Navys Stasys & Navienė Stasė

Navys, Stasys Navienė, Stasė On the eve of the German invasion of Lithuania, the teacher Stasys Navys lived in the village of Gražuliai, Alytus County, with his wife, Stasė, and their three sons. In late spring 1944, Lea Port knocked on their door and asked for shelter. After escaping from the Kaunas ghetto, she had been hiding in the forest, with a group of Jews who fled from various ghettos in the area. For several months she stayed with the Ivanauskas* family in the village of Skovagaliai, but when it became too dangerous, she started looking for another shelter. Despite the danger involved, the Navyses took Port into their home, where Samuel Ingel, her future husband, later joined her. The Navys couple also helped with supplying food to other Jews hiding in the nearby forests, among them Abel Weinstein (later Aba Gefen) and his brother Joseph. After the war, Port and Ingel immigrated to the USA and kept in touch with the Navyses. In 1947, they found out that local antisemites had murdered Stasys Navys as an act of revenge for helping Jews. On May 26, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Stasys Navys and Stasė Navienė as Righteous Among the Nations.