Rescuers of Jews

Gailiūnaitė-Apulskienė Konstancija

Stanislovas LIŠKUS
Stanislava LIŠKIENĖ

Kazimieras GAILIŪNAS
Petronėlė GAILIŪNIENĖ


Yecheskel Fliesher was born in Kuršėnai. He and his first wife lived there before the war. When the war broke out, Fliesher and his wife tried to flee by bicycles to Russia, but both were seized. Yecheskel‘s wife was killed in Pakruojis, and Yecheskel Fliesher was shut in Šiauliai prison. When the Jewish ghetto was established in Šiauliai, Yecheskel Fliesher was replaced there. He was forced to work at Frenkel‘s factory. Aleksandras Bielskis, whom he knew before the war and who lived then in Kuršėnai, also worked at the same factory. When working at the factory, Yecheskel Fliesher married Lea Kopel, born in Telšiai. While in ghetto, the couple and a family of Fliesher‘s sister recieved food from Bielskis. Since Yecheskel’s sister ate only kosher food, the Bielskis family would sometimes bring her live chickens. This even raised the risk of being caught.
On November 5, 1943, during the Children’s Action Yecheskel’s niece was killed. Following the Action Yecheskel and his wife escaped from the ghetto and went to Telšiai – Lea’s native town, where she could rely on getting help. The couple went to Stanislovas and Stanislava Liškus.
Help from the Liškus family began earlier. When Lea was in the ghetto of Telšiai together with her own family, the Liškus hid her and then helped her escape to Šiauliai, where she met Yecheskel and married him in 1942. The Liškus family helped Lea and her husband again hiding them in their house for a short while. But since their house was not well secured (it was located in a lively place), the family found the couple several different hiding places. The place where they remained for the longest period (5 months) was the house of the Gailiūnas family. Although the Gailiūnas family were quite poor themselves (with 4 children of their own), they took care of the couple without asking anything in return.
When rumours started spreading that the Gailiūnas family were hiding Jews, the couple fled and went straight to the Liškus family, who found them a new hiding place again.
After the war the couple left for Israel and remained in touch with their rescuers and their children.
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