Kručinskas Vladas

Kručinskas, Vladas Vladas Kručinskas, a Lithuanian village teacher, lived in a village about 30 km from Kaunas, with his elderly mother, his wife and their three children. In April 1944, his home became a refuge for nine Jews who had escaped from the Kaunas ghetto, among them the pediatrician Dr. Eisenstadt and his wife; Eisenstadt’s son Michael and his wife; Mr. and Mrs. Neumark and Mrs. Neumark’s mother; Yosef Kleiner; and Arieh Bauminger, a refugee from Poland. Kručinskas, a relative of Dr. Eisenstadt’s nurse, accompanied most of these Jews himself, at different times, and under cover of darkness, from the outskirts of Kaunas to his village home. His home consisted of two rooms, one of which he gave his “guests” for their own use. It was very dangerous to hide so many Jews, so Kručinskas prepared a trap door in the floor of their room, leading down to the cellar. After a while, they decided that it would be safer for them to remain in the cellar. When someone denounced him to the authorities, Kručinskas and his 14-year-old son were arrested twice and interrogated by the Gestapo. Neither one of them admitted anything to the Germans, but it was clear to their Jewish wards that they had to find a safer refuge. With Kručinskas’s help, they were gradually moved to the nearby forest, where they dug hiding places in which they hid until the end of the German occupation. Throughout this time, late at night, Kručinskas, or his mother, brought them food and other necessities. On October 7, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Vladas Kručinskas as Righteous Among the Nations.