Šusters Gerhards & Šustere Emilija (Dzene); Father: Jānis

Šusters, Gerhards Šustere, Emīlija Šusters, Jānis Pūķis, Karlis Pūķe, Elza Pūķis, Jānis Pūķe, Anna Dzene, Ieva Ieva Dzene and her three daughters, Emīlija, Elza and Anna, lived in the town of Aizpute, Kurzeme. Several years before the war, Emīlija had married Gerhards Šusters and moved to his house, where his father, Jānis Šusters, also lived. When the German-Soviet war broke out, Elza and Anna were already married to two brothers, Karlis and Jānis Pūķis. The Šusters family set up their home on the ruins of an ancient castle in Aizpute, and the Pūķis families and Ieva Dzene settled nearby. During the German occupation, Karlis Pūķis was mobilized to work in the peat bogs near the town, where Jews from the Liepāja ghetto were also employed as forced laborers. There he became friendly with a Jew, Josef Getz, and one day in October 1943, he helped Getz and three of his friends escape from the work detail and hid them in the attic of the home of his mother-in-law, Ieva Dzene. Dzene’s three daughters and their husbands helped her to care for the Jews she was hiding. When winter set in, the Jews were moved to another hiding place with the Šusters family. This hiding place was constructed especially for them and disguised as a chicken coop. The four Jews stayed there during the day and at night would come out to breathe fresh air and stretch their legs. One night a neighbor saw them and immediately called the police. The following day the Šusters’ home was searched, and although the hiding Jews were not found, everyone in the house at the time of the search was arrested, except Emīilija, who had a disabled child who could not move without her help. Emīlija rushed to notify the hiding Jews that her relatives had been arrested, and they left at once. A few days later, on January 25, 1944, Josef Getz, Izak Heifetz, Sholom Uzdin and Leib Uzdin committed suicide in a forest near Aizpute, when their hiding place was discovered. The fate of their rescuers was alsotragic. Gerhards Šusters was executed at Aizpute. His father, Jānis Šusters, Elza and Karlis Pūķis, Jānis Pūķis and Ieva Dzene were sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, but Elza was the only one to return after the war. Anna Pūke, who was in the late stages of pregnancy during the search, was held in the municipal jail until she gave birth, and then she and the infant were released. Ieva Dzene’s three daughters were the only members of their family who did not pay with their lives for the attempt to save the lives of Jews. On October 4, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Gerhards and Emīlija Šusters, Jānis Šusters, Elza and Karlis Pūķis, Anna and Jānis Pūķis, and Ieva Dzene, as Righteous Among the Nations.