Gludausis Arnolds

Gludausis, Arnolds Arnolds Gludausis (b. 1924) lived in the city of Liepāja on the banks of the Baltic Sea. On June 29, 1941, the Germans occupied the city, and Gludausis immediately took steps to help his Jewish friends. From the first weeks of the occupation, Gludausis hid Ella Solomir, a former classmate, in the basement of his home, and at the same time helped Mrs. Brozgal and her six-year-old daughter Eidija (later Tupika) as much as he could. Throughout the years of the occupation, the two hid in stables and in cellars in abandoned buildings, and Gludausis brought them food and clothing. He was their only link with the outside world, and it was only through him that Brozgal and her daughter learned about what was happening in the city during the war. Solomir remained with Gludausis until early 1942, when she went to find out what had happened to her parents, and was arrested. When she was interrogated, Solomir claimed that she had been hiding in the fields. In June 1942, when she was interned in the ghetto, she discovered that her parents had perished in the first wave of pogroms. From the Liepāja ghetto, Solomir was transferred to a concentration camp near Rīga, and in 1944, was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, where she remained until the liberation. At the end of the war, Solomir returned to Liepāja and, several years later, married Gludausis. Brozgal and her daughter were liberated on May 9, 1945, and remained eternally grateful to Gludausis. On April 19, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Arnolds Gludausis as Righteous Among the Nations.