allowed her to gain wide knowledge of Russian art and culture, to get acquainted with M. K. Čiurlionis’ work and to admire them until the end of her days.
Ona grew in a catholic family, but later her mindset changed and her thinking became free.
In 1922 Šimaitė returned to Kaunas, Lithuania. For some time she worked as a teacher in Kaunas Jewish primary school. In 1924 she entered Kaunas University to study the humanities. 1922–1937 (with short breaks) she worked as a translator in the Soviet Union’s diplomatic mission and translated articles from the Lithuanian press into Russian. She was a public activist and participated in raising funds for state prisoners. Ona Šimaitė did not belong to any party (until her final days), but followed the politics of the left-wing nationalists. Although she admired the ideas of anarchists, humanist and even altruistic perception of people was the most precious to Ona throughout her entire life.
Before the World War I, Šimaitė was a close friend of the Lithuanian poet Salomėja Nėris, before and during the World War II, she was friends with the writer Kazys Boruta, writer and poet Kazys Jakubėnas, regional researcher and librarian Marijona Čilvinaitė, and other personalities of the Lithuanian culture.
In 1937 Ona began her career as a librarian. She worked in the prominent Balosher’s library in Kaunas, reading room and library of the Lithuanian Children’s association, and after another year in the library of the Vytautas Magnus University. In January 1940, she was transferred to the Vilnius University library together with her co-workers. In autumn, she was appointed the head of the Department of Old Prints, and a month later – the secretary of the library. She was also a co-author of press articles and a translator of books for children.
When the war started, Ona Šimaitė continued her work in the Vilnius University library: 1 August 1941, she was appointed the head of a department, chief librarian on 1 April 1942, and a bibliographer from October 1. She lives in poverty, at times without bread for the entire week.
Ona Šimaitė was shaken to the bottom of her soul by the war, the Nazi occupation, killing of people and destruction of cultural valuables. From the very first days of the Vilnius Ghetto, she starts helping the people imprisoned and suffering in the ghetto.
Ona is a signaller of the ghetto. She takes mail in and out, fixes illegal passports, hides fugitives, looks for hideouts for Jewish children, risks her life and smuggles weapons and ammunition into the ghetto. She would go to the ghetto ostensibly for the purposes of the university library and attempt to bring as much necessaries for the prisoners as she could. Meanwhile, on her way out she would be carrying archival material important to the Jews – documents, manuscripts and rare books. Ona would hide all these valuables in the university. All money received for the work in the library, she spent on groceries that she would give away to the Jews. She tried to help the people suffering in the ghetto to retrieve the things they had left in the city under the protection of other people, while suffering the taunts and humiliation of people – both Lithuanians and Poles – not willing to give up those belongings. According to Ona, she accumulated a lot of grievances, but she endured it all, because the Jews had to endure even more.
“Nobody can say how many lives were saved by Ona Šimaitė. Her most important goal was rescuing children: she managed to take dozens of children out of the ghetto and hide in the city,” said Vilnius Ghetto fighter Abba Kovner.
Germans got suspicious about the frequent visits of Ona Šimaitė to the ghetto. She was warned about the looming danger as early as April 1942 by the commandant of the ghetto Jacob Gens. Ona Šimaitė was arrested three times, but the university managed to free her. In spring 1944, somebody informed against Šimaitė that she was hiding a 10 years old Jewish girl in her apartment. April 28, she was arrested in her workplace – the university library. The same day, her sister’s daughter Aldona Stasionytė was also arrested. The German occupational government condemned Šimaitė to death. The officers were bribed with the funds raised by the Vilnius University professors and employees, and the capital punishment was replaced with the imprisonment in a concentration camp. Not many people know about the brutal interrogations of the Gestapo. Later Ona wrote to J. Urbšys, the last Minister of Foreign Affairs of the interwar Independent Lithuania: During the interrogation in the vaults of the Gestapo, I was scared (I am just a human being after all) not to give away any names. I would train myself all the time to confuse myself and forget all the names and all addresses. On the way to the camp, the train stayed in Kaunas for several days. The Poles said they could go to my relatives and friends, so they could come to see me and bid me farewell, but I could not remember any addresses or names.
At first, Šimaitė was taken to Dachau, and later transferred to a concentration camp in Alsace-Lorraine, in the territory of France. After four months of unloading train cars she got severely ill and on 10 September 1944 was liberated by the Allied forces. Ona’s recovery was very slow. At first she lived in Rhone. Later she left for Paris. She worked in a laundry for some time, later made dolls in a in the tailoring shop, and finally got a job of a librarian. The French government awarded her a small pension. She did not want to return to Lithuania, as she realised very well the possible consequences of the repressive Stalinist regime.
