Paukštys Bronislovas

Paukštys, Bronislovas Paukštys, Juozas On the eve of the German invasion of Lithuania, Bronislovas (Bronius) Paukštys (b. 1897) was appointed head of the Holy Trinity church in Kaunas, after having been a monk for several years at the religious order of Salesians in Turin, Italy. When the Germans occupied Kaunas and established a ghetto in the city, Paukštys came to the aid of the Jews interned in it. His office in the church building, as well as his own bedroom, became a place of shelter for Jews seeking a hiding place. At first, these were individual Jews from among his acquaintances, but when others learned about the priest who was rescuing Jews, the church became a temporary shelter for scores of Jews, among them Pnina Sheinzon and her daughter Shulamith, Masha Rabinovich (later Eisenbud), Rashel Rosenzweig (later Lewin), Dr. Pesya Kissin, Pnina Suknin-Gofer and many others. At the same time, Paukštys did his utmost to persuade the Lithuanians not to collaborate with the Germans and in his sermons to his congregation he urged them to help Jews as far as possible. His devoutly religious brother, Professor Juozas Paukštys, who periodically hid Jews in his house, joined him in his acts of rescue. In their tireless dedication to their efforts to save Jews, the two brothers were taking grave risks. The priest was reprimanded several times by the heads of the Lithuanian priesthood, who accused him both of placing the Church in danger and casting doubt on the priesthood’s loyalty to the occupation authorities. Once, the priest was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo, which had been keeping him under surveillance. Towards the end of the occupation, Bronius Paukštys was forced to hide in a nearby village, with Avraham Golub (later Tory), a member of the Jewish underground, who acted, together with the priest, to rescue Jews from the Kaunas ghetto. Shortly after the Red Army entered Lithuania, the Soviets arrested Bronius Paukštys, who was regarded as an enemyof the regime, and exiled him to Siberia for about ten years. When he was permitted to return to his homeland, he was in a very poor state of health, and spent the remainder of his life, until his death in 1966, in abject poverty, supported as much as possible by his Jewish friends. On February 23, 1977, Yad Vashem recognized Bronislovas Paukštys and Juozas Paukštys as Righteous Among the Nations.