In December 1953, Ona Šimaitė arrived at Israel. In the new republic, she was welcomed with exceptional joy and respect, with flowers and applause. The government of Israel awarded her a pension, but Šimaitė was not happy: the conditions of cultural life here were worse than in Paris, the city of her dreams. The climate there was no good for Ona either.
In 1956 Ona returned to Paris where she stayed until the end of her life. At first she lived on Courcelles Street 38, in a small room of the attic of a seven-storey house, happy that the entire life of Paris is there: she could go to the theatre, visit exhibitions, museums and watch films. She attended tailoring courses and rejoiced the clothes she made for herself and her relatives, but most of all she enjoyed making dolls for the loved ones, especially children.
In 1965 she was forced to move to a nursing home for Russian elderly people in the Cormeilles suburb of Paris where she died from a heart attack in the afternoon of 17 January 1970.
Ona Šimaitė continued to serve the humanity even after her death by donating her body to medical students and for the purposes of science by her will...
The Jewish nation never forgot the heroic deed accomplished during the years of the Holocaust. She was one of the first Lithuanians to have been awarded the title of the Righteous among the Nations on 15 March 1966. The award was presented to Ona Šimaitė on 30 November 1967 by Walter Eytan, the ambassador of Israel in the Israeli embassy in Paris.
In Jerusalem, a tree was planted in the honour of Ona Šimaitė in Yad Vashem’s Avenue of the Righteous.
The memory of Ona Šimaitė has been preserved in Lithuania too. 22 April 2002, Ona Šimaitė was posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross by the decree No. 1748 of the President of the Republic of Lithuania.
9 April 2004, a memorial plaque was opened in Simonas Daukantas courtyard of Vilnius University saying: ONA ŠIMAITĖ
(1894–1970)
RESCUER OF THE VILNIUS GHETTO JEWS
RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS
WORKED IN THE VILNIUS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN 1940–1944
Ona Šimaitė was born on 6 (18) January 1894 in Akmenė, then Mažeikiai County, in the family of landless farmers Kazys and Ona (Daujotaitė) Šimas. Pressed by poverty, her parents moved to Riga and her father started working in a railway car factory. At the age of eight, Onutė goes to Riga too accompanied by her mother. Until then, she was living with her grandfather Daujotas, who socialised a lot with the Jews and taught Ona to love this nation despite the lies that were being told about them.
In Riga, Ona Šimaitė went to a primary school under the church of Polish catholic monks and later finished gymnasium. During the World War I, the entire family moved to Russia. Šimaitė spent a few years in Moscow studying and working in various jobs. She attended Dmitryi Tikhomirov’s pedagogical courses, courses on children’s education organised by the famous Russial defectologist Vsevolod Kashchenko, Prof. Bielski’s and Gernek’s lectures in Faculty of Law in the university, worked as a tutor in the Moscow colony of homeless children. After the October revolution, she attended Anatoly Lunacharsky’s lectures on ballet. Those were difficult but merry times that allowed her to gain wide knowledge of Russian art and culture, to get acquainted with M. K. Čiurlionis’ work and to admire them until the end of her days.
Ona grew in a catholic family, but later her mindset changed and her thinking became free.
In 1922 Šimaitė returned to Kaunas, Lithuania. For some time she worked as a teacher in Kaunas Jewish primary school. In 1924 she entered Kaunas University to study the humanities. 1922–1937 (with short breaks) she worked as a translator in the Soviet Union’s diplomatic mission and translated articles from the Lithuanian press into Russian. She was a public activist and participated in raising funds for state prisoners. Ona Šimaitė did not belong to any party (until her final days), but followed the politics of the left-wing nationalists. Although she admired the ideas of anarchists, humanist and even altruistic perception of people was the most precious to Ona throughout her entire life.
Before the World War I, Šimaitė was a close friend of the Lithuanian poet Salomėja Nėris, before and during the World War II, she was friends with the writer Kazys Boruta, writer and poet Kazys Jakubėnas, regional researcher and librarian Marijona Čilvinaitė, and other personalities of the Lithuanian culture.
In 1937 Ona began her career as a librarian. She worked in the prominent Balosher’s library in Kaunas, reading room and library of the Lithuanian Children’s association, and after another year in the library of the Vytautas Magnus University. In January 1940, she was transferred to the Vilnius University library together with her co-workers. In autumn, she was appointed the head of the Department of Old Prints, and a month later – the secretary of the library. She was also a co-author of press articles and a translator of books for children.
When the war started, Ona Šimaitė continued her work in the Vilnius University library: 1 August 1941, she was appointed the head of a department, chief librarian on 1 April 1942, and a bibliographer from October 1. She lives in poverty, at times without bread for the entire week.
Ona Šimaitė was shaken to the bottom of her soul by the war, the Nazi occupation, killing of people and destruction of cultural valuables. From the very first days of the Vilnius Ghetto, she starts helping the people imprisoned and suffering in the ghetto.
Ona is a signaller of the ghetto. She takes mail in and out, fixes illegal passports, hides fugitives, looks for hideouts for Jewish children, risks her life and smuggles weapons and ammunition into the ghetto. She would go to the ghetto ostensibly for the purposes of the university library and attempt to bring as much necessaries for the prisoners as she could. Meanwhile, on her way out she would be carrying archival material important to the Jews – documents, manuscripts and rare books. Ona would hide all these valuables in the university. All money received for the work in the library, she spent on groceries that she would give away to the Jews. She tried to help the people suffering in the ghetto to retrieve the things they had left in the city under the protection of other people, while suffering the taunts and humiliation of people – both Lithuanians and Poles – not willing to give up those belongings. According to Ona, she accumulated a lot of grievances, but she endured it all, because the Jews had to endure even more.
“Nobody can say how many lives were saved by Ona Šimaitė. Her most important goal was rescuing children: she managed to take dozens of children out of the ghetto and hide in the city,” said Vilnius Ghetto fighter Abba Kovner.
Germans got suspicious about the frequent visits of Ona Šimaitė to the ghetto. She was warned about the looming danger as early as April 1942 by the commandant of the ghetto Jacob Gens. Ona Šimaitė was arrested three times, but the university managed to free her. In spring 1944, somebody informed against Šimaitė that she was hiding a 10 years old Jewish girl in her apartment. April 28, she was arrested in her workplace – the university library. The same day, her sister’s daughter Aldona Stasionytė was also arrested. The German occupational government condemned Šimaitė to death. The officers were bribed with the funds raised by the Vilnius University professors and employees, and the capital punishment was replaced with the imprisonment in a concentration camp. Not many people know about the brutal interrogations of the Gestapo. Later Ona wrote to J. Urbšys, the last Minister of Foreign Affairs of the interwar Independent Lithuania: During the interrogation in the vaults of the Gestapo, I was scared (I am just a human being after all) not to give away any names. I would train myself all the time to confuse myself and forget all the names and all addresses. On the way to the camp, the train stayed in Kaunas for several days. The Poles said they could go to my relatives and friends, so they could come to see me and bid me farewell, but I could not remember any addresses or names.
At first, Šimaitė was taken to Dachau, and later transferred to a concentration camp in Alsace-Lorraine, in the territory of France. After four months of unloading train cars she got severely ill and on 10 September 1944 was liberated by the Allied forces. Ona’s recovery was very slow. At first she lived in Rhone. Later she left for Paris. She worked in a laundry for some time, later made dolls in a in the tailoring shop, and finally got a job of a librarian. The French government awarded her a small pension. She did not want to return to Lithuania, as she realised very well the possible consequences of the repressive Stalinist regime.
In December 1953, Ona Šimaitė arrived at Israel. In the new republic, she was welcomed with exceptional joy and respect, with flowers and applause. The government of Israel awarded her a pension, but Šimaitė was not happy: the conditions of cultural life here were worse than in Paris, the city of her dreams. The climate there was no good for Ona either.
In 1956 Ona returned to Paris where she stayed until the end of her life. At first she lived on Courcelles Street 38, in a small room of the attic of a seven-storey house, happy that the entire life of Paris is there: she could go to the theatre, visit exhibitions, museums and watch films. She attended tailoring courses and rejoiced the clothes she made for herself and her relatives, but most of all she enjoyed making dolls for the loved ones, especially children.
In 1965 she was forced to move to a nursing home for Russian elderly people in the Cormeilles suburb of Paris where she died from a heart attack in the afternoon of 17 January 1970.
Ona Šimaitė continued to serve the humanity even after her death by donating her body to medical students and for the purposes of science by her will...
The Jewish nation never forgot the heroic deed accomplished during the years of the Holocaust. She was one of the first Lithuanians to have been awarded the title of the Righteous among the Nations on 15 March 1966. The award was presented to Ona Šimaitė on 30 November 1967 by Walter Eytan, the ambassador of Israel in the Israeli embassy in Paris.
In Jerusalem, a tree was planted in the honour of Ona Šimaitė in Yad Vashem’s Avenue of the Righteous.
The memory of Ona Šimaitė has been preserved in Lithuania too. 22 April 2002, Ona Šimaitė was posthumously awarded the Life Saving Cross by the decree No. 1748 of the President of the Republic of Lithuania.
9 April 2004, a memorial plaque was opened in Simonas Daukantas courtyard of Vilnius University saying: ONA ŠIMAITĖ
(1894–1970)
RESCUER OF THE VILNIUS GHETTO JEWS
RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS
WORKED IN THE VILNIUS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN 1940–1944